Despite having made plenty of big movies, Jim Cameron was known for being creative and practical, making a small budget go a long way. Hed proven he could make blockbuster films through sheer creativity, but nothing helps out like money, and Titanic is what happens when Cameron gets a big budget to play with. So for his historical adaptation, he did the only sensible thing he could imagine, and built a life-size replica of the real ship. Using original blueprints for the construction, the 40 million dollar ship was built along acres of Mexican waterfront and put into a 17 million gallon water tank. The meticulously reconstructed set was afforded another layer of panache as it was built on a 50 foot tilted platform. This would allow the boat to rock, tip, and flood as the real ship did. Extravagance and opulence don't always result in creating great sets, but its hard to deny just how effective Camerons larger than life approach worked out here.