(at around 2h) The scene when Jack Sparrow calls Davy Jones "fish face", and sings to them "I got a jar of dirt", was unscripted and improvised by Johnny Depp, most of the reactions of the rest of the characters are real.
Johnny Depp's frequent collaborator, Tim Burton, contributed some of the conceptual designs of several crew members aboard the Flying Dutchman.
Gore Verbinski initially rejected casting director Denise Chamian's suggestion to cast Naomie Harris as Tia Dalma, saying that she was too young for the role. Chamian insisted he give her a screen test. Finally, Harris's mother came with her for the audition, also serving as her dialect coach, since Dalma speaks in a partial Jamaican accent.
The Kraken was difficult to animate, as it had no real-life reference, until animation director Hal T. Hickel instructed the crew to watch Die Rückkehr des King Kong (1963), which had a real octopus crawling over miniatures.
A popular pirate punishment was marooning. The pirate who was being punished was put on an island and left, sometimes for a few days, sometimes permanently. The "dead man's chest" is a small rocky island, so called because the rocks reminded pirates of a ribcage. It has no water or shade, and is so low that waves frequently wash over it. To be marooned on the "chest" was to be given a death sentence under the broiling Caribbean sun.