SFX Guru Bruno Van Zeebroeck Talks ‘Jaws 3D’

Special effects guru Bruno Van Zeebroek has had an amazing career in Hollywood, working on blockbusters such as Return of the Jedi, Die Hard, Predator plus he was also part of the SFX team behind Jaws 3D.

We caught up with Bruno to discuss his work on the second sequel to Steven Spielberg’s aquatic horror classic.

Part of landing the role on Jaws 3, was the fact Van Zeebroeck already had his scuba diving certification.

“I was a young special effects technician at the time and we started prepping in Canyon country outside of LA, building up all the parts that would end up in a million-gallon tank on the Sea World property in Orlando, Florida,” he said.

The tank itself was built intentionally for the production of Jaws 3 and afterward became part of the Sea World complex.

“We started to assemble the track in the empty tank, then mounted the trolley on the track and finally mounting the shark on the trolley. Several weeks were spent running tests to ensure all the functions were working properly and then the tank was filled with water,” Van Zeebroeck explained.

“Water and the head pressure has a way of showing you all the places leak-proof seals will in fact leak (one of Murphy’s laws).

From this point in production all work need to be completed in under 30-35 feet of water, with a potentially 30-minite repair job taking hours to get fixed.

Bruno recalls one trouble some incident,

“I can remember one instance where a low-pressure bushing was installed on a hydraulic function on the forward jaw mechanism and I was the one who had to replace it with a high-pressure bushing.

“With all the mechanics inside the fish you could not dive with a tank because there was no manoeuvring room inside or enough air time in the dive cylinder. I went in through the back with a single hose and regulator (sometimes referred to as a houka line) that ran 50’ to a compressor and brought a hammer, a cold chiesel, a light and a few wrenches along with a high-pressure bushing. It then took me between 30 and 45 minutes to just wiggle myself way 25’ from the back to the jaws mechanism.

Luckily Bruno’s patience and hard work paid off, and he was able to chisel off the faulty bushing and replace it before coming back out how he came in; totally a 2-3 hour dive. There was no communication device so Bruno had a rope tied behind him, which he could signal to people on the surface he was okay.

“By the time I got out the water, I chewed through almost all of the mouth-piece of my regulator,” he said.

“I think today the way to fix this type of repair would be to drain the water, fix it then refill the tank.”

Despite such challenges, Bruno looks back on his time working on Jaws 3D fondly, saying,

“For me it was an adventure but a risk I would not place on one of my crew. We faced many challenges during the course of the production of Jaws 3 but we got through them all. I had a blast on that location and moved on to have a long and successful career.”

Interview by Paul Downey, Editor - Bloody-Flicks.co.uk