Cast Away and the Thriller Made During Its Year Away From Filming
While Tom Hanks changed his appearance for the later island scenes of Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis and other crew members went to work on another movie. They made What Lies Beneath, the suspense thriller starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. The year-long break was built into the survival film's schedule so that Hanks could physically embody Chuck Noland's deprivation. Production took place in separate parts over sixteen months, with the hiatus between them. Hanks gained forty pounds for the production and then lost fifty by the end of filming. An infected leg wound added to his difficulties.
Hanks had developed the premise with screenwriter William Broyles Jr. Their choice of a FedEx employee gave the character a life organized around time and connections across the world. Stranding him after a plane crash removed both. For Cast Away, Broyles investigated survival on an island near the Sea of Cortez, accompanied by experts in primitive technology. He considered where to find water, how to make a stone knife, and what he could eat. Those immediate concerns provided material for Chuck's island struggle. Hanks conceived of the film in 1994 after hearing Louis L'Amour recount being shipwrecked on a deserted island.
Principal photography began in January 1999, and the movie was shot mostly in story order. Moscow provided an early setting for Chuck's working life. Cinematographer Don Burgess kept the camera moving there to reflect the pace of the character's existence. After a week in the Russian capital, including a closure of Red Square, the production returned to Los Angeles for soundstage and FedEx work. Filming then moved to Fiji. The Cast Away crew had searched widely in the South Pacific before choosing Monu-riki, an uninhabited volcanic island whose peak, beach, and coconut grove offered the landscape they needed.
Using the island required more than arriving with equipment. The filmmakers arranged a formal meeting and ceremony with its owners and researched Fijian customs. They also requested an environmental code of conduct within the land lease and worked with an environmentalist during their use of the island. Every tree removed required three replacements, and additional indigenous plants and food for the resident crested iguana were cultivated. The location offered a striking image of isolation, but the production depended on agreements and practical care. The environmental code was the first ever written into a land lease in Fiji.
The planned pause allowed Hanks to lose weight and return in a changed condition. Zemeckis also found that the interval let him view earlier footage with fresh eyes, a distance he rarely had during continuous filming. In April 2000, the company returned to Monu-riki and then moved to Namotu and Tavarua, which provided a base and docking area. Months of design and testing went into rigs for cameras placed in the surf during Chuck's escape. Water safety instructors stayed out of view, and surf double Jon Roseman handled especially dangerous waves. The Cast Away production finished its Fiji filming a day and a half ahead of schedule.
Chuck's survival also required an emotional connection. The memory of his girlfriend Kelly, played by Helen Hunt, remained with him through a photograph in a pocket watch. A volleyball washed ashore in a FedEx package gave him another presence to address. He named it Wilson after the company logo on the ball. Zemeckis saw the object first as a way to convey Chuck's thoughts and then as something more, a companion created within his isolation. Food, water, shelter, and fire could sustain his body, while the volleyball gave the solitary character a relationship to maintain when no other person was there.
Randy Thom faced a sound design brief with unusually few materials. Much of the island section had little dialogue and no music, and Zemeckis wanted wind and waves without ambient birds, insects, or animals. Thom gathered many kinds of water sounds and tried combinations that could express emotion as well as place. He also collected winds in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona. The changing wind became important to Chuck's escape attempt, signaling the moment when a sail could carry him away from the island. In a cave, air moving across the opening offered another quality, resembling the sound of a flute.
For the return to civilization in Cast Away, filming moved to the FedEx Superhub in Memphis, Tennessee. Hanks and Zemeckis worked with twelve hundred FedEx employees in Hangar 21 for a welcome-home scene. FedEx founder Fred Smith appeared in a cameo. Smith and Broyles had both served in the Marine Corps in Vietnam, although they met years after their service. Broyles approached Smith about using the company as a backdrop, and FedEx personnel assisted from early development onward. Principal photography ended in Canadian, Texas, in May, after the Memphis work.
- AMC Backstory: Cast Away production history — www.amcglobalmedia.com
- Cast Away: Production Notes — www.cinema.com
- Harnessing the Elements on Cast Away: Mix — www.mixonline.com