In September 2007, Jim was contracted by Dreamworks Production to provide ships in bottles (sib), ships to be inserted into bottles, and set dressings for their adaptation of Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel The Lovely Bones. The film, to be released in Dec. 2009, was directed by Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings films) and has Saoirse Ronan, Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, and Susan Sarandon portraying the main characters.
The ships selected for major scenes were NC’s Carolina Sharpie Hattie Creef (which carried the Wright Bros. to Kitty Hawk), the Ocracoke-built 1812 schooner Mercury, the 4-masted schooner Anna Heidritter, and SC’s 4-masted schooner City of Georgetown. Vessels purchased as scene props included Blackbeard’s sloop Adventure, Otway Burns’s Snap Dragon, the barkentine Mozart, the yacht Puritan, and the blockade runner Bermuda. Also, Peter Jackson, who is a WWII naval enthusiast, requested some bottles with heavy cruisers & Fletcher Class destroyers as well as the steamship Titanic. To balance the bottle scene with the Titanic, an iceberg was added to the piece.
Set dressings provided by Jim included bottled ships in various stages, lighthouses, large ship models, old paint & brushes, old posters & ship plans, books, wood scraps, and even several large bags of saw dust.
According to the prop manager, the main “SIB – Star” is the Ocracoke-built double topsail schooner Mercury. Mark Wahlberg and Saoirse Ronan portray father and daughter who insert and raise the masts of this ship. Several ships were made for the actors to insert as well as bottles with the ship ready for the actors to just pull the strings to raise the masts.
Recently, Jim was contracted to make sib’s for a film by Fools Errand Entertainment. Filming for this short film that has a “Twilight Zone” plot twist begins in January, 2010 and will feature the California-based schooner Bill of Rights.
View Trailer for The Lovely Bones >
The bottle used for The Mercury was a half gallon Evan Williams.
