To compliment the pristine quality achieved by our underwater video systems, the following accessories provide the finishing touches to achieve perfect results.
The ultimate accessory, we have our own dive boat, ready to transport our team and gear to wherever a project may take us. “Toruk Makto” yes, that’s its name, is customized in a way that we can set up both our dive and camera gear in a very short time, take in and out of the water quickly and safely, and keep our team self totally contained in large scale productions, so clients don’t have to worry about absorbing the costs of boat transportation. Toruk Makto also sports a tuna tower from which we can do crane and dolly shots, as well as a pole cam to shoot camera unfriendly subjects, such as large sharks, and is set to keep a team of 4 out to sea for up to 5 days at a time.
A must in every topside professional production, lights become a necessity underwater due to the rapid loss of light that takes place as we plunge below the surface as well as the absorption of the warm tones in the images. But due to this, underwater lights need to be twenty times as powerful as those used on the surface, and this makes their use very difficult or downright impossible at times given the weight, bulk and expense of such lights. We have mastered the art of “Minimalist Expansive Lighting” which allows us to obtain amazing results through the intelligent use of small lighting setups. Of course, for those productions such as films or TV programs that take place in contained environments, like tanks or pools, we are able to operate full lighting systems as needed, but even then, our understanding of the qualities of light travel underwater allows us to achieve results that would take any other team considerable longer time and higher gear requirements.
Underwater propulsion vehicles, or scooters, are able to accomplish shots that not even divers like us can, for they provide the capacity to mount even the heaviest camera systems and to keep them steady while performing complex moves in every direction or angle at great speeds. Often times, scooters are the only way to film fast moving subjects like elusive mammals with heavy systems like the RED ONE camera. Scooters not only allow us to get shots that cannot be gotten any other way, but also to add an extra spatial dimension to many “ordinary” shots.
The impossibility to talk underwater has long hindered the creative process when it comes to filming underwater. Although hand signals are sufficient for communication between divers, when large budgets and complex productions are on the line, the only way to make sure the desired results are being obtained is by using communication systems that allow divers to talk among themselves and with the surface. Long available exclusively to the military and commercial sectors, these systems are now in use by a select few private companies, and Ideas in Blue has been a pioneer in their deployment into the imaging field. We are able link up to 3 divers, say for example a cameraman and his assistants, and the surface into our loop, where all operators can talk and hear. This allows us to decrease time underwater by setting up shots exactly as they are needed, and for a director or producer to provide guidance from the surface based on the image he sees on a surface monitor hooked to a feed from our cameras. Whenever needed, we are able to include up to 20 divers in the same loop.