From Dreamwatch Issue 117 (June 2004).

A new Ice Age threatens to annihilate the human race in The Day After Tomorrow, the big budget sci-fi disaster flick from Roland Emmerich. Bryan Cairns talks to the famed director about his latest and most provocative slice of big-screen drama…

The master and commander of big screen mass destruction is pushing humanity to the brink of annihilation once again. Not content with launching an alien attack on the world in Independence Day and unleashing a gigantic mutated lizard on the USA in Godzilla, Roland Emmerich pits all of humankind against its most dangerous adversary – Mother Nature – in his new sci-fi disaster flick, The Day After Tomorrow.

“The film’s premise is that through global warming and the ice caps melting, there are changes in the ocean currents that throw us into a new Ice Age,” explains Emmerich, who is the co-writer, producer and director of The Day After Tomorrow.

“We have all kinds of stuff happening – there’s a whole winter storm, then New York is under water, and then it freezes over. A blizzard then rages for weeks. There are also tornadoes in Los Angeles, which is the big weather event, and there are hail storms in Tokyo (with hail the size of grapefruits) and snow in India.

“But at the heart of the movie, there’s a story of a father and son who are estranged and get separated during the mayhem. The father, Professor Hall, is a climatologist who says everyone has to move south to survive. But he goes north to rescue his son, Sam, who is stuck in New York.

“In the better disaster movies, there are always real human stories,” he notes. “I think the best disaster movie is The Poseidon Adventure, because it has that range of characterisation.”

As Professor Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) searches for his son, Sam (Donnie Darko’s Jake Gyllenhaal) finds himself wading through waist-deep waters with other survivors on the streets of New York. Emmerich admits that he considered relocating the film’s action from the ‘Big Apple’ in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, but ultimately decided to thrust it into the firing line once again.

“New York really is the focal point of civilisation,” says Emmerich of his favourite disaster setting, which he previously featured in both Independence Day and Godzilla. “After 9-11 we considered making it in Chicago, but what buildings and landmarks could we have featured, and how does the world recognise it? The original script was New York, so we stayed there. I actually have an apartment there and visit it whenever I have the time.”

To Coldly Go...

The Day After Tomorrow was shot between November 2002 and March 2003 in Montreal, Canada. Montreal was chosen to host the production primarily due to the size of its soundstages, which housed interior recreations of both Manhattan’s Public Library and a Russian freighter.

“I think Montreal has the biggest stage in Canada,” notes Emmerich, “and I needed a lot of indoor space. We found this train factory with cars. It’s not that easy to find space like that. We looked at Toronto but they only had warehouses, and the stages in the States are very small.

“We did do some outdoor shots, but it was difficult because it was very cold,” he continues. “That was good for us in scenes we needed snow for, but when we required a blizzard using a wind machine, shooting outdoors was impossible.”

While Emmerich reports that he didn’t have any problems working in below zero temperatures, he readily acknowledges that it did prove to be a challenge for one of the film’s stars – Jake Gyllenhaal. “I didn’t hate it, but Jake did,” admits Emmerich. “I come from Germany so I’m used to the cold, but he pretty much grew up in California. And for actors, it is different anyway.”

Gyllenhaal, it has to be said, was not an obvious candidate to star alongside veteran screen actor Dennis Quaid in an effects-heavy movie like The Day After Tomorrow. But Emmerich was always keen to cast the Moonlight Mile and Good Girl actor as Sam Hall.

“I simply liked Jake’s acting style and I believe he makes everything look real,” he notes. “Jake is also incredibly likeable. He had to do some action scenes and I was actually shocked by what he did, because of the movies he’s done. Jake loved to run and do action. There’s one scene where he battles wolves and another where he saves the girl. He did a good job.”

Fire and Ice

Like many of Emmerich’s previous movies, The Day After Tomorrow promises to deliver some spectacular special effects sequences. But while such famed special effects houses as ILM, Orphanage, Digital Domain and Unchartered Territory have been charged with providing the film’s startling imagery, The Day After Tomorrow’s setting makes it a much more challenging project than most effects-filled films.

“When you do movies like Stargate or Independence Day, viewers realise its fantasy and special effects,” he explains. “With The Day After Tomorrow, if they see its special effects, the movie doesn’t succeed. The effect will never be perfect, but it has to be much closer to perfection than any of my other films. I was relentless in trying to get the quality up, up, up! It’s been quite stressful.

“We’re on the cutting edge of the technology,” he continues. “It’s all computer graphics – maybe two or three per cent is models. We laser scanned 30 or 40 New York blocks and digitally built the city. It was a huge undertaking. I’m always sceptical about computer graphics, but it can pull off photo-realistic images and change something or improve it.”

With most of the film’s effects now locked, Emmerich notes that The Day After Tomorrow will have no shortage of memorable effects sequences. “The super-freeze scene at the end is pretty awesome. There’s a helicopter that goes down in the middle, which is great. People like the twister scene a lot. And the beginning – when you see the large ice piece breaking off – is cool.”

Storm Trooper

Despite the film’s rich effects quota, Emmerich is quick to emphasise that The Day After Tomorrow is first and foremost a cautionary tale about what could happen if environmental damage continues or accelerates. He also admits that working on the movie opened his eyes to the problems plaguing us every day.

“At the very beginning, I thought this scenario was moving more on the fantastic side,” he recalls, “but while we were filming it, I read up on the subject and it felt more and more real to me. I pretty much think this will happen. I’ve read that a think tank in the Pentagon believes a climate shift is a bigger threat than terrorism for the next 20 years.

“It changed me too,” he adds. “I’m more aware of what you can do. I don’t have an electric car yet but everyone around me does. I’ve told them, ‘You guys try it first!’ But I’m seriously considering switching to an electrical car or a hybrid.”

The film’s commitment to realism rules out any miraculous happy ending. There is no Earth core to fix or any meteors to blow up – the damage is irreversible.

“Professor Hall is only trying to save his son – he’s not stopping the Ice Age,” reveals Emmerich. “That’s why I helped develop the script myself, because a studio would never allow that. I think you feel good at the end of the film because human nature triumphs. People come together and realise there are more survivors than they thought. There may not be millions, but there are a couple of thousand in New York.”

The Day After Tomorrow is being promoted with the tagline, ‘Where Will You Be?’. So, if an alien invasion or worldwide natural catastrophe really did take place, how would Roland Emmerich react?

“What would I do? I would scream!” he replies with a chuckle. “I would go to be with somebody I really love or take my close family to my house in Mexico and wait it out.”