American Cinematographer - August 1983 - 20

TALKING TECHNICALLY
by DAVID W. SAMUELSON
Shooting film underwater is a sub¬
ject upon which many a book has
been written explaining the difficulty
associated with that method of film-

making. But shooting on water, in
water, or with water, can be equally
demanding and difficult, particularly if
it is salt water.

The fact is that

expensive and deli¬
cate motion picture equipment, which
will have to be used professionally
over and over should not be put into
sea water or even be exposed to a
strong sea atmosphere unless proper
precautions are taken. Precaution
and protection are essential because

(RIGHT) Hand
holdable spinning
disc rain deflector
(BELOW) Gimbal

tripod "sea head "

when salt water comes into contact
with aluminum and

magnesium it can
highly corrosive and destructive to
the working mechanisms of the
equipment.
be

There
motion

are many ways to protect
picture equipment from the

detrimental effects of salt water ex¬
posure, one of which is the spinning
disk rain deflector. The spinning disk
water deflector is

quite simply a sheet
plate glass which ro¬
tates at high speed throwing off any
water that may fall on it. This device
has been used for many years on the
windows of ship's bridges and some¬
one very clever has adapted its use
for a motion picture camera.
It's quite startling when looking
through the camera to see a great big
of thick

armour

break

wave

over a camera

and in

a

a second the picture is as
though the wave had never
happened. Even so, the rest of the
camera must be protected as well
and polythene covers have proved to

fraction of
clear

as

be ideal for this.
At the other end of the scale there

times when

just an ordinary poly¬
bag big enough to cover the
camera, the lens, the magazine and
the head and extending down almost
are

thene

to the

ground can offer sufficient pro¬
Only last week I was visiting a

tection.

location where Freddie

Young was

making his directorial debut (at the
age of 80) and they were shooting a
scene

such

with artificial rain and

a means

to

using just
protect the camera.

The

only holes in the polythene bag
were for the sunshade (with an optical
flat or a filter to protect the lens) for
the eyepiece and underneath.
Water can come from underneath,
18

used to protect

equipment which is
likely to be exposed to sea water. This
spray is used for protecting electric
equipment on deep sea oil rigs and if
it is adequate for that its good enough
for film
of course, and the advent of
table extended viewfinder

the orien-

eyepiece
has made it very much easier to pro¬
tect and operate a camera on or just
below the surface of fairly still water.
All that is required is an open top box
which is large enough to take the
camera and its power supply and
which has an optical flat (or a glass
filter) sealed into one end.
We call such a device a splash box
because that is about all it will

protect
from, but even that may
be the difference between getting the

the

camera

shot you

require and disaster. To oper¬

ate the camera all you

cock the viewfinder

need do is to

upwards so that it

is above the surface of the box and
look down into it. The splash box is

cameras.

Another useful item of

sea equip¬
gimble tripod. If you are
likely to be on a ship that is rolling
around and you need to keep the hori¬
zon level it can be very useful. Again,
it is taken from traditional sea going
practice and uses the same mounting
system as a ship's compass (a pair of
gimble mounted rings) except that we
use one or two Elemack weights (de¬
pending on the weight of the camera)
to lower the center of gravity.
The system works well if you are
chugging along in a tug boat but is not
so good in a power boat which can
turn on its side rails. Centrifugal force
is likely to swing the weight out like a
pendulum and to turn the camera on

ment is the

its side. In this situation it is better to

good for use near (above and be¬
low) the surface of a swimming pool.
More recently aerosols of silicone
spray, which give particularly good
protection to electrical equipment

ter mount and

have become available and

well.

very

can

be

use a sea

sense

power to
keel

mount which uses a gyro

the level of the

or a

ship and

to

servo

keep the camera on an even
floating camera, or a helicop¬
some

Silicone spray as
■

AMERICAN

CINEMATOGRAPHER, AUGUST, 1983
American Cinematographer - August 1983

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