Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
Chum director Jonathan Zuck was determined to film the movie on the open water, as it gave “that sense of isolation”.
Steven Spielberg famously said that after shooting shark movie Jaws he would never film on the sea again, but doing so was important for Jonathan, he explained in an interview with The HoloFiles.
Speaking about the film, which tells the story of a newlywed couple and their friends who have to escape both a bloodthirsty shark and a murderous fisherman, Jonathan, who also co-wrote the film, said: “Filming in open water certainly has a lot of challenges. Every time I see the wide-brimmed hat, I get triggered about the 100-degree weather and the sun beating down in the open seas. But it really did give you a sense of that isolation.
“Once we got out past the breakwaters and things, we were really out in the ocean. And we did a lot of it sort of anchored so that we could film all right.”
Cast members including stars Alice Eve and Elle Haymond also had to work with a “skeleton crew” due to the filming location of Malta.
Jonathan continued: “What’s interesting about that is you gain a real familiarity and an intimacy with that crew. I mean, people are helping each other out, doing each other’s jobs when necessary…
“Everybody had to be on all the time to make it work or it wouldn’t have worked. And they were. In that way, it was a really special experience being out on the open water.”
Chum producer Eamon O’Rourke also explained in the interview why they decided to add Jim Klock’s fisherman as a villain int he film – alongside the shark.
He said: “Sharks are terrifying, but they don’t have a ton of personality on screen. There’s a limit to how much you can visually represent that. And so they are the ultimate danger. But you want to have tension. You want to have back and forth. You want there to be emotion within your antagonist, your villain, in the first place.
“I think it feels important to make sure that your actors have your good guy characters have something really good to bounce off of. And a shark, while being scary, can’t necessarily bring the extra level of subtlety and nuance to what you want out of a villain in the movie.”
