Here we are again.
I find it astonishing that folks are still repeating the myth that the shooting stars in "Jaws" were captured in-camera. To recap, here's a quick summary of the forensic evidence that the two shooting stars are animated and were not photographed in-camera during first unit production.
One reason it's bubbling up again on blogs and social media is due to "The Shark is Broken" which debuted on Broadway in August 2023. Co-written by Robert Shaw's son Ian Shaw, the play dramatizes the often-difficult production of "Jaws", and the shooting star makes a cameo in the play, with the authors of the play implying that it actually happened during filming - a beautiful example of serendipity and happy accidents amidst a troubled film production.
From Deadline: "Fans of the film – who isn’t? – will be delighted with the attention to detail on this Broadway stage,
right down to that famous shooting star accidentally captured by the late, great cinematographer Bill Butler."
Here's the problem - those shooting stars featured in "Jaws" were NOT captured in-camera. They are optical effects added in post-production by an animator. Film fans need to stop repeating the false claim that they were happy accidents captured in-camera during the filming of the movie.
If the forensic analysis of the footage indicating that the two shooting stars were added in post-production doesn't convince you, then maybe the fact that director Steven Spielberg's well-documented love of "When You Wish Upon a Star" from "Pinocchio" can convince you. Or Spielberg's vivid childhood memory of a meteor shower that captured his imagination (see Joseph McBride’s ‘Steven Spielberg: A Biography’). Or that he later adding hand-drawn animated shooting stars into "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". Or the Paul Hirsch quote printed above.
If all of this isn't enough, perhaps this reporting will help slam the door on this myth.
Alves was the "Jaws" production designer and also worked with Spielberg on "The Sugarland Express" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", and has spoken extensively about his experience on "Jaws". Paraphrasing, this is the response he got from Alves in August 2023: yes, the shooting stars in the movie were animated. Yes, they were added in post-production.
Let's put this myth to bed, once and for all.
As an aside, let's discuss why this myth gets perpetuated. Firstly, with the well-documented production troubles that "Jaws" had to overcome, the shooting stars being real, in-camera events invites a pleasant bit of magical serendipity, which captures one's imagination. Even when all hell was breaking loose, months behind schedule and millions over budget, this movie was destined to be a masterpiece, and nothing exemplifies that than the wonderful serendipity of two shooting stars that happened to get captured on film for the movie! It's a terrific bedtime story, but one that is pure mythology.
But another piece of the puzzle is that there might have been an actual meteor shower that occurred during the filming of the movie. Someone sent me this bizarre quote from cinematographer Bill Butler apparently given to American Cinematographer 1975 that birthed the myth:
"During the scene where Brody and Hooper are waiting for the shark and comparing scars, we had a meteor shower in the sky behind them. We didn't plan it, but when we saw it happening, we quickly set up and filmed it. This kind of natural phenomenon does a lot for a film. It wasn't an optical effect."
(Complicating the issue -
I can't find this quote in the AC archives. I went into a deep dive in the American Cinematographer archives (
here's the "Jaws" issue from March 1975), and reviewed every single 1975 issue, and couldn't not locate this quote. As an aside, the
AC Archives are absolutely amazing.)
A version of this story is often repeated, sometimes attributed as being mentioned in a “making of Jaws” documentary, but I’ve scoured the several documentaries about the making of the film and I have not come across this story.
Here's what I think happened: Yes, there was a meteor shower during filming. Yes, Butler and crew did what they could to photograph the event, devoid of the boat or actors, just to attempt to capture something on film. And he erroneously says in the "it wasn't an optical effect", meaning that what they filmed was what they filmed. However, and this is a gigantic "however", the footage of the real meteor shower they filmed is not in the final movie. It's not. The "meteor shower being filmed by the crew" story was told by Robert Shaw to his son Ian, which became part of his father's "Jaws" lore, but mistakenly morphed into "the shooting stars in the movie were REAL".
The shooting stars in "Jaws" are animated optical effects executed in post-production.
Oh... there's just one more thing.
Another source has access to Steven Spielberg. So this person asked Steven Spielberg in September 2023:
Bouzereau: There's a famous night shot of the Orca with a shooting star in the sky.
Spielberg: In fact, there're two shooting stars that I added optically to underline the shark becoming almost a mythic character. I also added phosphorescence on the surface of the water when the barrels are moving around the boat at night. That was also an optical effect..."
