MAKING SCI-FI FILM CAN BE HORRIFIC by Craig Gilbert

MAKING SCI-FI FILM CAN BE HORRIFIC
Miami Herald, The (FL) - May 26, 1984
Author: CRAIG GILBERT Herald Staff Writer

It was Day Three in the filming of Red Ocean , an Italian- made, low-budget thriller about a mutant sea creature that terrorizes a fictional Caribbean Island.

It was also Day Crazy.

The motorized shark fin wouldn't start. A boat hired for the filming didn't show up. And the shooting on a Virginia Key beach dropped slowly behind schedule.

"The Italians have a strange way of doing things," explained Bob Warner, executive producer for the segments shot in America.

"I love them personally, but when it comes to elements of organization, I think it's the least of their priorities."

Sound man Raffaele DeLuca disagreed. "It's not a real confusion," he said. "Maybe the Italians look disorganized, but everything finishes at the right moment."

Red Ocean 's 26-member crew, employed by National Cinematografica of Rome, was in Key Biscayne and environs for two weeks of shooting. Then it would be on to Key West for two more, and back to Rome for the tricky underwater stuff.

By the end of the year, Warner hopes, the sci-fi flick will be ready for distribution in Western Europe, the Far East and South America.

But first there was work to be done Thursday on Virginia Key. And the motorboat hadn't shown up.

In a sweat, location manager Eric Moss raced next door to Jimbo's Shrimp and appealed to anyone within earshot.

"I'm in desperate shape. I'm with the movie company, and I need a boat and a captain right now," Moss blurted. "I'll pay through the nose for it."

A minute later he had his boat.

"I've worked with the French. I've worked with the Japanese. I've worked with English," said Moss, who lives in Coconut Grove.

"I can honestly tell you, the Italians are like the French. They really seem to enjoy working in an atmosphere of chaos."

Back at the beach, it was time to shoot. Michael Hicks , 11, of North Miami, waited with mother and dog for his scene to roll around. A freckled kid with braces, Michael had a bit part four years ago in an Italian movie called Superfuzz.

In Red Ocean , he and his poodle would stumble upon a mangled victim of the sea creature, which has huge teeth and tentacles and is known to crew members as the "sharktopus."

But first a shark scene had to be shot, and there was motor trouble with the dorsal fin.

"It seems to be a little more disorganized than the other Italian movie we've done," said Michael's mother, Daryl Hicks .

The scene featured two fishermen who take to the water despite Coast Guard warnings. People have already started disappearing at sea.

One of the men goes diving, and sure enough a menacing fin appears, heading straight toward him. But there's a twist: The shark turns around in terror. It has just seen the monster.

It was Troy Enriquez's job to swim underwater and guide the motorized fin through its turns. The engine trouble had been licked, but Enriguez, a 22-year-old from Leisure City, quickly found that as soon as he gained control of the fin, he had to come up for air.

"It wasn't designed for that," said Enriquez, looking back at the fin and shaking his head.

The contraption had been trouble from the start. Even filling it with gas was an adventure.

"Go get a gallon of gas with 3 percent oil," Warner had instructed one crew member. The man was off -- and back again in 30 seconds.

"What's 3 percent of a gallon?" he asked.

When it finally came time to shoot, the entire crew, it seemed, was up to its armpits in the ocean chop, hands held high over the water.

In truth, there were six: one to steady the fisherman's boat, one to direct, one to shoot, one to hold the wire drooping perilously close to the waves, one with the power supply seated firmly on his head, and one guy with the Kleenex to wipe the lens.

It was early evening before the last scene had been shot at Virginia Key, too late by then to do a sequence planned at Bill Baggs State Recreation Area.

"All things considered, it wasn't too bad (a day)," summed up Warner from his production room at the Sheraton Royal Biscayne Hotel.

After shuffling the schedule, he figured they'd lost just a quarter of a day.

Actually, "in terms of efficiency, foreign crews have it all over American crews," said Warner. "The biggest problem . . . is they don't prepare as much as American companies.

"I'll probably lose 20 pounds on this shoot."