Underwater Wildlife Filmakers, continued...
THE OCEAN'S STORY continued...
As an assistant cameraman, my job involves keeping the cameras up and running and assisting with the underwater filming. A rebreather is not really the ticket for me, as I spend more time shuttling gear back and forth to the boat. A rebreather's strong suit is for sitting in one place for a really long time. So, after a shot is set up I get the friendly wave bye-bye from Howard as my noisy scuba bubbles are no longer welcome.
Most of our underwater scenes are lit with movie lights on long cables, powered from a generator on the surface. You will notice Howard's films are filled with vibrant reds and yellows. These warm colors are filtered out in the first few feet of water, giving everything a rather dull blue cast if movie lights are not used. If you are filming the life cycle of a little fish that happens to live right under your anchored boat, the cables for the movie lights are fine. But, if the dive team is filming a big, fast-moving subject, it is easier to follow the divers with a generator in a small boat, so they do not have to add dragging hundreds of feet of cable to their to-do list.
So I get the dubious honor of becoming the captain of the "Mighty Skiff." Many hours are spent in this small boat tossing about wildly, listening to our generator spew out exhaust and deafening noise to power the 1,300 watt movie lights. All the while, trying to predict where your divers are going next when there are no bubbles to trace their movements. It is nerve-wracking to say the least. But when the system works, it all seems worthwhile.
For instance, we were at Cocos Island filming Hammerhead sharks. They are meticulously cleaned of parasites by beautiful, yellow Barberfish. This happens at a cleaning station in 60 feet of water. Howard and Bob had sat for hours waiting and waiting, with no results. Once all hope for this interesting behavior had been abandoned and the guys were headed back to the surface the sharks materialized out of the gloom. For 10 minutes, clouds of Barberfish engulfed the sharks, giving them a spectacular yellow glow. Without rebreathers, shots like these would have been big X's on the script.
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