The place Was Jaws Filmed? Each Main Location Defined

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“Jaws” turns 50 in 2025, and it is simply pretty much as good as when it first swam into film theaters. Now, the film is not precisely an amazing trip commercial. Anecdotes about “Jaws” making individuals afraid of sharks and even swimming within the ocean are countless. However it’s additionally an undeniably stunning film; when there’s not a shark assault occurring, it will possibly make you lengthy for summer time and seashores.

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“Jaws” wasn’t Steven Spielberg’s first ever film, but it surely was the widest stage he carried out on by that time. Not even 30-years-old and nonetheless sui generis, Spielberg delivered a masterpiece out of a shoot so hectic it impressed a Broadway play (aka “The Shark Is Damaged”)! A giant a part of the difficulties on the “Jaws” manufacturing (which went 100+ days over schedule) was mechanical issues with the shark animatronic. Did the selection of taking pictures location have something to do with the problems?

Should you’re as courageous as Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) himself in the case of dealing with sharks, then can you actually go to Amity Island if you’d like?

Now, Amity Island just isn’t an actual island… or, no less than, the island just isn’t actually known as that.

“Jaws” was primarily shot on the island of Martha’s Winery, Massachusetts. Settled by Europeans within the 1600s, the Winery was as soon as a poor fishing village. These days, although, it is a rich enclave and a occurring trip spot (with a everlasting inhabitants of about 20,530), just like different Massachusetts islands like Cape Cod and Nantucket. The Winery additionally advertises its connection to “Jaws” to draw followers of the film as guests.

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Within the Seventies, although, the Winery match the invoice for a small island city like Amity. In “Jaws,” Amity is claimed to be on the East Coast United States (the Brodys moved there from New York Metropolis), so taking pictures on Martha’s Winery added much more verisimilitude. It had the small city (homes and thoroughfare), the seashores, harbor, and docks that Amity would wish. The “Jaws” manufacturing even recruited some native MV actors resembling Lee Fierro, who performed the mom of the ill-fated Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees).

Spielberg famously selected to shoot “Jaws” on the precise ocean slightly than a water tank at a studio. He is mentioned the Atlantic Ocean surrounding the Winery was simply as necessary to his selection of location because the city on the island. Interviewed by creator Laurent Bouzereau for the e-book “Spielberg: The First Ten Years,” Spielberg defined:

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“[Martha’s Vineyard] was the one place on the East Coast the place I may go 12 miles out to sea and keep away from any sighting of land however nonetheless have a sandy ocean backside solely thirty toes beneath the floor, the place we may set up our shark sled. That is the depth the mechanical shark equipment required. One other issue was that when we had been at sea on the Orca, it doesn’t matter what path my cameras turned, you did not see land. My concern was the minute the viewers noticed land, they’d not really feel the hazard. I needed the viewers to suppose the boat could not simply merely flip round and return to shore. I actually wanted a 360-degree stage at sea.”

In “Jaws,” Amity Island seems to be each the identify of the bodily island and the city that sits on it (as in city, singular). There’s just one Mayor, Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), and Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) is the one chief of police. It is smart; the story, which is a few lethal drive intruding on a small city, is loads less complicated if it is solely a single city.

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However Martha’s Winery is residence to some completely different communities. Considered one of them is Edgartown, which was based in 1642 and traditionally served as a whaling port. A lot of the city of Amity in “Jaws” is actually Edgartown. For instance, the city sq. that Brody walks via early on is actually the Edgartown downtown; that stroll concludes with a mini ferry experience, which is Edgartown’s still-in-operation Chappy Ferry.

Amity City Corridor, the place Quint first introduces himself with nails on a chalkboard, is likewise Edgartown City Corridor. In the meantime, the harbor the place we first meet Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is actually Edgartown Harbor.

The “Jaws” shoot did not keep solely in Edgartown, although. The Brodys’ home was filmed on the still-standing handle of 265 East Chop Drive within the city of Winery Haven, Massachusetts. Equally, the scene the place Brody and Hooper try to persuade Mayor Vaughn to close down the seashores, strolling and talking and circles, was shot on the Homosexual Head Cliffs. These are a landmark positioned within the small city of Aquinnah on Martha’s Winery. The Homosexual Head Lighthouse may also be seen within the film throughout this scene. 

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Quint’s residence, a small fisherman’s store (seen within the final portion of “Jaws” set on land) was a set constructed for the movie, but it surely was constructed within the Martha’s Winery fishing village of Menemsha. Because the store was reportedly too tall below native zoning necessities (it is a two-floor constructing as depicted within the film), it was demolished instantly after filming wrapped.

“Jaws” begins within the water from the POV of the shark itself. However after that, it cuts to the seashore, the place Chrissie Watkins (Susan Backlinie) is having fun with her final moments alive at a late evening seashore get together. This was filmed throughout two seashores: the land scenes had been shot at Edgartown South Seashore. The terrifying swimming scene, although, the place Chrissie is dragged underwater by the shark, was filmed at Cow Seashore.

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The primary time we truly see the shark in “Jaws” is when it claims its fourth sufferer, an unnamed man (Ted Grossman) crusing a crimson rowboat within the pond off the primary seashore.

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Brody’s son Michael (Chris Rebello) can also be swimming within the pond, however fortunately the shark swims previous him. The “pond” on Amity island is definitely a part of Sengekontacket Pond, which spans 700+ acres. Should you go to Martha’s Winery, you’ll be able to pin down the film location by the American Legion Memorial Bridge, which connects Edgartown to Oaks Bluff and is seen within the background of the aforementioned scene. Do not be so fast to leap off of the bridge, although, and never simply because there may very well be a shark ready beneath.

Throughout the climax of Jaws, when the Orca is stranded and sinking and Hooper has gone below in a shark cage, you may discover one thing shift. The shark is now not simply an elaborate puppet, there’s additionally footage of an actual nice white shark combined in.

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This footage was shot by a second unit staff the world over from Martha’s Winery — in Australia, particularly. Australia (which is surrounded by the Pacific, Antarctic, and Indian Oceans) has sharks in its waters, however that wasn’t the one motive the staff went there. Ron and Valerie Taylor, completed divers who had shot footage of sharks earlier than, lived in Australia and labored on the second unit staff.

The pictures of the shark thrashing across the cage, destroying it? These had been captured by the second unit staff; the shark is rather more agile and versatile in these pictures than the animatronic may very well be, too. Taking pictures the cage scene this manner wound up having huge ramifications on the story of “Jaws.” When the second unit staff lastly prodded the shark to destroy the cage, it was empty. Therefore, the script was rewritten so Hooper swims out of the cage and survives, slightly than dying like in Peter Benchley’s authentic “Jaws” novel.

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“Jaws” has two of the best soar scares in motion pictures. One is the shark unexpectedly coming out of the water. (Cue the long-lasting “Jaws” line: “You are gonna want a much bigger boat.”) The opposite comes earlier within the movie when Brody and Hooper exit on the latter’s boat at evening. They arrive throughout the deserted fishing boat of Ben Gardner (Craig Kingsbury), one of many fishermen after the bounty on the shark. Hooper dives in and discovers a gap within the facet of the boat, out from which floats Gardner’s bitten-off head.

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This shot was truly filmed after principal pictures on “Jaws” had wrapped. However going all the way in which again to the ocean for a single reshoot simply wasn’t sensible. So, as an alternative, the shot was captured inside an Encino, California swimming pool owned by the editor of “Jaws,” Verna Fields. Fields maintained an enhancing room at her pool home, which is the place she and Spielberg labored collectively enhancing “Jaws,” so the pool was readily accessible to them.

In “Spielberg: The First 10 Years,” the director recounted how, throughout check screenings, the shot of the top did not scare the viewers like he needed. Getting “grasping,” he determined to tweak it:

“I went and spent three thousand bucks of my very own cash to have the artwork division construct the facet of Ben Gardner’s boat out of balsa wooden, to match the one we had shot earlier than. We lower a gap in it, used the identical head, and filmed it utilizing a double for Richard Dreyfuss, within the swimming pool of my editor Verna Fields … Initially, the top was simply there, so I shot it coming via the outlet about 9 other ways.”

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Fields was a fully very important a part of making “Jaws” the movie we all know — take, for example, how she sewed collectively the most effective takes of Robert Shaw performing Quint’s U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue. With out her pool and that elegant reshot soar scare, “Jaws” could be a contact much less excellent than it’s.