What did Titanic's Break Up REALLY Look Like? (How the Movies Got it Wrong.)

Modern day movie depictions of Titanic's sinking all seem to have something in common; brilliantly-lit, with blaring lights so the audience can see all! But as we discover today, the events of that night may not have been quite so clear! This video analyses how the Titanic broke up during its sinking and how survivors might have witnessed it.
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Oceanliner Designs explores the design, construction, engineering and operation of history’s great ocean liners - from Titanic to Queen Mary but not forgetting the likes of Empress of Ireland or Chusan. Join Mike Brady as he uncovers the myths, explains the timelines, logistics and deep dives into the lives of the people and ocean liner ships that we all know and love.
0:00 Introduction
1:38 Titanic in Hollywood
10:28 Animation introduction
13:00 Sinking animation with realistic lighting

[@MattyIcecubes]

I was working at a movie theater while Titanic was playing, and at the urging of the studio we would crank the AC down low in the theaters where it was showing when it came time for the sinking scene. The point right before the iceberg was spotted was our cue to crank the AC. It was the only movie that played there during my tenure of employment where the studio requested the temperature be manipulated.

[@FreneticZetetic]

This is awesome!

[@micha0001]

I experienced something similar, when I watched "Abyss" in a cinema. I was freezing, when they were working on the sea floor. Later they told us, it was a malfunction of the AC... yeah.

[@ThePolerbearproducts]

That’s amazing! I saw it recently with my GF for the 25th anniversary of the film. They didn’t do that. Probably because it’s wintertime but still. Wish they had done that.

[@sifridbassoon]

did any of the audience ever catch on? did you get any complaints?

[@luv.georgie5047]

bahha i went and saw titanic for the 25th anniversary- it was freezing the entire time, but seemed to get colder at the sinking- couldn’t feel my feet and heard people say “it felt like we were *on* the titanic” wonder if it was the same thing?

[@canadianfortrump4057]

One survivor from the Titanic sinking ended up living in Detroit. He said when he attended a Detroit Tigers game and a Tigers player hit a home run, the sound of the crowd roaring would always remind him of the over 1500 people screaming in the freezing water after the ship sank. I imagine many if not all of the survivors suffered from P.T.S.D. for the rest of their lives.

[@DerpyPossum]

That was Franklin Goldsmith, if my memory serves me right. He was aged 9 when he survived the sinking.

[@canadianfortrump4057]

@@DerpyPossum You could be right. I don't remember his name. An experience like the Titanic tragedy would be a lot for a 9 year old mind to process.

[@ImGoingSupersonic]

It wasn't 1500, a lot never got off the ship, but still 100s for sure.

[@TROBassGuitar]

​@@ImGoingSupersonica lot made it into the water and died of hypothermia

[@mikezbr]

That dude had legitimate PTSD!

[@ashleypoindexter6273]

The discomfort this made me feel in my own skin. I had never really thought about the fact it would never have been so lit up. I knew it was a moonless night, but never actually Imagined the horror.

[@aaron_aj_knight_95]

I really thought the ship was that bright until the power went out.

[@typo1345]

well what makes it creepier, is the lights wouldn't be yellowish/white anymore before they went out. They were described as _red._ because the incandescent lights were running out of steam to keep them going (the steam was being rapidly vented out of the funnels to keep the boilers from exploding), and the saltwater was shorting the voltage, so the lights dimmed from white to yellow to orange to a rusty red color, illuminating the ship and water dimly in an ominous red hue for a while (its also debated if this was from the auxillary lights that might've kicked on, but its unclear whether or not they actually did turn on, accounts differ on that matter), then eventually they cut to black before the ship snapped

[@ALROD]

Not to mention the sounds. Stuff breaking, metal sounds, and screams.

[@alaynaheinline1921]

I am so glad I wasn’t the only one. It sent chills up my spine

[@lawrencewood289]

@@aaron_aj_knight_95 Until the power went out it was quite bright. But then the darkness...very chilling indicating the end was near.

[@davedennis6042]

This video addresses the one thing that pains me the most about Cameron's movie. It really makes it look like there was bright moonlight which would still be horrifying to live through but when you consider the extreme darkness and dead calmness of the ocean, the roar of things breaking and sliding, the sound of twisting metal, the snapping of boards, the screams of hundreds of people all in complete darkness. I mean this would be an experience you would never be able to forget.

[@evilkid31able]

I agree on this but it would have made for a pretty poor viewing experience had they shot it with realistic lighting.

[@angelicalminx]

@@evilkid31able exactly lol we all know why it has a lot of light in the scene

[@hannahwatkins7992]

They knew this when they filmed it, but they had to add lighting so we can actually see the movie. Trust me, you aren't more aware of this than the directors. They have teams of researchers who know all of this info, and planned to do the movie this way for a reason.

[@IceCarno]

His movie was NEVER meant to be historically accurate

[@freespeachrulez]

@@IceCarno actually in his own words it was meant to be as historically accurate as possible using information he had at the time. He made a documentary where he got some things wrong that he later admitted. But as far as a love story goes yes that was part of the movie magic.

[@ScreaminEmu]

The thought of being enveloped by darkness in the middle of the open sea like that is freaking terrifying.

[@Flightgenic]

Not to mention the sea is below freezing.

[@BbiBbii]

Not only would you be in the middle of this darkness, but you’d be surrounded by cold water, and the only things you hear is constant loud roaring and people screaming for their lives. Absolutely horrifying

[@chrisbenj3819]

Don’t forget about a bunch of sharks and other animals

[@skylarsartnphotography3450]

​@@chrisbenj3819A shark....in freezing waters????

[@ImNotReallyHereMCFC]

@@chrisbenj3819 not in them temperatures. The Indianapolis incident happened in more tropical waters where it was warmer

[@drygnfyre]

And on your point about the the steel slowly failing: a lot of the survivors said the scariest thing of the sinking was hearing the sound of the ship "dying." They would hear metal-on-metal grinding, and just terrible noises overall. It was like the ship itself was groaning. Many survivors said they could never unhear the sounds.

[@yojoeski]

Not related to the breakup, but it reminds me of a story I heard about survivor Frank Goldsmith who later settled in Detroit and lived near what was then called Navin Field (later known as Tiger Stadium) and he said every time a homerun was hit by Detroit, he could hear the roar of the crowd and he said it always reminded him of the people in the water after the ship went under because he said that is what it sounded like; the sound of 1500 people drowning.

[@squillz8310]

I can't imagine the intensity of those sounds given how large that ship was. It must have echoed through the night. Talk about something horrifically traumatic. My god.

[@tylernewton7217]

Wow yeah, I’ve actually never really considered how strangely awful the thought of those sounds were, even though I’ve pondered the sinking many times. I’m struggling to understand the psychology of why we as people would consider the noises of an inanimate object to be so strangely creepy and horrifying. I guess we just ascribe life to the things we perceive, as a sort of coping mechanism. Edit: spelling

[@silvershadow781]

I also hear survivors say the worst part about surviving is hearing the people stuck on board stop screaming. They said it was eerily quiet. But I never thought about the groaning the ship itself made. That paired with the screams of the people stuck onboard must’ve been traumatizing

[@tylernewton7217]

@@silvershadow781 yeah no doubt. The comment before mine by yoyoeski gave me chills too about later in life hearing roaring crowds at baseball stadiums bringing back the sound of those thousands of ppl in the water. Ugh!

[@AstonWelling]

It’s so scary how someone out there actually had to experience that, and knows exactly how everything happened while everyone nowadays can just speculate. Heard the noises, the initial bang, the screams, truly weird to think deeply about

[@ether2275]

I mean this video literally is here to prove to us that even the actual survivors couldn't see exactly how everything happened as it was very dark and they were only focussing on their survival. The only people who could've actually known are the one's who left on the first boats perhaps.

[@clarab6092]

​@ether2275 It was super dark. I doubt even the people far away in the lifeboats saw much.

[@andrewwilliams2353]

One of the survivors who was a young girl at the time and whose father perished , recalled saying to her mother how awful the sound of the screams of the people in the water was. Her mother replied "what about the dreadful silence that eventually followed ?"

[@emjay1249]

​@@ether2275definitely. As someone whos jusz speculating and watching this video i say this one of thr most frightening scenes ever imaginable. But realistically if u was in the water struggling with death you'd probably just be focused on survival and not really recognizing your surroundings. At least not as precise.

[@destructionman1]

I feel the same with 9/11 survivors. It's truely unimaginable for most people, but there are a few people that were in the buildings when the planes hit, saw the plane flying towards them, survived the tower collapsing while in it, etc. I applaud survivors of tragedy and hope they can find peace and comfort in their remaining years.

[@kalb157]

Another reason that Cameron used blue lighting is that he simply wanted to establish that it was nighttime. It’s a filmmaking technique called “day for night” where a scene is shot during the day but the lighting and color grading is chosen in a way that it looks like it could be nighttime. The hospital escape scene from _Terminator 2_ (also by James Cameron) is another example of this.

[@duffman18]

Mad Max Fury Road has a really terrible example of it where it's blatantly obvious that it's daytime. But other than that the film looks good.

[@whaleguy]

There's yet another thing to consider. The ship's lights are depicted as being as bright as modern lights. In fact, they would mostly be having a dull reddish hue throughout the sinking since the majority of the steam was diverted to the pumps. So the passengers weren't seeing very well from long before the breakup.

[@nathanbond8165]

You make it very good point also even under full power the lights work very bright so Titanic used Edison light bulbs and there is still currently in Edison light pole still functioning in a fire house in Pennsylvania it does not put off very many lumens in fact it is a very dull yellow Amber color the lighting on Titanic would have been very warm and almost had a Amber Hue to it as opposed to what you see in movies which use high intensity halogen lighting equipment it would have never have been that bright on the ship even when Under full power however electric lighting was still a huge Advantage considering that many ships were still using oil lamp lighting inside their Halls so it was a big leap in technology but it's not the kind of lighting that we have today

[@nathanbond8165]

In fact to that point I found a website of a man who built a scale model of Titanic and he wanted to accurately light it and so he did a great amount of research on the kinds of light bulbs that they used and the color hue that those bulbs gave off he used fluorescent lighting inside the model but then he had to use various filters to warm the light and tone down the Hughes to get the right color profile when you see the model lit up in darkness it's striking how different it is from the way the Titanic is presented in movies something else very interesting when you see that model and how damn the lighting is you realize how how difficult it would have been for other ships in the area to properly identify Titanic it's just not nearly as bright as the models they use on the movies and with the atmospheric Distortion that was going on that night it becomes a lot easier to understand how the California may not have even understood that they were looking at the Titanic that night and that's the reason why they never attempted to come to her rescue they didn't know it was the Titanic

[@davidmccann9811]

You can actually buy replica bulbs for this period and I can confirm the output is not comparable to a modern bulb. It's more like dimmed lighting that you may have on at night in your bedroom. Brighter than oil and gas lamps that Edwardian people would have been used to, but not much more. Also, I believe there is eyewitness testimony that the lights on the Titanic became dimmer and redder before they finally blinked out.

[@whaleguy]

@@davidmccann9811 They would have definitely dimmed over time as the water reached the boilers and the steam failed. I recall reading somewhere that the lights visually indicated the health of the ship, dying out just around the time she began her final plunge 😢

[@nathanbond8165]

@@davidmccann9811 I understand the problem that the movies had they couldn't accurately represent the lighting because film needs an incredible amount of light for images to show up on film and so they have to use really high powerful halogen lighting but it was nowhere near that right on Titanic like in the movie Titanic and you are correct as the ship was dying and her boilers were being shut down she would start losing steam pressure to run the electric dynamos as the electric dynamos slow down they would make less voltage the light would dim even more to almost that of like a flickering candle I also believe this may have helped to create confusion on board the Titanic and also would have trapped many people below decks as they slowly Lost Light making it even that much more difficult to escape the inside of the ship

[@timengineman2nd714]

One thought that occurred to me as you mentioned lighting is that when the Titanic's lights went out, everyone who was looking at her would experience a few to several minutes of "night blindness" where they would only see the brightest stars. This would further hide the fact that she broke up as their eyes adjusted to the suddenly darker ocean....

[@tdecker2937]

Super interesting, thank you!

[@user-lv7ph7hs7l]

The lights did progressively get weaker and more orange so maybe not full blown headlights to absolute darkness but it sure is conceivable. Plus the surprise factor of WTF just happened and by the time the eyes adjust it's again the stern sticking up. And whenever a steam ship did something drastic people always blamed boiler explosion, which likely happened, when water flooded the last boiler rooms, so maybe people figured, boiler exploded and knocked out the lights. I'm sure you'd hear it. If anything the ungodly creaking and moaning of the hull tearing apart

[@wrecksandtech]

Good point. That combined with persistence of vision. Would have given the illusion of the ship still being in the same position as before the lights went out.

[@user-lv7ph7hs7l]

@@wrecksandtech Plus a state of stress, probably just said goodbye to family members and now watched them drown lead to a whole lot of conflicting reports. Basically anything that happened on Titanic has different versions. For instance most likely Cpt Smith together with Andrews walked off the bridge right into the water as the final plunge began but there are many versions of how they died. Or the officer suicide + possible murder of one or more passengers storming boats, which is still heavily debated. According to some it was Murdoch, yet there is strong evidence he wasn't anywhere near the reported shots, some saying they were fired into the air, some say it happened like in the two main movies, some say it didn't happen at all and some say it happened at a different time and place then commonly believed... eyewitness testimony, especially of people under heavy stress and trauma is notoriously unreliable. Some say it should be thrown out in court. So many innocent have gone to prison, because someone was sure they saw something they never saw. Memory is tricky, and we automatically embellish everything when remembering. Especially after many years.

[@shaynewheeler9249]

Titanic 2 engine cylinder engineering diesel generator room

[@dany4645]

The one without the moonlight is actually terrifying, imagine seeing (or rather not seeing)that and at the same time hearing the boat getting destroyed and the screams of the people still on and in the water, bone chilling

[@keeponwishin]

Another thing when it comes to the sound would be the screams of hundreds of people going into freezing water, which had to have been horrendously painful for the short time you can survive in water that cold. Depending on where you were, I can imagine those screams almost overriding any sound coming from the ship breaking apart.

[@indierock110]

there is a survivor that mentioned that on a video interview, how horrifying it was to sit in the boat and listen to the screaming. and then slowly the screams faded from the water and it went silent

[@LKYme]

@@indierock110That causes physical pain in my chest to think about that.

[@orlowski2018]

I would think some would have at least heard a crack or bang or like the steel whining as it broke, even with the ocean and people yelling

[@chatteyj]

@@orlowski2018 many did but mistook it for boilers coming lose and crashing through the structure

[@clarab6092]

​@@orlowski2018 Yeah, people did. There's an interview on KZbin with one of the survivors from 3rd class. He said he was aboard the ship when it sank and heard it breaking apart. He said it was the most horrible sound he ever heard.

[@emluvslou]

Because of the movies I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to think about how absolutely beyond terrifying this experience would have been. Seeing the true darkness of the night together with the description of the sound of the ship breaking is the stuff of nightmares.

[@DEVILTAZ35]

Also the stuff of nightmares is the price of a movie ticket if you were looking at a blank screen with people yelling and screaming with no picture lol

[@tonym994]

there was another documentary well before the Cameron film, which actually became a DVD package. but a man who survived the event settled in Detroit later in life, near Tiger stadium. and that whenever a HR or some other exciting event happened, the crowd noise would immediately put him in mind of that night in 1912.

[@shotty2164]

And 1500 people screaming as they freeze to death…. Then total silence that only night time on the open ocean can bring.

[@tims9081]

@@tonym994 When I watched 'Titanic' for the first time, after it sank and they pulled back on all the people in the sea, I realized that is basically EVERYONE in my 1 square mile subdivision dying. Kinda brought it into reality.

[@tonym994]

@@tims9081 nobody wants to be in a horrific accident, but no amount of plane crash movies can scare the living shit out of me like TITANIC and other films about disasters at sea. the scene that really gets to me is where a woman is praying to her children (maybe one child, Irish steerage passengers I think), as the ship's taking water and the mother knows it's over. too sad.

[@Unownshipper]

I've always known that the illustrations and movie depictions (what few actually depict the break-up) were over-lit for visibility, but I don't think I fully grasped how dark it really would've been. I have to say, seeing this really put a new spin on what I'd always imagined. It was genuinely striking and I applaud your efforts.

[@BULL.173]

Good observation. A lot of us grew up on Ken Marschall's artwork, A Night to Remember, James Cameron's Titanic, etc. I think it all basically coalesced over time into a collective perception of what Titanic looked like while sinking. The only significant alteration to the formula was confirming she definitely broke up. It seems like only in the last decade or so that these questions are finally being asked. The high probability that hull failure occurred at a much lower angle, the stern's behavior after the break up, etc.

[@CyberdyneSystems10161]

It pitch black to out an estimate..... when thw Titanic lights went out

[@Hanneth]

@@BULL.173 James Cameron is kind of a stickler for realism. He also understands that movies are a visual medium and you need to light to allow the audience to see what you want them to see, not what is real. Titanic the movie definitely wasn't lit realistically on purpose. You want to audience to experience things more viscerally. The angle that the ship broke in the movie was done based off of structural simulations and eye witness accounts. Our knowledge of structural integrity and especially fluid dynamics has advanced quite a bit since the movie was made. In "Titanic 20 Years Later" James Cameron had them run some new simulations and run tests on a life like scale model. It showed that the movie was 50% wrong. Either the stern fell down, or the stern went straight up in the water and turned when it sank, not both. Cameron figures that stern went straight up and turned when it sank based on what eye witnesses described. So the bow coming down and making the wave probably never happened. All old and new simulations showed the ship breaking apart at 20 to 30 degrees, usually in more the 23 to 25 mark. Different runs broke at different angles. This closely matched what happened in the movie. They started breaking at 23 degrees and had cascade failure at 25 degrees. The Stern coming down was based on the older simulations showed the bow sinking slower than it probably did. In dives done after the movie, Cameron noticed that the damage to the bow in the simulations didn't match what was showing in real life. When they redid the simulations for the 20 Year Later, the new simulations had the bow sinking much faster and showing similar damage to what can be observed now. So the angle in the movie probably wasn't wrong, just with how fast the bow sank, it held the stern at the breaking angle for a bit before pulling it straight up, not coming down at all. The documentary is very interesting. It also talks about how half of the telegraph equipment was actually in the next room, where in the movie they showed it all in one room. In a dive after the movie they got an ROV into the telegraph room and saw how it actually looked. The telegraph machine was a trade secret, so exactly how it was setup was not recorded. The conclusion is there are too many variables that we will never know exactly how the ship sank, but based off of evidence, simulations, real and computer we can get an idea of how it most likely sank. As for the ship breaking slower mentioned in this video. I'm not so sure about that. As the stern was lifted it would have started stressing the whole ship. Yes the breaking starts slow, but if you've ever watched structures fail in video and real life, once a cascade starts, it speeds up really quickly. The difference between starting to bend and just snapping in half is quite the thing to watch in real life.

[@bluesrocker91]

I wonder how much more impactful it might have been to depict the moment the ships lights go out accurately... From the perspective of anyone in a lifeboat or in the water it must've been terrifying and disorienting to suddenly be plunged into pitch darkness.

[@BULL.173]

@@Hanneth Straight up man, this is a grand slam. I LOVED reading your comment. Absolutely fascinating. Thank you

[@COASTER_CHASER_1]

Even Camron believes that the ship broke at a lower angle now after more wreckage and debris has been found. his obsession with the wreck has actually helped get a better understanding of what may have happened. some of his documentaries are really good.

[@cheery-hex]

wouldn't have looked as good in the movie though

[@jcohasset23]

@@cheery-hex The '97 movie was also going by what had been discovered and theorized about Titanic at the time 12 years after the discovery whereas we've now had an additional 27 years of data. Beyond the lower angle breakup it's also now believed the ship broke up into 4 main pieces (the bow, stern, keel at the break, and the superstructure above the break which contributed to much of the debris field).

[@alsunpilsut]

I'm from Finland and one of the most horrific and memorable accidents involving a lot of Finns that has happened was the sinking of the cruise ship Estonia in 1994. I remember watching a documentary where one the (very few) survivors described the actual sinking of the ship being the most beautiful moment of his life visually. The lights were still on in some parts of the ship, the sea was raging and these shining little dots slowly sank into the darkness like time was standing still. He said it would have been one of the most gorgeous things ever if it hadn't been so tragic and traumatic. Most of the people on the Estonia died and he only just survived after reaching a lifeboat and managing to get on board inspite of the storm. The scenes in the 1997 Titanic film always remind me of that man's story.

[@VladSicoe]

Holy crap, the realistic animation of the sinking is truly terrifying. I can't imagine anything worse...hearing all those roars from the ship and not seeing anything because of the darkness...

[@taraswertelecki3786]

Shortly after the poop deck went under, loud booms were heard from under the water as air pockets imploded. It was compared by survivors to the sound of big guns being fired at a distance. Had someone been close enough to listen to the sinking with SONAR, they would have heard more break up noises from the wreck as it fell to the ocean floor.

[@graphiquejack]

Not to mention all the screams of the people, which would have fairly suddenly stopped as people drowned or died from hypothermia

[@stacymirba1433]

I live in Florida and have been in the Gulf of Mexico at night. If you turn off the lights on the boat, it is pitch black and with the sound of the waves incredibly scary, even if the waves aren't that bad. I've never seen it portrayed in movies, tv shows, or even just photos the way it really is because if it was you wouldn't be looking at anything. This is a very good representation of what it is like in water at night. I've been in the Gulf at night in a boat, I can't even begin what it was like for people in the middle of an freezing ocean.

[@jasperbarnes4544]

Just jump in and you can experience it for free lol

[@daszieher]

@@jasperbarnes4544 the gulf is nowhere near as cold as the autumn North Atlantic. 😉

[@levyan4718]

Nothing like what you experienced

[@stacymirba1433]

@@levyan4718 That was covered here when I said, "I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for people in the middle of an freezing ocean."

[@daszieher]

@@stacymirba1433 and yet you attempt to put your own experience on the same scale. For someone bobbing in the North Atlantic, sharing the same "bathwater" with an iceberg and a sinking oceanliner, even jumping off a sailboat at night in the Gulf of Mexico is probably closer to taking a fresh shower in the safe confines of their home 😂

[@harrietharlow9929]

The sheer size of the Titanic is mind-blowing, especially for the era. She's longer than the Penobscot Building, which was at one time Detroit's tallest skyscraper at 664 feet including the antenna spire. As for watching the breakup in the actual light conditions, I couldn't see what happened. Seeing that ship against stars sends a chill through me even in a nice warm home.

[@marcomaceri4161]

Longer also than Detroit’s Renaissance Center is tall, for that matter, by more than 150 feet.

[@harrietharlow9929]

@@marcomaceri4161 That's awesome!

[@michael32A]

You say 'for the era', but - though I don't have the numbers to hand - she was similar in size to Brunel's SS Great Eastern, built about 60years beforehand. Helped lay the first transatlantic communication cable. SS GE was also the first ship to have a two layered hull, and on one of its few voyages it had a big gouge out the side from an iceberg and yet _nobody_ knew until they got to New York and everyone was gawping at them! *Edit: I got the numbers: SS GE was 700feet to Titanic's 900feet.

[@harrietharlow9929]

@@michael32A She was considerably larger than the Great Eastern as you yourself point out. And I am aware of the Great Eastern's career as a cable laying ship.

[@UnessasryGestures]

My great-grandfather was an engineer on the Carpathia. I'm not sure whether he was on it at the time of the Titanic disaster, though. I would have loved to have met him, I would have asked him so many questions..lol. My uncle has his log book. Every sailor had a log book with a list of ships they served on and Carpathia is in it. I didn't know he was on Carpathia until recently. Crazy.

[@eastbow6053]

I Cried for Carpathia, what a stupid ending that amazing ship had it deserved better

[@Starboy-un4jb]

I also had an ancestor who was on the Carpathia, my great grandmother was a server onboard the ship

[@bboi1489]

​@eastbow6053 And the fact that its final pick was taken by one of the bigots who sunk it. Smh. She is an icon to all the little steamboats out there ✊🏽

[@bboi1489]

​@@Starboy-un4jb Immigrant Transport ships had servants?

[@dogwoodservicesinc.2972]

Wow. Thanks for sharing that. I’m sure you know that Carpathia was sunk by U55 in 1918. A great ship.

[@DucknCoverin]

I also like how the 2012 mini series depicted it. Shows how people struggling to survive could have easily missed it breaking up. I believe few people who were a safe distance could give this moment of the sinking their full attention and understand what was happening as they were also cold, scared, and generally preoccupied. The state of their night vision would have also played a role in what they could see.

[@aj6954]

Assume you mean the Julian Fellowes version. The one thing I remember vividly from that is one of the Titanic officers (believe it was Lightoller), telling Edith Russell not to worry as the Californian will be around soon to pick them up. How would he know that? Another couple of clues were left in an episode of Downton Abbey.

[@RumpleGold]

You’re not talking blood and steel are you ?

[@juniperburton7693]

@@aj6954 JP Morgan wanted to delay the VIPs on board so they couldn't oppose his Federal Reserve agenda in the U.S. So, he planned to stage the Titanic to be damaged. Unfortunately, it was much more than just a little damaged and sank. He got much more than he wanted...

[@JasonVoorhees6661]

The issue with that version is passengers including the baker said he rode the stern down like a elevator, it’s why I think the Cameron sinking is allot closer to what happened than we realise. Yes the steepness is a bit too high, and when she’s slowly sinking she’s got a tilt as the forecastle deck starts to sink, but I do think the 97 version is the closest reimagine to what happened that night, even honour and glory’s new updated sinking sequence with the updated data that they have all piled together as a 95% closeness to James Cameron’s titanic

[@lawrencewood289]

@@aj6954 A typical baloney Julian Fellowes move.

[@closetmonster5057]

Encyclopedia Titanica recently did a great article about the accounts of the break up that were not mentioned in the inquiries. Some people mentioned that when the break up happened, millions of sparks flew up in the air and lit everything around them. This probably helped some survivors to see the break up more clearly. Here are some quotes from that article: Charlotte Collyer (Semi-Monthly Magazine, May 1912) "Something in the very bowels of the Titanic exploded, and millions of sparks shot up to the sky, like rockets in a park on the night of a summer holiday. This red spurt was fan-shaped as it went up; but the sparks descended in every direction, in the shape of a fountain of fire." May Futrelle (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 April 1912) "Of a sudden the lights snapped out. There was a terrible creaking noise; the Titanic seemed to break in two. There was a tremendous explosion. For a fraction of a second she arose in the air and was plainly visible in the light caused from the blowing up of the boilers..." Esther Hart (Ilford Graphic, 10 May 1912) "...for as the vessel sank, millions and millions of sparks flew up and lit everything around us. " Marie Young (New York Evening Post, 19 April 1912) "There was a great explosion just before the end. The ship seemed to break in two, and the sparks shot up like fireworks."

[@jacksyoutubechannel4045]

Thanks for sharing this! That seems likely true, since their recollections are so congruous even though none of them would have had a "the way a giant oceanliner sinks" pre-conception.

[@sebfettel]

Probably a bomb blowing up not the boilers

[@brucegibbins3792]

@@sebfettel is there any verified evidence of the probability you suggest being true? An interesting idea for a scrip writer to explore at some future time. We'll done, that man.

[@davidmccann9811]

It's just a thought, but when the World Trade Centre went down there was a massive outpouring of sparks caused by the steel breaking and impacting. Could this have been the cause of the sparks as the Titanic broke in two?

[@surferbri5346]

It didn't hit an iceberg, that's the convenient, understood conclusion,

[@amymoquin8636]

Cameron once said that he obviously had to light the scene for the audience. He chose the muted blueish color, which represented the "mind's eye" (Memory combined with the eye's adjustment to darkness.) Cameron has a history of changing his answers over the years but I remember him specifically saying this back then.

[@Young_Dab]

James Cameron is a great director with a great vision. There's not too many people in the 1990's who could've recreated a event like that into a film as James Cameron has accomplished. In fact I think he's the only person at that time who has the vision and skill to do it. Hence why there hasn't been any remakes cause it's a classic film.

[@EricMalette]

Yeah. I mean, in a movie, you have to add light. Without light, you have no cinema. Shooting it realistically would not have served this type of film well. Cameron was very much aware of that. You can't tell a story without light in cinema.

[@amymoquin8636]

@@EricMalette Facts

[@amymoquin8636]

@@Young_Dab Agreed. Cameron is one of the all time greats. He even helped design/build the small submarines that took him to the Titanic and Challenger Deep. It took three years just to design his sub on computer (Before building could start) because he wanted to do it right. He has the reputation of being a narcissist and overall unpleasant person to everyone. But that doesn't matter when watching his movies because his talent and intelligence is the reason he has so many classics!

[@timberwolf8818]

This analysis makes total sense because it was indeed a moonless night and now seeing the pitch dark sinking, it is many many times more horrifying. RIP to all the victims and thank you for the video. It has brought a brand new perspective to what actually happened.😢

[@femalehomeserviceprosforgr5114]

I remember some of the survivors talking about the sound of screaming and splashing after the sinking, and then total silence. Thinking of that and watching this animation is so horrifying.

[@DrineThePoet]

It must've been so horrible 😔🥺

[@ApolloTheDerg]

The only word I can really conjure for the situation would be Traumatizing. The people in the life boats just, trying to comprehend what happened.

[@ChickVicious237]

I love your demonstration of this, God it would have been absolutely terrifying not being able to see that enormous sinking hulk in the near-black. Especially with all the sounds of the ship breaking and people screaming.

[@OceanlinerDesigns]

Yes, so true! The mind would be racing to fill in the blanks. Terrifying stuff.

[@chrischeezy7316]

Hi

[@littlemissy2883]

And don't forget the deafening sound of the steam escaping

[@audvidgeek]

just imagine how terrifying it was to the people still trapped *IN* the ship when the power went out. There were no emergency lighting systems on board ships back then, and to have the loud noises, and the tilting of the ship, then the flooding!

[@ChickVicious237]

@@audvidgeek I often think about the people trapped inside any shipwreck. There are many terrifying things in this world, I think trapped and sinking into the ocean in pitch black has to be one of the worst.

[@theodoremichotte8364]

I got shivers with the realistic lighting. I knew the ship would break, I'd seen the animation with the light and yet I missed the moment it broke. I could tell it did because I was expecting it, but if I didn't I'd have missed it. It somehow makes this even more horrifying.

[@rallytonight8491]

I’ve been on a Titanic “kick” lately and I’ve watched dozens of videos on everything involving the film and the real life history, and I always end up back on your channel because you have some of the best content out there! This video is one of my favorites. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else create and realistic animation (including the lack of lighting, specifically) of what the sinking actually looked like on that night. Thank you so much for this!

[@T800-theRealOne]

same but mostly because I rewatched the 97 film. I need to watch the other titanic films as well as the historical documentaries of the incident.

[@Meg-hz4pt]

Currently hyper fixated on the titanic. Glad someone else has this as a special interest ♥️

[@charlieharper886]

This is something I've thought about for years. What did people REALLY see that night as opposed to how the movies and TV documentaries make it look, perfectly lit and the smallest details perfectly discernible. I think you've done a pretty good job here of showing what I imagine when I try to picture how it must have really been. Good work my friend. :)

[@automachinehead]

you dum as a potato huh? This a movie made out of a tragic romance that presumably happened in the whole titanic event. A movie needs excellent lightning so we would all enjoy watching it in the comforts of our homes. Put that into perspective please.

[@Studio732JRL]

They REALLY saw a boat sink.

[@bethzolin6046]

I’ve a very strong suspicion that a light bulb in 1912 was a very different animal to what we imagine. I suspect they were much, much dimmer. I base that on two aspects. Survivors frequently noted they couldn’t see their friends and relatives up on deck that night, despite being close to them. Yes that might be because of the crowds, but if the lights were bright it would have been easier to spot them. Secondly we bought a house in the 1950s that was owned by two sisters in their 70s. They were using old electric bulbs in the staircase ( they still had gas lights in the wall because they didn’t believe electricity would catch on). We could barely see to go up the stairs. We took down the bulbs which were dating from way back, and they were only putting out between 10 and 20 watts, so very dim. They were rated at 20 watts. I doubt very much that Titanic was anything like as bright that night as she is shown in films, but much more dimly lit. However for those used to gas and oil lamps, it probably did seem bright to them - but wouldn’t to us.

[@Studio732JRL]

@@bethzolin6046 The switch to tungston bulbs had already been invented almost a decade before Titanic. The evolution of the light bulb was based more on efficiency and duration, not brightness. They were still incandescent, but I think the problem was more due to the darkness of that particular night, which obviously was a major contributing factor to the disaster itself.

[@harosokman]

That lighting change was spot on. I worked infantry for a few years and when you stare into a moonless night those whites and brighter colours almost disappear. Like you have to stare at them for a while to see them.

[@joeyclemenza7339]

With the lights out… that was probably one of the most terrifying animations I’ve ever seen. I even felt my skin crawl. Just this ridiculously large mass falling into the black void of the ocean… knowing that it roared in the nights air. That, coupled with the panicked screams of 1500 people (which sounded like the roar of a baseball crowd)… yeah. It just really made my stomach drop.

[@THAT1ZELDAFAN]

For what I understand James Cameron himself isn't happy with how the sinking is depicted in his own film. The computer generated clip at the beginning he even redid a few years ago because after more dives, he had a new theory as to how she sank (and he now believed that she capsized a bit before she started to sink, because physics). If this is true, I wonder if Cameron would be willing to remake Titanic, but with updated depictions of the sinking. Cameron has said, he doesn't dive so he can afford to make films, he makes films so he can afford to dive.

[@eastbow6053]

and without jack and what is her name, give us the real people xD

[@thesneakystrangler9002]

Unfortunately with the negative media shroud towards the wreck site due to the Titan sub may delay any actual research on the ship and focus on the poorly built sub, which is really unfortunate because the Titanic doesn't have long left before it's a rusted heap of unidentifiable metals. I really wish in the 1960's they would have took a bathyscaphe there instead of Challenger Deep. Then in the 70's-80's exploration efforts were seemingly ignored for elaborate and impossible theories on how to raise the ship instead of finding it. Even Ballard was lucky himself, as he was nearing the end of a Navy contract to explore nuclear warships that had sunk and only had a small amount of time to really look for the Titanic which was what he really cared about. If they had took the bathyscaphe there instead of the Challenger we could've gained so much more knowledge on what happened.

[@THAT1ZELDAFAN]

@@thesneakystrangler9002 There is one thing though, the more of her that gets eaten away, the more chances I feel that the damage on her hull might become visible. If that is the case, that would really reveal the extent of the damage. I'm also curious about her swimming pool, because if I recall, the doors were sealed during the sinking, meaning theoretically that area may be untouched

[@JoJoGranum]

I think he’s kinda busy with Avatar series still from what I’m hearing with Cameron

[@hjspalenka]

​@@thesneakystrangler9002unfortunately, it would not have been a matter of funding that they couldn't get a bathyscaphe to explore the Titanic in the '60s, but rather the fact that the wreck itself was not discovered until the '80s and with methods that were new at the time.

[@chegeny]

Thanks for this brilliant, accurate analysis. As an amateur astronomer, I can attest how pitch-black the world around you can be on a moonless night far from city lights. If your eyes aren't dark-adapted, it's quite unsettling as you can struggle to see your hand in front of your face. Must've been absolutely hellish to be in that freezing black surrounded by the sounds of the tortured steel of the ship and the horrific screams of people knowing that death is but a moment away.

[@tylergibson7593]

I used to be in the Navy and was stationed on an aircraft carrier (the USS George Washington) I worked on the flight deck and would go out at night to look at stars sometimes and you’re absolutely correct. Literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.

[@ApolloTheDerg]

This reminds me of how eerie it is to be near water at night. I was camping with boy scouts near a small pond and compared to the ground, it was like a void. I’ve also overlooked a local reservoir on a moonless night, about 100 feet above it, and shining headlights over showed nothing nearly. Not even mentioning the night that actually had moonlight, you could only see the moons reflection, the rest of the water was still a void. One of those weird, I’ve seen it before but now it clicks things.

[@ElPajaroMeaPrietas]

imagine yourself trying to survive on the ship, the lights go out, and suddenly, it's pitch black and you can't see your hand in front of your face because there was no moon that night. You're on the ship, and more than likely, you have a relative or more that are there with you. Now what do you do? Which way is up?

[@emjay1249]

Also these people were mostly sleeping just one or two hours ago. It's not like they were really active. From a comfy bed into a pitch black cold void.

[@Engine33Truck]

I’m a bit late to the party, but here’s a perspective that helps reinforce what you were saying and is probably very accurate for many of the survivors. While I’ve never been on a sinking ship, I was in a near-drowning situation (and in cold water to boot). All I could focus on was ensuring my safety and how damn cold the water was (I was fishing while camping, my line got snagged on a rock, and when I went out to free it, I slipped on the same rock and fell in). Everything else going on became dull background noise, or I totally blocked it out inadvertently. My friends were panicking and shouting at me to grab a rope they were throwing out but I did not notice. So had I been on Titanic, being a male in my mid 30s, chances are I would not have gotten a seat on a lifeboat unless they needed someone to row. So I most likely would’ve had a life vest and jumped off the ship. In that moment, I would’ve been only focused on getting away from the ship and getting out of the frigid water onto a piece of debris. The other people and the sounds of the ship sinking would’ve just been dull background noise, so I can reasonably say I never would’ve noticed Titanic break up. Most likely a lot of the survivors would’ve been in that same situation.

[@tomulator]

Don’t believe there were many survivors that actually hit the water…most were in lifeboats. Hard to say really…

[@adarateranroldan]

@@tomulator only two pulled out

[@NickShelson]

@@adarateranroldan 4, 1 died 3 survived

[@SherlocksLeftNipple]

Cameron did have Jack describe a similar scenario, with him going ice fishing and falling through into the freezing water. "You can't breathe... You can't think... At least not except anything but the pain." It makes sense the people in the water would be too preoccupied with surviving to notice anything. Similarly, the survivors in the boats were probably not wearing appropriate clothes, which wouldn't help clear the fog of exhausted, disoriented, horrified panic. It was in the middle of the night. These people were sleep-deprived and freezing. Their senses were likely addled.

[@officialflikz]

There had to be some people closer to the ship, to actually see it break

[@katiejean6493]

This is probably one of the best animated depictions of the sinking I've seen and I've seen a lot of them. I honestly have to tell you when it got to the part with the realistic lighting once the ship's lights went out, I got chills. The only way I could tell for sure it had broken was when the previously uninterrupted line of the white top decks suddenly looked shorter. You can see how people thought for a brief moment that the ship had settled back on an even keel after the bow fell away. You could believe it was righting itself. But yeah, seeing how dark it really was makes you understand the confusion & terror. I once went on a Disney cruise and one night I was having trouble sleeping and was up at about 2am and looked out my balcony and was amazed at how dark it was. I even thought to myself, "this must have been similar to dark it was as the Titanic sank", but then told myself to stop invoking the name of that ship while on a cruise. Anyway, well done!

[@user-qs7tq6sk1l]

Lmao 🤣🤣🤣🤣 take some weed with u everywhere bruh

[@lauren.sparks]

that realistic animation really shocked me. I’ve seen the 97 film too many time and I was fully unaware about how dark it really would’ve been. it’s terrifying

[@aislingmairead4939]

I have actually thought of this many times, and even when I'm out fishing on my boat late after sunset -it is a somewhat eerie feeling, even when you know you're within 50 feet of safe shoreline, and the added horror of surviving a colossal shipwreck in the freezing cold must have made it all that more terrifying for those whom have survived Titanic and other wrecks in the past.

[@imperialkhmer6146]

I would be more worried about sea animals like great whites and giant Squids than anything at night by myself in a boat.

[@Lucky-sh1dm]

@@imperialkhmer6146 dawg you wouldn’t have given a shit about any of that you would’ve been COLD

[@mgjmiller1995]

Something to note: James Cameron in some return trips to the wreck ( some Discovery channel specials doing myth-breaking) admits with more modern, advanced modeling than when he made the 1997 movie "the ship started breaking at 12-22 degrees, so that's something I got wrong." Also, around 11:30, the bow and stern remained connected via the keel plates, tugging the stern a bit lower into the water before those two sections of Titanic's keel separated. THEN the stern succumbed to the sea

[@BlackEpyon]

Know what bothers me about that scene of the stern smashing back into the water? It's not the "smashing" part - the splash effects were pretty good. It's the water displacement, or lack thereof. Water doesn't compress, so we should see a tidal wave appear just under the keel as it's coming back down. You might not see it in a relatively light-weight scale model, but the real thing, with a twenty-thousand-ish tonnes of iron crashing down at an angle, that's going to make a tidal wave, not just splash effects like slapping your hand against the surface of the water.

[@suevosloo2008]

she didnt hit the iceberg till 11.40 and didnt start to sink till around 2aM

[@goofytnt2126]

@@suevosloo2008 I think they meant 11:30 in the video. As in 11 minutes 30 seconds, not when the ship sank.

[@goofytnt2126]

The keel wouldn’t have behaved like show leather, it was made to be extremely brittle and thus would have just snapped under the weight of the bow tugging the stern down. I love the 2012 sinking theory but honestly the Roy Mengot theory is probably how it actually broke up IMO.

[@VictoriaMarch13]

I was 10 years old when the movie Titanic came out. The first night it was sold out so we went early the next night. We managed to get in but it also sold out. Even at 10 years old I cried with the rest of the crowd and sat in awe at the magesty and beauty of the ship. I'll never forget it. Thank you for these incredible videos! I've learned so much from you and it truly helps bring it to life in my mind!

[@Flaxxxen]

Ah, you’ve brought back some memories. I was 11 years old. That was the first movie I returned to the theatre to see again and again. The second time, knowing what was coming, I remember glancing to either side and seeing tears run down my friends’ faces. The utterly silent captivation of the crowd was a cinematic experience I’ve had maybe two other times, ever. I still can’t get through the film with dry eyes-though the tears come at different points with the passage of time. _A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets._ 💙

[@rnsministries]

I have been on many cruises and especially at night, when there is no moon, it is absolutely pitch black out. You can’t see anything. I can’t imagine the horror those folks went through that night.

[@wrongturnVfor]

I am still surprised that people dont talk about the mirage effect. The night that day was very calm. And because of the cold current, there were layers of air formed with different temperatures - just like in a desert but inverted. In desert, the hottest layer is close to the ground and they get colder as you go up. here the coldest one was next to the sea surface. This caused bending of light - in the opposite direction of a mirage. Just like in a mirage you see the false image of a sky on the ground. Here, the effect projected the image of the sea from far away close to you. What it effectively did was cloak the objects in midrange - or in far visible range. Like someone literally has put a cloak of sea over that iceberg. Only when the iceberg comes very close is it visible but because of the darkness and bending of light it appears as a dark shape only. The sailors aboard carpathia noticing the stars from its edge was really really savvy as this is one of the very very few ways that they could have made it out.

[@drl5002]

It also scrambled the signals from the Morse lamps which Titanic tried to use to communicate with the Californian. Both were sending signals, but both only received gibberish.

[@wrongturnVfor]

@@drl5002 yup exactly

[@mikehunt7360]

I’ve heard that mentioned, but ya, that’s not usually at the forefront

[@wayneantoniazzi2706]

Another good one from you Mike! Having been on the North Atlantic myself, and on moonless nights, I can tell you from experience that when the sun goes down, it's BLACK. The only light you see (aside from starlight) is from the ship itself or the ships wake or whitecaps illuminated by microscopic marine life. (Which is amazing!) Unless there's another ship out there showing it's lights you can't see a thing. So it's no surprise that there were conflicting accounts of the ships sinking. By the way, I've got a book published in 1912 not long after the sinking where some survivors said the ship broke in two. In fact, I found the book in a used bookstore several years before Bob Ballard's discovery of the wreck when it was firmly established the ship broke in two. "Wow! Those witnesses were right!" You make a very good point about film-makers lighting things up so the viewers can see what's happening, they DO have to compromise from time to time. I remember watching a film called "The Heroes of Telemark" where a commando team raids a German heavy water plant in Norway during the winter. They're all wearing khaki battledress and can be easily seen against the snow. "That doesn't make sense" I said to myself, "If I can see them so can the Germans!" Then it hit me, if they were wearing winter camoflage I the viewer couldn't see them either! Oh, it was a kerosene (oil) lamp on that rear mast, one of several around the ship's exterior, presumably the foremast had one too. Oil lamps hadn't been completely discarded in 1912. Thanks for posting, an enjoyable show as always!

[@gregsiska8599]

I've also been out on deck, in the North Atlantic. Totally agree, it's BLACK! -Watching the ship's dark superstructure obscure the stars with each roll. And icy death just feet away on the other side of the life rails.

[@wayneantoniazzi2706]

@@gregsiska8599 It occurs to me people can get the idea without going to sea themselves. Stand on a beach on a moonless night and look out to sea, it's amazing how the sea just sucks up any available light. I noticed that the last time I was on a beach at night several years ago. No, I didn't even think about a swim! Not after seeing "Jaws!" It's also no surprise to me that John F. Kennedy's PT-109 was run down by that Japanese destroyer. Both vessels cruisng at night and darkened, no wonder they didn't see each other.

[@iasimov5960]

I have been in the sail of a submarine running on the surface of the Atlantic. No moon. No running lights. Only stars. The only other illumination was the photoluminescent plankton in the wave sluicing over the bow. It was still very dark.

[@jackmurphy8696]

imagine how terrifying just barely seeing the gigantic titanic in the water as you are right next to it in the water or preferably in a lifeboat

[@kentslocum]

Thank you for this! Many modern film projects are simply too dark to see what is going on, as directors forget that audiences are able to suspend disbelief regarding unrealistic lighting conditions. Therefore, I'm glad that James Cameron chose a more visible approach to his depiction of the Titanic's sinking. However, I also appreciate the fact that the true history of the Titanic is being corrected, and wish that James Cameron had included disclaimers during the end credits of his film, explaining some of the creative liberties he took.

[@celieboo]

Yes! The battle with Nightwalkwers in Game of Theones immediately came to mind. Ugh. Too dark to see ANYTHING.

[@jlgood89]

Is that really what's going on, they're doing it on purpose? I'm glad you brought that up, because I had thought my eyesight isn't what it used to be and/or I'm getting what I paid for with the cheap displays I'm always cranking the brightness+contrast on as soon as the sun comes out.

[@GarrettPetersen]

I love the idea of after-credits scenes explaining creative liberties in historical films.

[@srosenow98]

As an astronomer, I think some of this is incorrect. It fails to mention two things: 1.) By the time Titanic's lights had failed, they were presumably a dim, dull reddish glow, and very likely close to the same intensity and hue of astronomer flashlights. They were presumably in that state for quite some time, meaning that those who witnessed the breakup had time to acclimate to night vision. This means that people largely saw the ship based on the second factor: 2.) In an extremely dark location far removed from any light pollution, and it has to be during a period of extreme transparency and clarity as it was the night Titanic sank, in that location, the glow of the Milky Way's core - which was almost directly overhead when Titanic sank (and is why astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson requested Cameron fix his night sky in the sinking scenes) - is bright enough to light surfaces painted in bright colors. Thus, it was entirely possible for the survivors who testified as seeing the ship break apart during the sinking, that they saw it because the glow of the Milky Way was lighting up the white of Titanic's superstructure. Astronomer John Bortle classified night sky brightness in a scale from 1-9 (1 being far removed from light pollution, 9 being in a large city core rife with light pollution) and being an astronomer myself, I've been in locations as dark as Titanic's location in similar conditions. In those locations, the glow from the Milky Way was illuminating my car's metallic silver finish, even from a distance of 50 yards.

[@tenorcenter]

Exactly! As the lights were failing, people's eyes would have had time to adjust to the darkness. When the lights went out (due to the breakup) they still would have been able to see the break if they were at a good angle.

[@AremStefaniaK]

As a minecrafter, i think any iron blocks built on water cannot sink at all, only sand and gravel and cement can fall and items/mobs.

[@beachbrettf]

Don't assume everyone's eyes had fully or even mostly adjusted to the darkness. Almost all (if not all) lifeboats were equiped with lamps for the officers to signal other vessels

[@tenorcenter]

@@beachbrettf the lights started to turn a burnt orange color for the last 30-ish minutes of the sinking. Right before the break, the lights would not have been as they appeared in movies or paintings.

[@YgorCortes]

Oh man such an insightful comment! I was wondering if their vision wouldn't have adjusted to the darkness indeed

[@jonmason1955]

Your interpretation is absolutely plausible! That roaring sound is, I think, more from the compressed air rushing our of any and every possible area of escape possible as well as the interior cacophony of the debris clashing.

[@jcorley45]

You earned a subscriber. Your channel is way underrated. You go into so much detail, and you go above and beyond on your research to make your videos as factual as possible. That's a rare thing, especially on youtube! I was going to comment mentioning how some survivors said that they saw the lights descending under the water after the ship had slipped below the surface. You ended up brining that up though. Keep up the great work!

[@tko082]

I appreciate you doing the true lighting at the end. I served in the navy for 4 years and navy ships do not have white lights emitted off them at night. People truly don't understand what dark is until they are in the middle of the ocean with no white light 360°around. The survivors truly wouldn't see anything other than that silhouette in real life

[@williamwilliams7838]

For me, the Cameron film was a homage to Titanic and the persons on board. With a love story and effects (like a steep angle and violent break) a necessary inconvenience, to sell it to the public and film industry. Which probably was better for it. But I think his quest for overall accuracy must be admired, with the huge budget and lengths he went to get it. But another brilliant vid by Mike here. And the reality of the total darkness would have been terrifying in the middle of a cold dark ocean, suddenly without the safety and warmth of a big ship. With your loved ones no longer with you. And...no guarantee of being rescued out at sea.

[@yambo59]

theres a colorized version of the 1958 version "A Night To Remember" and its much more focused on details surrounding the sinking and ship itself than the cameron version, it was as historically accurate as could be with what they knew back in '58, no time wasted on fictional love story crap that never even happened

[@christinabishop2533]

While the engines certainly contributed to the stern going down, the key part of it going down was the double bottom. As the ship was crushing in bottom up, the keel was the only element that kept the bow and stern connected. It was this connection that started pulling the stern down. While torn in two, the ship was technically still one keel until the whole ship was underwater. During investigations leading up to the 100 year anniversary, it was found that the bottom of the bow section was being rammed into the stern section pulverizing the contents. Also there was a plate that had been attached in the superstructure that stiffened the area under the 3rd funnel which kept the ship together until even it couldn't hold on anymore. This is why there is so much in the debris field, because when the ship finally did split, the contents of the pulverized area just spilled out of the ship as it sank. This also contributed to the multiple sections of the break area such as the galley deck area and the forward and aft tower structures. When you turned the lights out on the animation, I initially saw the break start, but looked away during the sequence and no longer could see the break area. This definitely proves that depending on your position that night, you could easily misread the shadows and think the ship was still in one piece. Great vid Mike, keep up the amazing work.

[@sagie4615]

I had a basic idea of what the sinking would look like with the lights off, but when you actually played the video with the adjusted lighting, I sat forward in my chair, eyes bulging and jaw on the floor. I can not BELIEVE that it could have been SO dark. The terror they must have felt when the lights went out… Jesus. Unthinkable.

[@andrewachholz7922]

Being fascinated by the Titanic since the 70s I am glad to see so much dedication from you in this matter. Well done!

[@Pamudder]

In 1912, ship's navigation lights ran on kerosene (called paraffin in the UK), and were independent of the electrical system. These navigation lights have included a light high up on the after mast, hoisted up on a halyard, so it would be entirely possible that people saw that light burning until it was submerged.

[@sirtristram8297]

Sorry, i meant to reply to you, John Kaiilua about paraffin lamps, but I accidentally posted it on Tim Tapp.

[@Pamudder]

@@sirtristram8297 What was your reply? l can't find it.

[@timothyreed8417]

Titanic’s running lights (navigation) were all electrically powered…

[@davidmccann9811]

I guess it's possible that the crew could have hung paraffin lamps to provide extra light to certain areas, but I have never seen any reports of this.

[@sirtristram8297]

John Kailua: here is the post I accidentally sent to another contributor..... I am guessing that there was a chance that if electric filament lamps were used as navigation lights, the lamp would "blow" and the ship would no longer be showing, say, a green starboard lamp. In those days paraffin lamps were more reliable---provided you kept them topped up with fuel.

[@RobbyHouseIV]

OMG! I'm so happy you talked about how so many of Titanic's survivors associated the sounds they were hearing as the liner was going under to that of the ship's boilers coming loose and crashing against the boiler room bulkheads. Indeed it was the sound of the ship tearing itself apart. Good work!

[@Abbeville_Kid]

I think the survivors that testified that it broke in half, we’re closer to the ship. I believe the few that were on board, and survived, said that the ship uprighted itself and gave them false hope that it was going to float. It doesn’t sound like it came crashing down as depicted in Cameron’s film.

[@CJ87317]

Though even if it had come crashing down, that would have righted the ship for a moment. The original script had a character scream "We're saved" or something like that after the crash, but before the grim physics started to take the stern upright.

[@mattpope1746]

Thank you, I’m always so interested in seeing history presented realistically as opposed to dramatically as it makes it that much more relatable. Your animation is both fascinating and horrifying.

[@MiniMC546]

For me, I think the reason why some saw the ship broke in two is their vision adjustment to the dark. Like the more a person stares at darkness, they'll slowly see what's in there.

[@Kaidhicksii]

Exactly. I can see in the dark quite well, but of course, even my eyes need to adjust beforehand for me to do so. I can imagine this would be even more difficult for the average human being to do in the same situation.

[@xr6lad]

Exactly. And if you live in a rural area will away from lights all the time your eyes will here used to looking in pitch black as well.

[@mastixencounter]

Encyclopedia Titanica recently did a great article about the accounts of the break up that were not mentioned in the inquiries. Some people mentioned that when the break up happened, millions of sparks flew up in the air and lit everything around them. This probably helped some survivors to see the break up more clearly. Here are some quotes from that article: Charlotte Collyer (Semi-Monthly Magazine, May 1912) "Something in the very bowels of the Titanic exploded, and millions of sparks shot up to the sky, like rockets in a park on the night of a summer holiday. This red spurt was fan-shaped as it went up; but the sparks descended in every direction, in the shape of a fountain of fire." May Futrelle (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 April 1912) "Of a sudden the lights snapped out. There was a terrible creaking noise; the Titanic seemed to break in two. There was a tremendous explosion. For a fraction of a second she arose in the air and was plainly visible in the light caused from the blowing up of the boilers..." Esther Hart (Ilford Graphic, 10 May 1912) "...for as the vessel sank, millions and millions of sparks flew up and lit everything around us. " Marie Young (New York Evening Post, 19 April 1912) "There was a great explosion just before the end. The ship seemed to break in two, and the sparks shot up like fireworks."

[@GreenBananaz]

I agree your eyes start to adjust to the surroundings

[@tor2919]

When it’s actually pitch black darkness your eyes can’t adjust - you just can’t see anything. If you’re far out in a forest on a moonless night with cloud cover and no city for 100km, you can’t see a thing. No matter how long you try to adjust. Same if you’re in a really deep cave. No matter how long you adjust you wouldn’t be able to see your hand in front or your face. Such darkness is quite rare nowadays though.

[@timtapp5931]

13:02 YES. This is nearly identical to what I've been drawing designs for my Titanic one shot comic about Violet Jessup. The difference being the reflections of the night sky on the ocean itself. A woman( who's name escapes me unfortunately) recounts the horizon that separates the sky and ocean disappeared. Making the sky and water feel like one giant star studded bowl with no beginning and no end. It seems like it was a beautiful horror of sensory overload. Great video!

[@TransmissionEpicts]

You have a comic series about Violet Jessop?! Cool. Where can I see this?

[@timtapp5931]

@@TransmissionEpicts Sadly's not done yet. It will be a one shot(short story) I'm turning in for the Silent Manga Audition contest at the end of this month. For what it's worth SMA does let people read the submissions online though.

[@sirtristram8297]

I am guessing that there was a chance that if electric filament lamps were used as navigation lights, the lamp would "blow" and the ship would no longer be showing, say, a green starboard lamp. In those days paraffin lamps were more reliable---provided you kept them topped up with fuel.

[@davidmccann9811]

That would make sense that the stars would have been reflected on the sea. Having said that, when you fly over the Atlantic on a moonless night it is completely black below the aircraft.

[@timtapp5931]

@@davidmccann9811 that's a fascinating fact too. From a sensory stand point it's very interesting

[@tessleonhart8126]

Wow! I really enjoyed this video! After I read the senate hearing transcripts I was wondering this very thing. It seems like something you wouldn’t be able to mistake seeing but the visual you created and just thinking about how a person would experience this in reality, it makes total sense now. Thanks for explaining this so well!

[@new_age_entertainment]

It never crosses my mind how dark it was until a video on TikTok brought it up and now your vid too. The sound of the ship breaking and the sounds of people screaming in that cold ocean with no lights is just terrifying. Then to hear nothing but silence as most of the people in the water have died... so scary!

[@grampsinsl5232]

The sound "like a constant roar, like ongoing thunder" is an excellent description of what I heard during a flood several years ago here in St Louis, when I was standing about half a mile from where a levee had been breached and the whole Missouri River was tearing its way through the break and over the flat bottom land. It was like nothing else I've ever heard.

[@Grant80]

That’s it as he said like with the trim towers a rake and fraught train. That’s whet I heard

[@jahnj2523]

​@@Grant80 what's a rake

[@marcsmiley8014]

This makes me think how absolutely terrifying it would have been to be thrown into icy, bottomless water-and it is pitch black. This video opens a new window of thought for me when thinking on those poor souls cast into the North Atlantic.

[@lauralonati7048]

I just want to say that your narration and all your work that goes into your videos is astounding! I have been obsessed with the story of Titanic LONG before the movie came out. I have a collection of many of the books, movies, etc. I have been watching videos for years searching for all the answers to my questions and I found your channel and it is so wonderful. Thank you so much! Your so fantastic! I have always been obsessed with shipwrecks and I have had dreams for years about someone in my family drowning. But that’s another story. Please keep up your great work! I can’t get enough of the content.

[@jakejoint]

Probably one of the most insightful and realistic representations of how this process played out. Well done!

[@CoffeeHobby]

Mentioning the twin towers collapse in reference to the sound struck me as insanely accurate. I always thought Cameron's breakup was too quiet. Even watching clips of tower cranes collapsing, you don't get a screeching of individual parts failures, you get almost an "atmosphere" of sound. An all encompassing "presence" I can only describe as volume. And because most of the breakup happened under the waterline, there wouldn't have been a lot of sudden snaps and bangs as steel plate and wood tore and separated. Heck, even the inrush of water into the opened sections would have only added to this roar the survivors mention. Maybe if you were close, you might have heard more individual sounds. Glass breaking might have been a more prominent noise compared to the bass rumble of water and failing steel from under water. ...I perhaps gave this comment too much thought.

[@leftcoaster67]

One of the Titanic's survivors, for a while lived near a ballpark. He said everytime there was a home run the way the crowd roared, reminded him of the screams from the people on the Titanic. That's got to be harrowing that a positive event would bring such horrible memories.

[@tellyknessis6229]

Plus all that hot machinery suddenly drenched with freezing water...

[@Areekurou]

@@leftcoaster67 there was another survivor, a lady, who experienced the same thing. She refused to go to any sports events the rest of her life because the roar of the crowd made her flash back to that night.

[@clarencegreen3071]

John, thanks for using proper grammar and punctuation. Many in this section do not. This makes it hard to read, if you read it at all.

[@vanessaruiz4705]

yeah demolitions are noisy, but i dont think it sounded any similar.

[@fairestofthemalllocomotive4802]

I’m so glad someone covered this subject in this way, your pictorial view of the ship in different lighting is the perfect visual representation of how I believe she really went down

[@majuuorthrus3340]

Also, with regard to media depictions: in film, you need visual signifiers of how things feel, emotionally. One really good example is how Studio Ghibli animates tears. When a person cries, it doesn't look like that - but it depicts how crying feels; the tears welling up, obscuring your vision and feeling uncomfortable against your eyes before breaking and spilling out. James Cameron's Titanic wasn't meant to be a documentary or docudrama - the dramatic rise and fall of the broken hull wasn't realistic from the outside, but may have been meant to reflect the feelings of terror and panic of those still stuck on the ship and in the water surrounding it. In a situation like that, your body goes into a state of hyperarousal where you're more aware of everything, and this also makes things seem more dramatic and vivid. (It also affects your ability to process short term memory into long term, leading the memories of traumatic events to seem almost dreamlike.)

[@raleighcambell2113]

I would imagine that after it sank, the poor souls in the lifeboats saw the most clear sky possible. Completely calm water, no moon, just pitch black night full of stars. Excellent video. Thank you!

[@mikehenson819]

What you've created with this video seems to me to be a most accurate depiction of we the sinking may have looked like to those watching from the life boats.The testomony that nails the break up for me, was that of the "cook " who survived the sinking, who road the ship down from the fan tail . According to his account, it was much like the Cameron depiction in the movie, but perhaps not at as steep an angle. According to his account the aft section of the ship settled back down when the break occured, and many with him there thought perhaps that section of the ship would float. But soon it too began to sink and the fan tail rose up practically vertical, and went down so slowly that he simply let go and began to tread water. There was no suction that carried him under.

[@jimmiller6704]

Mythbusters did a show on ships creating suction when they sink. They had all kinds of scuba equipment and couldn't make themselves get sucked down with any suction.

[@richardnurse2772]

The stern had to be as high as James Cameron stated before the break because the tickness of the hull of 1.875 cm needed that much pressure to break it.

[@jimmiller6704]

@@richardnurse2772 The stern may have or not been as high as that. I'm only talking suction from ships sinking and Mythbusters couldn't get anything to sink quickly enough to produce enough suction to take Adam down.

[@richardnurse2772]

@@jimmiller6704 well the witness stated that the stern was almost vertical before it broke, so.

[@englishatheart]

@@jimmiller6704 I never liked that, because the Titanic was a lot bigger than what they sank in the show. You can't compare the two. I am not saying there was suction, I'm just saying their test wasn't an accurate one because they didn't replicate it exactly.

[@Alexs.2599]

Excellent job! You're very talented sir. I never thought how dark the ship would look from the lifeboats after the lights went out. But now it makes perfect sense. My lord how frightening that night was. That long large ship sinking into the dark.

[@Samimama92]

When you equated the sound of what the survivors were hearing as the ship sank to that of the Twin Towers collapsing I was sent right back to 4th grade. I watched the first tower collapse in real time along with my classmates and I will never forget the way my stomach felt in that moment. It was the same feeling I had when watching the sinking scene in “Titanic” for the very first time only a few months prior. It was this unnerving sense of my stomach dropping and I didn’t know where the bottom was. When trying to explain this to students who weren’t even alive when 9/11 happened, I usually get blank stares.

[@Flightgenic]

Wow. I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been to see the World Trade Center collapse before your eyes while knowing many people inside will be crushed. Hope the memory didn’t scar you.

[@Flaxxxen]

@@FlightgenicIt scarred just about everyone in the tri-state area that day.

[@shaantitus1538]

I am a structural engineer in the shipping industry. The thing to consider is that the stern broke away due to direct bending load, the mass of the stern out of the water bent the ship and caused the simplified box girder of the hull to fail. In many cases this manifests as a "flattening" of the hull in the vertical direction as the sides buckle. The tearing and separation may have come later. Also consider that most of the region of failure was below the water surface. I have a distant memory of something I read in an account of the sinking that the ship briefly "righted itself". So to an observer the stern looked like it leveled out as the hull failed, and the catastrophic hull failure was not immediately apparent to some observers.

[@titanictx883]

This is soooooo important but NEVER acknowledged, Cameron's breakup is based on a combination of survivor accounts - it was absolutely, positively *NOT* "made up" -- It was Lightoller who recalled specifically the ship getting to an angle of about "60 degrees," and then hearing the groans of the ship (as depicted in the film just before the break up, but he thought it was boilers breaking away and, the ship "settled back"). It was Eva Hart recalled seeing it break up (which, combining it with Lightoller's account of the ship being at about 60 degrees would have caused the ship to crash down on the water depicted in the film) Lightoller then stated that the ship "slowly reared up on end until she was absolutely perpendicular" (as depicted in the film) which Eva Hart also stated. Hart also stated that it stood up in the water for "quite a long time or what seemed like a long time" Again, all depicted in the film. Lightoller then said it "quite quietly, but faster and faster" sank. And, if you'll notice in the film, Jack and Rose have no issue hearing each other until the absolute last moment. The sounds of the water are only at the immediate surface. So, I think Cameron's film is great depiction of these two survivor accounts but again, this somehow seems to go unacknowledged. Yes, there are others who claimed to see different things, but it's those accounts he chose for the film. Your video is fairer than others, but I do not think I have ever heard a single person on KZbin ever acknowledge the real reason why Cameron's film depicts it the way that it does. Btw, all the testimony I just cited are from recordings. I made a video overlaying their testimony with the events of the film as they happen. In regard to the moonless night, Cameron had both Ken Marschall and Don Lynch there as advisors and knew the ship sank on a moonless night, but he couldn't leave the audience in the dark during the sinking, it's just my own personal theory but I think Cameron was acknowledging this in the scene. You'll notice that both Jack and Rose ask several times "what's going on?" and "what's happening" several times in the final moments of its sinking. There's even one part where Rose looks in the direction of another passenger desperately hanging on before she falls. Rose is almost reaction-less which I always thought was odd, so it makes me wonder is she can actually see her, or if she's just hearing her whimpering before she falls. Additionally, that's why Jack is telling Rose when to hold her breath. If she could see the surface of the water approach then it'd be obvious, but I think they're depending on sound and she's trusting Jack to tell her when.

[@kerrymay6725]

Thank you. I think sometimes James Cameron’s movie is unfairly disregarded for the effort he, and the experts he brought in as you mentioned, to depict this event. He was still making a movie, not a documentary, but quite a number of moments were included in the movie that Titanic enthusiasts easily pick up. The increased interest in Titanic after the movie’s release lead to some very interesting discoveries, but again, this is almost completely disregarded. It’s a shame, really.

[@Kaidhicksii]

You make a very fair assessment, and I think I remember hearing those testimonies - or ones similar to them - myself. I also share the same theory about how even though it looked really bright and clear to us, from the characters' point of view it may have been dark as it was irl. Your points about Jack telling Rose when to hold her breath, or Rose's expressionless reaction when that lady fell, only backs this up.

[@titanictx883]

@@Kaidhicksii Thank you. If you would like a refresher, I made videos on my page overlaying recorded accounts with scenes from the film. I don't make any money off of them because I use copyrighted material so I'm not trying to lure anyone for views. I make them so people can enjoy/appreciate the film more and understand why things are the way they are in the film. It's fun to celebrate the film with people but it seems like, often times, people just want to bash it. Not saying this guy is, just talking about on KZbin in general. People want to try to find flaws and ignore all the amazing things which, by far, make up the overwhelming bulk of the film. Anyway, thank you again

[@yewisemountaingoat528]

"Cameron's breakup is based on a combination of survivor accounts - it was absolutely, positively NOT "made up" *Based upon* in the most loose sense of the word. Listen, he went for the 90% fiction Hollywood extravaganza when shooting the sinking. In one scene there's a person jumping from the stern when it's at its insanely elevated position. While falling down (WHY would a person even considering jumping into the sea from such height had it been real?) it appears so high the person might as well have jumped off a 50 story building. It's *preposterous* and *exaggerated* . In another scene some person jumps off only to hit the propeller. Why? Because it's akin to those 70's disaster films like Towering Inferno and others where you *had* to kill people in bad ways. I think the very last thing on Cameron's mind was to portray a realistic version of the sinking. Since you make such a great thing about him using the two witnesses what kind of witnesses would you imagine witnesses a man jumping from a 50-story building height and another hitting a propeller?? "And, if you'll notice in the film, Jack and Rose have no issue hearing each other until the absolute last moment." Which had eff all to do with the statements of two survivor witnesses. This was only for the *audience* . "So, I think Cameron's film is great depiction of these two survivor accounts but again," And this is why he portrayed the sinking from the perspective of *two fictional characters* . Pardon my sarcasm. "this somehow seems to go unacknowledged." You're not smart. In fact I'd say you're a textbook example of a fanatic portraying their hallmark of confirmation bias. You made up your mind before you drew your "conclusions" and try to fit everything into a jigsaw puzzle which makes sense only to you. "You'll notice that both Jack and Rose ask several times "what's going on?" and "what's happening" several times in the final moments of it's sinking. There's even one part where Rose looks in the direction of another passenger desperately hanging on before she falls. Rose is almost reaction-less which I always thought was odd, so it makes me wonder is she can actually see her" Sweet Cthulhu, you're deriving details and superimposing them arbitrarily into your own context while completely failing to understand the underlying structure. You seem to believe that James Cameron's Titanic is some complex form of art. It's a Hollywood special effects extravaganza. ALL Cameron's movies are special-effects driven first and foremost. Storytelling isn't his forte because all his characters are ridiculous stereotypes exaggerated in absurdum. It's fiction in a historical setting. It's certainly not history or some realistic portrayal of anything (characters and ship alike). "Additionally, that's why Jack is telling Rose when to hold her breath. If she could see the surface of the water approach then it'd be obvious, but I think they're depending on sound and she's trusting Jack to tell her when." Ok, I think you might have autism-spectrum disorder. Are you listening to yourself?? If you want to see a special-effect extravaganza with lots of nameless people dying, Titanic is for you. If you want to see a $100 million dollar soap opera of some first class lady falling in love with a third class man - when people rarely date somebody outside their social class *today* and it would have been utterly unthinkable back in 1912 when women didn't have voting rights, rarely worked and had to find some man to provide for them by virtue of marriage, Titanic is for you. If you want to learn about history, the real Titanic, the real passengers, drop to MTV teen drama/primetime soap "romance" , I suggest you either read books, see good documentaries (made by credible people not your average youtuber) or see other films. Question: Do you even socialize with people? You sound alien to me. And next time you might actually demonstrate that you have a modicum of education by partitioning your long texts into something readable. Didn't your teacher tell you to leave room when finishing a part and beginning a new one? I am actually interested in that video you said you made. Not so much about the contents of the video itself as I am interested in how you "reason".

[@titanictx883]

​@@yewisemountaingoat528 I reason by listening to survivors accounts and seeing how they are represented in the film. And, no, it's not based on accounts that are "loose in the most sense of the word" -- It's the opposite. They're very, very direct and specific. Again, I have all the word for word, recorded accounts directly from the passengers on my videos overlaid across the scenes from the film. To answer your question, it was Frank Prentice, a crew member, who said he jumped off the stern and "just missed the propeller on the way down" when asked how high the drop was he explained "well over 100 feet" which we see in the film, and all Cameron is proposing is that next person did the exact same thing except didn't get as lucky to avoid it -- These are questions you would know if you took some time out to listen to survivor interviews and use to critical thinking skills. You're not disagreeing with me. You're disagreeing with the survivors. And your vile name calling and attacks is just bizarre. I can't help that they said they saw what they saw. If you want to keep yourself in the dark about it and just make up information then that's your choice, but the severity of your rage is beyond comprehension. You call me a fanatic, which I am, I absolutely love the film, but your fanaticism is the opposite, it's like you have such disdain for the film that you hate me for pointing out why things are the way they are in the film, and you hate the passengers whose accounts were represented for saying they saw what they saw. I almost wonder if you questions about socialization aren't some sort of an Freudian slip on your behalf, but I don't know - I don't know you and with the obscene wrath you've just unleashed, I don't want to. You comment shows that A. You hate the film and B. You know nothing about actual survivors accounts and how they shaped the film or else you would have been able to answer your own questions. Take care.

[@SAROne-pl5zh]

Very well done! This is the best interpretation of eyewitness accounts I've seen. You're reasoning and pointing out the obvious that many wouldn't have considered is insightful and very much appreciated 👏

[@20thCenturyManTrad]

I subscribed a few hours ago because of your Empress of Ireland post. This one is really good too, I know a Night to remember did their best to be accurate with what they knew and their budget, I think if you go with a healthy mix of the two main movies, and the lighting you used, you fully understand what both sides would have seen. It's black as pitch, you are concentrating on survival not whether the ship broke in half or not, and the sickening sound of people screaming as death comes in for the final curtain call coupled with the sound of the ship breaking up, one could easily say either way. You did a mighty fine job of telling the sad tale, when you are fighting for your life, you aren't watching the ship breaking up, you are hoping to not drown or freeze to death.

[@lovedrjectionblacklistedme2508]

thank you for sharing this because I also was questioning this and I totally agree with your animation great job man always enjoy your videos

[@davidstepeck2644]

Great video Mike. I’ve seen a few of your productions and am always impressed with your quality research and presentation. Good luck and keep the videos coming!

[@jameselliott2710]

This is an excellent perspective on the sinking. (I'd like to see more of your work.) Like others, i've wondered about the impact of the darkness, sudden night blindness, etc. This is the first animation i've seen that caught that moment so well.

[@justnana13-klj40]

This completely changed how i view this. Thank you for all of your work!

[@johnsilsbee]

Definitely my favorite video so far! Thank you so much

[@terryloh8583]

Great animation. It's so much more terrifying to imagine how dark it must have been... but some much less cinematic! Really appreciated the analysis and historical background.

[@Daniel_Huffman]

That was a very great analysis on what people that night would have seen, or rather, didn’t see. A point I'd like to bring up: Many survivors didn’t feel confident in saying whether or not the ship split apart, presumably because of another factor that gets a bit overlooked: Yes, the lights had gone out, but they had _just_ gone out. To your average person, by the time their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the stern probably would have started to rise back up. This sense of disorientation was replicated seemingly by accident in Robert Lieberman’s _Titanic_ from 1996. Because of a hilariously-small budget to work with alongside the looming deadline of the release of James Cameron’s film due to the miniseries basically being a cashgrab, the script had to be drastically changed during production from its original, more historically-accurate first drafts. More relevantly, the lack of money forced the crew to depict the sinking as a montage, and because everything happens so quickly and horrifically, combined with the shots rapidly fading into each other, the way the breakup is shown both in closeups and with the CGI model make it hard to see the breakup, and you could almost speculate that the characters are questioning if the breakup actually happened or was a figment of their now-traumatized imaginations. Lastly, during the darkened animation, I could faintly see the superstructure in a deep blue hue, but when I removed the element of hindsight from my brain, it looked less like the ship splitting apart and more like the _Titanic's_ angle briefly easing, which, if I remember correctly, was reported by some survivors, and because of that, there were some survivors who saw the breakup, but misinterpreted what little they saw. I don’t know. Just my Ten Cents on the matter.

[@BULL.173]

Great observations. I just rewatched that particular sinking scene and it is definitely better than I remembered. I was a huge Titanic geek when I was a kid and remember getting special permission to stay up late to I could watch the 96' TV movie. My mom actually bought me a blank VHS so I could record it too (I'm so old lol). In retrospect it really was a cashgrab and not a terribly good one either. I mean c'mon, George C. Scott as Captain Smith? Great actor but sheesh lol.

[@soul22sofia]

You have to take into consideration that the 1997 sensationalist movie (as opposed to the others) was made only 12 years after the wreck was discovered. I just saw this video about the breaking of the titanic made from an expedition in 2005,8 years after the 1997 movie. They now know that the breaking started not from the top but somewhere in the middle, then it started to break towards the top, and as water flowed into that breaking point the weight of the water pushed the steel to bend in the opposite direction. You probably already saw this video. Its a history channel expedition.

[@basicanton]

What a good job ! Thank you so much I am just flying from one of your videos to the other, thank you

[@OldMadScientist]

I tend to think that when the Titanic "broke into two", it wasn't completely separated into two pieces. I suspect the ship's keel still connected the two halves and the bow pulled the stern under. And the keel finally broke in two as the ship was half way to the ocean floor. This would explain why both halves were reasonably close to each other.

[@Unownshipper]

Isn't this notion somewhat supported by an expedition done in the past decade or so where they found two "big pieces" of the double bottom? I could've sworn it was covered on National Geographic or Discovery.

[@niki75]

I think she did separate at the surface. Or at the very least before she had completely disappeared below the surface. I doubt the stern could've flipped around otherwise. And there's evidence on the ocean floor that the stern section impacted with an element of rotation to it. Those two pieces of double bottom probably attached to the stern. That would've been a huge windage area for drag. And if the steel is already damaged from the violence of the break up there's a good chance it was torn off from the stern because of the flow of water. Considering that same flow knocked the mast back, kept it there despite the fact that the bow section was planing slightly forward when it hit the ocean floor., and helped destroy the wheelhouse and break almost all the forward facing B-deck windows on the bow.

[@MonTube2006]

You don't "suspect", you're bringing up a well known hypothesis

[@hagaiabeliovich4276]

My thoughts exactly! I don't understand why it's not mentioned anywhere...

[@hagaiabeliovich4276]

@•アノマロカリス• (Anomalocaris) You were also there?

[@seven9028]

to me, seeing the animation in the 'true darkness' is genuinely so much more frightening. if you were a survivor, all you would see was a shadow or a break in the stars, surrounded by the unknown from every angle. that sounds scarier than seeing waves and the dead and debris and the ship all around you and being able to understand it all

[@yvonnemason9137]

What a fantastic, informative video. Thanks very much for sharing this with us! :)

[@natalielawrence8809]

This was so interesting. Such a great video. It's all so morbidly fascinating. Those poor souls.. I can't begin to imagine how completely traumatised they would have been.. it must have been so surreal.. but so real.. all at once...

[@the7percentsolution]

I don't think I've ever thought about just how dark it must have been that night. Thank you for making this! It really does make it that much more terrifying. Even someone with perfect vision would have had a difficult time seeing anything in that pitch black night. I wonder if another reason why some older movies depicted the ship sinking intact was purely for the sake of saving money. I don't even know if "A Night To Remember" (for example) would have even been able to show the ship breaking in half and make it look convincing. I'm sure it was ultimately cheaper to just let it sink all at once and not worry about it.

[@davidmccann9811]

I may be wrong, but I don't think the breaking in half was even much of a 'thing' until the wreck was discovered in two halves by Ballard in the 80s. I remember when they found the wreck the assumption seems to have been that the hull was going to be in one piece still.

[@curtisdaniel9294]

There are a number of studies about reliability of "eyewitness" accounts of an event. Plus, as you point out where your lifeboat is and the darkness of the night are also contributing factors. Thanks for your time and effort!

[@Treblaine]

Witnesses are great when used as witnesses. However, too often they're just demanded to speculate on what they think happened from the very little that they saw and with little understanding of the matter.

[@P7UHP]

Congrats man, you do a really good job with your videos!!

[@amylin5062]

The sight of the ship sinking in total darkness is terrifying. It’s like a large malevolent shape. I can’t imagine being there in real life, hearing the sounds of twisted metal and screaming. Utterly bone-chilling. Well done.

[@tequilyps]

Awesome video! I agree 100% that seeing it in the dark, the way it more closely resembles what could have actually been seen by the survivors, is absolutely petrifying. Had to duck into the bathroom and close the door for full effect and, wow, just wow. I appreciate the explanation of artistic license taken with each film. I've seen them all and until tonight, I kinda always wished I could've been there in a lifeboat watching that night. When the lights went out and all that was left was that huge black shadow against the brilliant stars. I mean, that drove it home. Most definitely brings back a certain memory of childhood... We'd driven 4 hrs north of the Twin Cities. Dead of winter, and trudged ~1/4 mile down the forested road thru a couple feet of snow in the dark. My dad and grandpa lit a fire (only source of heat) and got the generator started before leaving me alone listening to 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' while they sent back up for the rest of our supplies. 8 yo me lasted about 20 min before rushing outside, desperate to find them on this Pitch black, starry night, and realizing I'm in the middle of nowhere; hoping only that someone might return. TRUE CHILLS UP MY BACK. And I'm writing this in on my back deck in a midsummer TN heatwave

[@tequilyps]

O yeah, SUBSCRIBED!

[@ehubrex9880]

actually while the engines might have also been a reason that the Titanic's stern went under, a big reason why it went under is because its double hull was still attached to the bow which caused the bow to pull the stern under.

[@imperialkhmer6146]

I agree with your comment. The ship was pretty much intact together but didn't split completely until it went spiraled down the ocean. This was why some say it broke in half and others say it went down 1 piece.

[@MrTitanic14]

Completely agree with you! For me, after watching Roy Mengot's breakup plans, the galley section from F Deck was somehow still attached to the bow and acted like a hinge, and the bow itself pulled the stern, damaging the upper decks and contributing with the destruction of the stern on its way to the bottom Here's what I'm talking about wormstedt.com/RoyMengot/TitanicWreck/BREAKUP/Tear_Profile.jpg

[@darklord7479]

But how could a small piece of metal pull a part of a ship that a full half of a ship couldn’t do.

[@dirkvantroyen9170]

@@darklord7479 Tension in the top part is far greater than in the bottom

[@darklord7479]

@@dirkvantroyen9170 I know that. that’s why it was sinking but the double bottom could not have pulled down the stern by its self the engine could the Reciprocating engines filled with water would have pulled the stern down

[@outsidersongs2682]

An excellent video and I must admit when the 1997 Titanic movie came out, I was quite confused about the blue light and where it would have been coming from. However, I did not realise it would have been so desperately dark and disorientating as your final reconstruction shows it. My heart breaks for the victims even more, that they said goodbye to this world in such pitch dark. It would have made it even harder to survive or find one another 😢. I am currently writing a novel about a fictional Regency era shipwreck, a three masted barque. It honestly makes me cry writing it, unlike most of my other novels.

[@patriciomedina6378]

Excellent!!! Thanks for sharing your work!

[@tedhursh7672]

The other "issue" with the breakup, is, subsequent to the movie, Cameron did voluminous amounts of work on the angle the stern was in, and with several experts, determined that the angle shown in the movie was a little extreme, compared to the reality of the breakup. This, in addition to the absolute blackness would deny any survivors a good view and it would "appear" that the ship sank intact.....

[@DA_23151]

Really enjoyed this video. Incredible job with the animations and really appreciate the thoughts that went into this. Makes a lot more sense it wasn’t so obvious to many and that men also weren’t mentioning it bc they didn’t want to make White Star Line look bad that the ship also broke in half. And yes, absolutely terrifying view points of it being darker than the movies show and *especially* to those who were on the ship to the end plunging into darkness.

[@micheley2140]

You put a lot of work into this. Thank you. Subscribed

[@WickedWitchOfOz1]

Definitely makes a lot of sense how some said she broke in half and others said she went down whole. When you can't really see anything you rely on your ears and uncommon sounds aren't as clear as images. When I broke my arm, I didn't see it happen but I definitely heard it happen. It was a very loud crack. At first I thought it was the sound of my helmet hitting the vinyl fence but quickly realized it was actually the sound of my bone snapping. Great video! I enjoy the effort you put into your break downs.