Underwater cinematography

[Jarin Blaschke]

In a month I'm shooting underwater footage for the first time. Nothing too complicated - about 3 to 4 feet down in a swimming pool. As a whole, the film is being shot on Fuji tungsten stock in daylight, with little or no correction, to saturate the cool colors. The negative will also recieve a rich exposure, with perhaps a half-stop push as well. However, I was thinking that I might go ahead and use a daylight stock for the underwater shots, fearing that with a tungsten stock, I might be going too far end up with virtually no yellow to red response in the film and an irretrievable, totally blue/cyan image. Or am I not deep enough to really have a major problem?

 

Also, what filtration would you recomend? Will a UV filter improve the transparency of the water? Does anyone use CC-red to help the color cast? How about a polariser to control/enhance the reflections in the bubbles and at the water/air line? I don't think the 2 stop loss will be a major issue with sufficient lighting.

 

How is focus determined underwater? Would this completely be done by eye? If so, is the image through the Hydroflex housing clear enough (with a 435)?

 

All opinions/expertise is greatly appreciated.

 

Jarin

[John Pytlak RIP]

The Kodak website has information about productions with underwater footage:

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/...h/bigBand.shtml

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/...001/storm.shtml

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/news/heatonP.shtml

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/...derwaterP.shtml

 

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/motion/...0/muroAmi.shtml

 

Of course, these techniques would work better with KODAK film. ;)