Stormy doings on ‘Shutter Island’

Inclement weather is nothing new in the movies, but the raging hurricane needed for Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” proved to be a challenge for special effects coordinator R. Bruce Steinheimer. “Shutter” cinematographer Robert Richardson “is known for his wide crane shots,” Steinheimer said. But the wide crane shots in and around the film’s location in Medfield, Mass., meant that Steinheimer couldn’t rely on the usual rain bars -- there weren’t any big enough. He had to bring in a 140-foot-wide light truss, like the kind used in rock concerts, and rig it with water hoses to douse the actors with more than half a million gallons of water. Nine-foot-high wind machines had to be trucked in from California. “These were the biggest in the States,” Steinheimer said. One set got so drenched that crew members sank up to their calves in mud and the place began to smell. As Steinheimer puts it: “I imagine this was what World War I trench warfare was like.”

-- Patrick Kevin Day