Even with modern-day tools and technologies, adapting the story of Noah's ark for the screen proved a task of biblical proportions.
Never mind the physical labor required to construct a giant ship; how do you even know what a boat supposedly built at the dawn of man looks like? And how do you get two of every animal on the planet to march aboard without an epic baboon versus honey badger fight breaking out?
Darren Aronofsky has been interested in the biblical tale since he was 13, when the budding filmmaker penned a Noah-themed poem for a writing contest; it won an award and earned Aronofsky the chance to read it before the United Nations.
On Friday, the director of "Black Swan" unleashes his "Noah," a $160 million epic starring Russell Crowe, Emma Watson and Anthony Hopkins. The film is meant to be a more humanistic, earthy take.
"One of the things that Darren wanted to do was anchor it in reality, give it a grittiness," says the movie's visual effects supervisor, Ben Snow. "That's only achieved by going out there and filming on location."
Instead of the cradle of civilization, the production headed for the cradle of gridlock: Long Island. An ark was built at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in Oyster Bay.
Figuring out what the ship was supposed to look like wasn't easy, because the biblical story doesn't give much information beyond the boat's dimensions: 30 cubits high by 50 cubits wide by 300 cubits long, though a cubit is an inexact measurement that has varied over the centuries (it's about 18 inches).
As for the shape, most depictions tend to be fairly traditional. Aronofsky wanted something cruder.
"One of the things we discussed early on is that the ark isn't a cruise ship," Snow says. "It's a life raft."
The design ended up as a giant box, almost like a "large coffin," Snow says. The craft didn't need a sail or keel, because when the world is covered by water, an ark doesn't need to navigate. It simply needs to float.
The Bible says the ark was made of "gopher" wood — the meaning of which seems lost to history.
So the filmmakers decided the craft would look as though it had been hastily constructed out of trees from the nearby forest. The wood would be snapped, not sawed, and lashed together with straps.
It took a crew five months to build the Planting Fields set, which consisted of the first third, or 170 feet, of the ark. (The rest of the ship was completed using digital effects.)
The CGI menagerie was a mix of actual animals, extinct beasts and creatures that never existed.
"Darren wanted to avoid clichés. No elephants or giraffes or things that you get in children's play sets," Snow says. "He sent us a reference book that had [drawings of] animals from Victorian times, when they'd heard about platypuses and dodos but hadn't seen them, so they were imagining what they'd look like."
Studio Paramount is clearly hoping for a faithful-friendly hit on the level of 2004's "The Passion of the Christ," but much of the pre-release buzz has been negative. Aronofsky and the studio reportedly warred over the final version, with Paramount testing several cuts of "Noah" in an attempt to appease Christian groups unhappy with the liberties the film takes.
The version hitting theaters is reportedly Aronofsky's cut. The director recently called it the "least biblical film ever made." Guess he hasn't seen "The Human Centipede."
The Ark, broken down
The Furnace
The Biblical account states the ark only had a single window, so the filmmakers placed a huge furnace inside the boat for light.
Dimensions
Genesis gives the dimensions of the ark as 30 cubits (52 feet) high by 50 cubits (87 feet) wide by 300 cubits (520 feet) long.
The Pit
Filmmakers consulted ballast engineers to determine how much weight a real ark would need to carry. The final design contains a pit filled with volcanic rock for stability.
Three Decks
The ship was divided into three decks: mammals below, reptiles and insects in the middle, and birds — as well as Noah and his family — up top.
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