One of the most integral parts of pre-production is the casting – same thing goes for the latest shark horror ‘Bait’. The producers and Kimble Rendall, the director, were aware they needed a really strong ensemble cast and in particular one that would appeal on an international level.

“I did extensive casting in Los Angeles and I met hot up-and-coming actors in America. When we came back to Australia I thought a bit more about what I’d seen in LA and realized a lot of the actors coming in for auditions were Australians. I realized there were all these hot young Aussie actors that were doing really well in the US. It was evident that there was a new generation coming through. We wanted to cast the film with Australian actors that had an international profile.”

A stellar cast of new and established Australian talent leapt at the chance to be involved in the film. The cast includes: Xavier Samuel (‘The Twilight Saga; Eclipse’), Phoebe Tonkin (‘Tomorrow When the War Began’), Sharni Vinson (‘Step Up 3D’), Alex Russell (‘Wasted on the Young’), Martin Sacks (“Underbelly”, ‘Channel Nine’), Damien Garvey (‘Daybreakers’), Cariba Heine HBO’s “The Pacific”, high profile Singaporean stars Adrian Pang and Qi Yuwu, Dan Wyllie (‘Animal Kingdom’), and Julian McMahon from FX’s “Nip/Tuck.”

One of the key relationships in the film is between Josh (Xavier Samuel) and Tina (Sharni Vinson). It was very important to the story line that the actors gelled and made a believable couple with a very emotional back story. Kimble explains his initial vision for the couple, “they are this really classic beach couple. He’s got to be a lifeguard, and she’s got to be a beach girl…when you see the film it works really well.”

One of the key moments for Sharni is when her character “runs into Josh, who’s now working at the supermarket. She’s literally being faced with her past and all that unresolved tension and feeling just comes flooding back when she sees Josh for the first time.”

All of the actors commented on how hard Kimble worked to make the set an enjoyable place to be despite them having to sit in water for the duration of the shoot. The wardrobe department and assistant directors were always on hand with a dressing gown or hot water bottle and Kimble played rock music in between takes to keep spirits high. Cast member Sharni Vinson greatly enjoyed working with Kimble and found him to be a wonderful director, “He has a lot of faith in his actors and it comes across. He gives us a lot of power to make our own choices. He’ll correct us if he’s not quite happy with it, but he’s not the director that sort of tells you exactly how he envisioned it. He really leaves it up to the actors. ‘You are the actors, so act. Do your job, and we’ll see what happens.’ I think it was a brilliant way to approach it, because it gives everyone a lot of freedom to put into it what they feel they can bring…he’s just such a kind man.”

Despite the fact the cast were submerged in water for virtually the duration of the shoot, there were no complaints. In fact, the cast felt that being in water and shooting the film in chronological order really helped their performance. States cast member Lincoln Lewis: “It wasn’t really that hard to get into your character because the shark looked the real deal as did the set. It was just unbelievable, there are bodies everywhere and fake blood all in the water…you could really feel that you were there.”

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The production of new shark movie ‘Bait’ required two extraordinary sets; a full working supermarket and multi-story parking lot that could be flooded for several weeks and facilitate animatronic sharks.

The production designer for ‘Bait’ was Nicholas (Nick) McCallum, who recently worked on Sanctum, a film which also required massive amounts of water. McCallum was well aware of the challenges of shooting in a flooded set.

Nick was required to create 4 different sets – a wet and a dry set for both the parking lot and supermarket. Nick explains, “I found this man who sells supermarkets in Townsville. He buys them and flat packs them and sells them to Pakistan. So we bought one of his supermarkets and installed it in the studio. There was a dry supermarket set that we had to roll scenes in prior to the tsunami. The design was to integrate both the dry and the post tsunami supermarket set into the one area. Essentially, I built the dry supermarket in a swimming pool so that once the wet supermarket was required, we were able to flood it.”

“The trick was to take away all the full size shelving and replace it with cut down shelving. We dropped all the headers on all the doorways around the place and then we lowered the 38 ton suspended roof. It had all the lighting rigs in it and that’s what gave us visual depth. We actually only filled up the pool to about four feet of water. The cut down shelving and lowered roof and doorways gave the illusion that the water had risen almost to the roof.”

Nick felt strongly that the production design for the wet part of filming would rely heavily on the ceiling. “For sixty percent of the film these victims are trapped in the supermarket on top of shelving. So the background was actually going to be the ceiling above them. I wanted to make a ceiling with as many interest points as possible. It had to have all the ducting, all the pipes and sprinkler system exposed and swinging and dangling pendants of lights.”

The design team was also mindful that the sets had to be practical for a shark to swim through. They had to ensure that the aisles of the supermarket were wide enough to allow the shark to turn around.

The sets were built to allow the 3D camera accessibility to the set. Director of Photography, Ross Emery, explains that the 3D rig was actually an assembly of “an El Mantecana quasar or quasar rig. That’s just one part of it – the 3D component. We also used Red cameras, Mysteria maxchips, Panavision lenses and Preston lens control systems. One of the interesting things with 3D is that you have to bring in 5 or 6 different suppliers to get one working 3D camera. 3D cameras are incredibly heavy. Our main camera rig weighed around 68 kilos. As a result we needed to work with the Production Designer to establish infrastructure within the sets to accommodate the cameras.”

Nick came up with an ingenious solution to allow for the large rigs to work within such an enclosed space, “I came up with the plan to have Japanese screens on each wall of the supermarket set. We could roll the screens to one side to allow the techno crane access to shoot the scene. The techno crane was fifty feet, so it was able to reach across two thirds of the width of the set. And then for the reverse shots, the techno crane could be rolled around the end of the set at the corners of the swimming pool we don’t see.”

One of the greatest challenges presenting the art department on a day to day basis was continuity. In the film, the tsunami leaves a mess of corpses, supermarket products and debris floating in the water, as well as blood and guts from the shark attacks. Naturally many objects put in water float, which is not ideal for continuity. Clear plastic mats which could seamlessly hold rubbish and debris together in one place helped to keep debris in place for several takes. The highly chlorinated water also posed some issues. The art department had to source laminates and paints that ensured products and set pieces would not become water damaged and faded over time. Cast costumes were also subject to fading and bleaching. Filming went for 9 weeks, but the actual film takes place over one day, so Art Department took great care in keeping the water in pristine condition, not only for the visual aesthetic but also for the health and safety of the 50 people that were working in the water each day. The water was tested, dyed and chlorinated daily.

The other key set is the parking lot, where three characters are being stalked by another Great White shark for almost the whole duration of the film. This is a much lonelier and isolated scenario and the relationship with these characters drives an alternate distinct storyline through the film as they struggle to survive with a different set of challenges.

For the design department it presented its own problems. Nick explains “beneath the supermarket is the parking lot and there are several victims caught beneath there as well. We searched a long time to find a parking lot with a sufficient height. Normally the roofs are quite low. So when you stand on the roof on a car in a parking lot you’re actually touching the roof or crouching down. So we found a parking lot location that had a really tall ceiling which made it believable that cars could be washed to a particular area, and we replicated this parking lot. We positioned cars near the parking lot stairwell that would lead the characters up to the supermarket as a method of escape. We entrapped them. We also created this ‘wall of death’ as we call it. And that was kind of like a complete art installation of crashed cars and mangled bodies and crushed trolleys. It was something that allowed for a fabulous backdrop and something for the characters to climb and clamber over, but then again allowed for no method of escape.”

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One of the major stars of the newest shark horror film ‘Bait’ was always going to be the shark. The production team needed to create a believable, terrifying creature that would hold the film together.

Executive producer Chris Brown and Producer Todd Fellman worked with Grant Lehman (Animatronics Supervisor) and Steve Boyle (Makeup FX and Shark Designer) previously on the film ‘Daybreakers’, and approached them six months before filming began to start creating the shark.

Initial discussions highlighted several challenges. The shark needed to maneuver in and around aisles, leap out of the water and bite people. It needed to look and feel frightening.

In the original script, the shark was a Tiger Shark, but producer Chris Brown was relieved when the design of the shark eventually evolved into a Great White Shark.

“There’s only one shark for me,” states Brown. “It’s gotta be a Great White. When he (Steve) actually did the initial models of a Tiger Shark, it looked really friendly. It had this joker like mouth, so it appeared to be grinning! However, the shark had to be a certain length to get around the aisles. So they created a sort of hybrid shark. It’s got a Great White face but it’s about the same size as a Tiger Shark.”

Grant’s role was to develop the mechanics of the shark, while Steve was responsible for the aesthetic design. The team designed several models of the shark that could be used for different shots. States Grant: “It became quite apparent to us that we needed a few sharks to create the different effects. The first one was the swimming shark. The second was a more “hero” shark which had an elaborate mouth mechanism which created the biting shots for the attack scenes. The third shark was a ram shark, which was capable of charging through the water quickly into cars and shelves.”

One of the biggest challenges for the team was creating something that looked real. “All animatronics technicians want to try and produce the most realistic creature, animal or person possible within the time frames and skill levels of the teams available to them. We needed to take into consideration the full range of movement that a shark’s jaw has – it’s not like a single pivot, its got multiple pivots, as well as flex. We also had to work on the eyes and skin thickness to give it that really believable organic look.” said Grant.

Making the shark move was the second biggest challenge, as it was crucial that the shark swim through water. “First we sat down and talked a lot about what was going to be the best system to bring the sharks to life, we established that pneumatics was the best system, because with hydraulics you can get a leak and electrics and water work are obviously not ideal.

So we came up with this pneumatic system and we were thinking ‘how are we going to operate this?’, because it takes quite a large volume of air to operate. We had an idea to control the system using regulators. When you operate it, the regulators drive air into one side of the shark and out the other side and that’s what allowed the shark to do the movement.”

Having worked out the best way to make the shark propel through the water, the team also needed it to move very naturally the way a shark’s muscles contract when it glides and turns through the water. The team discovered a product called Festo fluid muscle which gave the shark a very fluid organic movement.

The result of a six month development time for the animatronics team was well worth it. “By the end we had a fully articulated swimming shark that could move itself through the water, to the point where our underwater cinematographer got down to look through the lens and jumped back in fright on the first day of shooting.

The shark could lunge out of the water and snap its jaws. Its eyes rolled back and the gills moved. It was definitely delivering a performance equal to any of the cast members. The shark with the ramming head was incredible in its versatility of movements and the speed at which it could move underwater,” states Grant.

On set, the various shark models were quick to set up and change. The sharks looked so realistic that some actors believed it made their roles easier to play.

Taking over where the mechanical sharks finished, Blackmagic Design were set to digitally construct articulate digital versions of the sharks needed to complete the action in the shots. Starting with the mechanical sharks as reference, the CG shark was designed for an array of tasks, from simple swimming shots, to full breaching shots required in some of the attack sequences. Modelled and rigged to the supervising animator’s specifications, the digital Great White was put through early tests to gauge the limitations of movement, and determine if its jaw and surrounding controllers would relocate muscle and mass in the shark’s jowls correctly.

Blackmagic Design also had to consider the interior of the mouth from a swim position, where the mouth is closed and the interior mouth and gullet collapse, leaving a narrow path to the gills, to its extreme open position with jaws hinging forward and lip roll exposing the interior of the gum. Furthermore, they had to design a shark mouth which could open entirely, providing optimum room for prey. The first few render tests put through Blackmagic’s pipeline had director Kimble Rendall excited about moving forward with over 40 CG shark shots.

The sharks were not just about digital technology. Mike Parsons, Blackmagic’s Head of VFX, explained: “the hardest task we had on this film is giving the sharks character.” For the visual effects team the challenge became how to show these attributes in action, both gross animation and secondary animated tics and expressions. In gross terms, they recognized that the secret was predation. The shark has to act at all times like a predator, actively and constantly consumed by the hunt.

The shark is a sneak attacker, it weighs up its prey by circling and calculating, and as Kimble and Mike Parsons discussed, sharks often swim past 30 or 40 people before selecting a victim, maybe selecting the weak or easiest meal much like a lion takes the weakest gazelle. So the primary characteristic of movement is ‘selective focus’ says Parsons. The second major characteristic of every predator is preservation of energy or conservative degrees of movement. It was necessary to remove any extraneous diversions from the purposeful motion of the killer shark. Finally, the CG environment creates mood.

The dark helps tremendously but when the shark leaves the water we have the ability to create a true sense of power and dynamic through water splashes and exposure of musculature. Psychologically, being attacked on land or boat is the worst scenario because it removes the barrier between the human world, and the shark’s domain.

Time and again shark attack survivors have likened their traumatic experience to that of the simultaneous, unexpected shock, horror, and adrenaline rush, generally associated with serious car accidents. Sound Designer Robert Mackenzie created a hands-down creepy as hell soundtrack that leads the audience to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a shark swimming, slithering and smacking it lips only inches from where they sit.

The curious thing is that in reality sharks don’t possess a larynx, so there are actually no stalking sounds ever emitted. Sharks Chi when attacking. However, the soundtrack, created by the Bait sound design team at Soundfirm Australia, and mixed at Yellow Box Studios the custom-built sound recording studio in Singapore, is so convincing that it seems completely natural and altogether terrifying when we see the sharks cruising the waters in order to get their “human on.”

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The Producers of the shark-infested ‘Bait’ approached Kimble Rendall to direct the film knowing that Kimble had worked on some of the largest films that have been made in Australia as Second Unit Director, including The ‘Matrix’ Trilogy, ‘The Knowing’, ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Underworld: Rise of the Lycons’. Chris Brown was confident that Kimble could handle a film like ‘Bait’ 3D because “he is not at all threatened or overcome by big scenarios whether it’s blowing up cars with a 100 person cast, or chase sequences down a freeway that are so big you have to shut the roads down.”

Kimble was finishing up on ‘The Killer Elite’ in Melbourne when approached and he was immediately attracted to the project. “I’m interested in genre films. I’m interested in making films that already have an audience. For the last 10 years I’ve been working the Hollywood systems specializing in action with visual effects with every intention of bringing the expertise back to make the films here in Australia. I’ve had to wait a while for the opportunity because Australia doesn’t tend to make these types of films. I think it’s time the Australian industry embraced making commercial films. A good story combined with action and visual effects is what interests me.” remarked Kimble.

Kimble was not interested in making ‘just another scary movie’ and was attracted to ‘Bait’ as it was a strong ensemble piece. The story involves 13 core characters which needed to carry the film with an international feel. The casting had to be perfect. Kimble also recognized that a top production designer was essential in making the film work because the majority of the story takes place in a flooded supermarket and car park. The fact that the whole film needed to be shot in 3D required bulky cameras, which required a very technically savvy DOP and camera crew.

“There’s a saying in film: avoid water, kids and animals. We had all those three plus we had animatronic sharks plus it was all to be shot in 3D,” explains Kimble. “There were three challenges primarily: Getting the story right, getting the cast right, getting the crew right. Once we had that in place, the rest of it was a matter of getting through each day shot by shot. It was very daunting in the pre-production meetings. Normally you’d get all the way through these meetings, but we would only get half way through due to the challenges involved in making 3D. Everyone was sitting there like ‘how are we going to do this?’ I said, the way we are going to do this is just focus on one shot at a time and identify the challenges involved. This approach was less daunting as it meant that we worked on getting the shot done instead of worrying about the other challenges involved in other shots.”

Filming began in October 2010 at the Village Roadshow Studios on Queensland’s Gold Coast. The location was chosen because, as Todd Fellman enthuses, “There’s no better place in the world to make a film than the Gold Coast. The facilities and crew here are world class. There are a number of elements to the studios that were very attractive to the production, particularly the indoor tanks and the easy access to locations. We had very few location days, but they did include an ocean front shopping complex and a beach, which are literally just down the road. It was all very convenient in terms of an overall filming location, but the first class crews were the biggest draw. There is a lot of talent here in Queensland.”

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When a monstrous freak tsunami hits a sleepy beach community, a group of survivors from different walks of life find themselves trapped inside a submerged supermarket. As they try to escape to safety, they soon discover that there is a predator among them more deadly than the threat of drowning—vicious great white sharks lurking in the water, hungry for fresh meat.

As the bloodthirsty sharks begin to pick the survivors off one by one, the group realizes that they must work together to find a way out without being eaten alive.

‘Bait’, currently playing in cinemas, is an intense 3D thriller featuring a stellar ensemble cast, including Xavier Samuel (‘The Twilight Saga: Eclipse’), Sharni Vinson (‘Step Up 3D’), Alex Russell (‘Chronicle’), and Julian McMahon (‘Fantastic Four’).

‘Bait’ is the first ever Australian 3D action genre production, as well as the first ever co-production between Australia and Singapore. ‘Bait’ in 3D was developed by Russell Mulcahy and Gary Hamilton as a high concept genre film—essentially a shark attack movie. There was early recognition of the challenges of funding a film like this in Australia; a 3D shark movie would need a big budget and a highly specialized crew.

Gary approached producers Todd Fellman and Chris Brown with the film in 2009, and had them interested from the outset with the one line sell of ‘sharks in the mall’.

States Brown: “When somebody says that, what else can you say really? Except—‘I’ve got to make this movie’. It is a brilliant high concept idea. I’ve always wanted to make a shark attack movie. We all grew up with Jaws. Jaws is such an iconic film. To make a shark movie in the same vein as Jaws was a dream come true.”

Fellman was also instantly attracted to what he believed was an internationally viable concept. “It was not your standard horror script with thinly drawn characters and a one note story line, it was about survival and human nature, about a group of people who are randomly brought together in one of the most horrific experiences imaginable. We watch their relationships develop and deteriorate. It’s quite a rollercoaster ride.”

After developing the script with Russell Mulcahy, Arclight took the project to market, and the response was phenomenal. Arclight secured substantial pre-sales from around the world, making the project very appealing to both Australian and Singaporean investors, enabling the Producers to work with Screen Australia, Screen Queensland, the Producer Offset and Singapore’s Media Development Authority to secure the balance of the Film’s budget and launch ‘Bait’ as the first Australian/Singapore co-production.

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