御水行者 (Yachtsman's Waterbending World): Lex Luthor's Luxury Liner

Lex Luthor's Luxury Liner - The Gertrude

If you haven't seen the phenomenal movie “Superman Returns”, go see it. It has gorgeous scenery, great CGI, and Lex owned a beautiful (ill gotten) yacht.
The following is a quote from Filmforce's write up of Gertrude (the yacht was named after it's original owner), including QT virtual tours and a floor plan as well as some back story on this extraordinarily opulent motor vessel.
Hope you'll like it.

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As many of you know, Superman Returns takes place a few years after Superman II, thankfully taking the point of view that movies III and IV never happened. That being the case, director Bryan Singer and production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas were intent to make their movie the ideal third chapter in the series. "Hopefully you can see it and go 'okay, this fits in,'" says Dyas. "And it will. We kept the designs similar, with only a few departures." Apart from the series' more well-known designs - such as The Daily Planet, the Fortress of Solitude, and the Kent family farm - Superman Returns' grand stylistic departure is Lex Luthor's extraordinarily opulent motor vessel: The Gertrude.

- Warner Bros.

During the summer of 2004, when Singer, Dyas and screenwriters Dan Harris and Mike Dougherty started trading ideas for a new Superman movie, one of their initial ideas was give Lex his own boat. And it couldn't simply be any boat, it had to be one of the most luxurious yachts in the world. (Because, you know, Lex prefers to travel in style.) "Lex didn't build the yacht," explains Dyas. So how did he come into possession of it? "We talked about this elderly lady [Gertrude], the wife of a huge shipping magnate who made his fortune in ship building," he says. "As a result, he built her this absolutely extravagant yacht. It's absolutely enormous. It's about 300 feet. It has a jacuzzi, its own helicopter, all sorts of fun things."

Singer and Dyas initially proposed building the entire boat, but the producers nixed that idea early, as it was too costly. They were, however, able to build most of the boat on Stage 3 at Fox Studios, Australia. While visiting the set, Dyas told IGN FilmForce, "We ended up having to build portions of the yacht to tell the story. Any wide shots you see of the yacht obviously will all be CG. We've also built the bridge, gymnasium, a helicopter pad, a galley, huge corridors and other compartments. Bryan just gave me a wish list and it's all in there."

- Warner Bros.

What we have for you today, in addition to the cool production artwork that you're seeing, is an exclusive tour of the Gertrude via the magic of QuickTime VR. The tour is hosted by Mr. Dyas himself. That's right, as he did for us on the set, he'll talk you through three video tours of the Gertrude's largest set - which he calls "The Main Gallery" - and one of the aft corridors. So let's begin, shall we?

QuickTime VR Tour 1: Main Gallery Staircase
(For the bandwidth-challenged, here's a small version.)

Entering the Main Gallery from the left of its spiral staircase, Dyas told FilmForce during our visit, "The spiral staircase takes you up to a corridor, which then takes you up to another corridor, then another corridor, then finally you're up at the bridge. It's pretty huge. Pretty much everything in here was designed from scratch. Chairs, tables, even the fabric, in this case, was actually designed and made up. The lights were my design... everything except the piano. The piano I didn't design. I went on a very heavy research period where I looked at some of the world's most expensive and luxurious yachts. All the wood finishes, and the design feel of this space are quite reminiscent of that."

Behind the staircase, you'll notice the wall panels. "The theme on this film is modern mixed with 30's deco," said Dyas. "I just wanted to have a beautiful glass wall with the sculpted mermaids on it. I thought it would be very beautiful, very stylish to see this ornate spiral staircase, and see the characters coming down them completely in silhouette in a really nice wide shot. Again, it's supposed to be a really luxurious yacht. The set needed something more than just books and a few sparse pieces. We needed to give it just something that was a bit of an eye catcher."

QuickTime VR Tour 2: Center of the Main Gallery
(Small Version)

You'll notice the glass floor. "It's not an original idea," said Dyas. "But it's certainly extravagant and the size is pretty unique. That it has a glass bottom, it's not just a design statement, it actually was a request from Bryan for a story point in the film. The glass itself is about 2.5 to 2.75 inches. So it's fine. We only had one piece of glass break. During construction, someone dropped a hammer. It just shattered, though. It's safety glass, so it just shatters. There are green screens underneath, which we can wheel in and out. We also have these fish tanks, which we can wheel in and out, and we also have these convex mirrors. So, the lights that are up on the walls outside the stage, they bounce light down, along underneath, and back up into the set. You basically use a series of mirrors to get the light back up into here. It's pretty effective."

QuickTime VR Tour 3: Main Gallery, Lex's Desk
(Small Version)

Go ahead, check out the items on his desk. Zoom in on the fax machine. Get in close on the globe and the mirror. Looks like your average everyday workspace on a multi-million dollar yacht, right? "But here's an interesting thing," said Dyas. "The props move. All these lights here on these rods, including the pool table lights - which if anyone hasn't thought of it already, what the hell's a pool table doing on a yacht? - they're actually on one gimbal. Even though the set isn't on a gimbal, all of the lights rock back and forth very gently. You actually start to feel very sea sick in here when all of this stuff starts going. There are certain props in here that are all timed to just sway very gently."

QuickTime VR Tour 4: The Gerturde's Aft Corridor
(Small Version)

This corridor set extends from the Main Gallery set, from the right of the staircase. The walls look like they're made of real wood, but wouldn't you know it? They're not. "Most of the ship is made out of MDF, hardened sort of chipboard," said Dyas. The lining and the banister rails look like carved wood, "but they're actually steel and welded onto the rest of the stainless steel. It would cost a fortune to have someone whittle that out. So that saves me five or six thousand dollars, right there, just by making a decision like that. You can only tell the difference when you touch it. It's really cold because it's metal that's painted. But it's ultimately the way to do it."

Finally, here's more Gertrude production art. Click the pics to view larger versions...