Sean Ruggeri - Cinematographer - The Underwater Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Brett Stanley (00:28):
Welcome back to the underwater podcast.
And this week I'm chatting withcinematographer.
Sean Regeri, who's worked withred cameras and gates housings
has really taken him to someamazing places.
We chat about how he worked withred to refine their cameras,
underwater abilities.
His role in the new movie, thecolony, and what happens in a
submarine when you need to go tothe bathroom.
All right.

(00:49):
Let's dive in Sean welcome tothe underwater podcast.

Sean Ruggeri (00:58):
Thank you Brett.
Glad to be here with you.
I appreciate your podcasts.
I love it very much, man.
I love your work too.

Oh, I think you dude.
Yeah, I mean, I love your worktoo.
And I guess what I would love toknow is, is kind of get more
into that, especially in thisepisode of, of, the Sean's
underwater world.
how did that start?

you know, I think it started way before
photography for me.
I think.
grew up as a fish, you know,growing up in Southern
California, you get to thebeach, every chance you can, you
know, we're snorkeling, we'resurfing or swimming, whatever it
is.
And I grew up wanting to be aMarine biologist.
I held onto that for a whiletoo.
You know, definitely may havestrayed away from it sooner or

(01:34):
later once.
Other fun things got involvedand you kind of lose track of,
of, of that type of thing.
But when I, as a kid, I justgobbled up everything.
I could ocean, you know, anybook I can get with dolphins and
whales and sharks lived offnational geographics and then
all the movies I could find.
Um, like I said, you know, youstraight away, you find other
things and then really held onto photography.

(01:58):
Once I found that my dad got meinto that and, Yeah, it just
kind of came full circle,getting into cinema, take film
classes, really not gearedanywhere towards, um, nature
filmmaking, but sooner or laterit came full circle.
And that, you know, that I thinkhappened after my time at red
for a little while, and startedconnecting with a lot of the

(02:21):
natural history filmmakers andred was really taking off in
that world.

Okay.

I really concentrated in.
My efforts in, on that crowd andtry to support them as much as
possible.
And then it ended up being them,supporting me too, and kind of
ushering me into the underwatercinematography world that they
opened a lot of doors for me, alot of, a lot of my colleagues
in that world.

And so, so in terms of that you're talking
about red, camera's kind of,kind of pushing you into the
underwater.

Yeah.
And I mean, that happened, youknow, some years into my career
at red where, you know, Istarted with them in 2007.
Before they actually shipped thecamera.
So it was cool to see the lastbit of development they had on
the red one, which is the firstcamera and start out as like
tech support for them going outon sets, you know, trying to

(03:11):
support these big films thatwere just getting started with
these real cutting edgetechnology.
Then eventually got a chance toget my hands on a gates housing
that was built for the red one,started shooting that.
And then, um, do you havereally, like, it really took off
for me and I wanted it, but ittook off and actually was

(03:33):
enabled by the new cameradevelopment.
Somebody had to get itunderwater in an alpha testing
situation, you know, before wecould really offer it to the
public.
And luckily I really injectedmyself into that scenario.
I kind of force myself into thatrole and wanted to be the guy to
get an underwater.
Once we had the first epiccamera that had to get

(03:56):
underwater gates, build ahousing for that and let me go
run with it.
And it continued with everysensor read made.
After that, I gotta be the firstperson to get every new sensor
underwater through the wholechain of, of sensors that was
made for awhile.

So it was red, really pushing for the
underwater stuff where they was.
It was it a.
Were they really wanted to getinto.

Yeah.
You know, I think it came from apersonal interest more than
anything that the camera lendsitself perfectly to that world.
The high frame rates, reallyhigh resolution, you know, the
red was the pioneers of 4krealistically and.
That technically, it makes sensefor that world, but
realistically, what happened iswe all love it.

(04:40):
You know, the, the owner of red,the president of red, all those,
all those cats, they are veryinto nature films and it's stuff
that just impresses visually andkinda, it makes, it makes the
product shine no matter what.
Right.
But, but we all also had a very.
Strong interest in both theconservation aspect of the

(05:01):
environment, but also tellingthe stories visually.
So yeah, it was a perfectmarriage, really?

So what sort of things did you have to take into
account with that, with thatsort of R and D like the
development to take the redcamera underwater?
What sort of things were thefactors.

Uh, yeah, that's, that's, that's an interesting
question because, um, I wouldsay it turned into an obsession
of mine for at least like threeyears.
We had the dragon sensor comeout and there were reports of
this magenta shift in water.
Everybody called it the bigmagenta problem where you'd have
this crystal clear blue water.

(05:38):
But a lot of times with a lot ofparticulate in it, you know, a
lot of kind of sediments stirredup that, that type of, um, blue
water that, you know, came anisland sometimes Bahamas where
it's crystal clear, but there'sa lot of stuff in the.
And a lot of folks were comingback with footage that kind of
look magenta ish in, in theirblue water.
And it was hard for them tocolor, correct out.

(06:00):
Wasn't a real easy, easy repair.
And I tapped into some of thegreatest minds in the industry.
Um, David Blackcomb, uh, JohnShaw were huge helps, and a lot
of the research they werealready doing was in UV.
Cutville.
And they were finding goodresults out of using these

(06:22):
filters that cut the UV spectrumat a certain certain point.
And we really jumped into.
Testing those out, bringing thefootage back to genius minds
like Graham mattress, who's thecolor scientist for red.
And he would tweak the footage,start figuring out what was
lacking, what was missing, whatwas shifting, what was happening

(06:42):
stuff way above my pay grade anddefinitely above my head, you
know, but he would come backwith, with, uh, kind of data
points for what was working andwhat wasn't.
And we developed the underwaterold PF the UDS.
You know, uh, optical low-passfilter and what it does is
basically cuts UV off at acertain point of the spectrum.
Let's read through as much aspossible.

(07:04):
Cause the color red is filteredout first, you know, and water
has a lot of us know.
Um, so it was very specific tothat market and it was a big
effort.
probably not the greatest thingfor the.
To throw out there, but it costsa lot of money for them to
develop.
And they probably knew thatmaybe they wouldn't even gain
that money back as a product,but that wasn't what was
important.

(07:25):
What was important was makingthe footage, shine, making this
product really worked for thatmarket because we were so
interested in it.

Absolutely.
I mean, that's something thatI've never even really thought
about.
Like, you know, I, I think aboutthe housings and I think about
lighting and all that.
So stuff I don't, I don't thinkabout how the cameras change
once we take them under water,you know, I feel like, you know,
that's kinda, that's ourproblem, you know, it's like,
that's a post productionproblem, but, but finding out
that, that they've spent thatmuch time to make the camera

(07:53):
work better under the water.
Anyway, that's great.

Yeah.
was agonizing at times, but alot of fun too, you know, we
gotta, we gotta take a couple oftrips that came and islands and
do the, do the alpha testingand, you know, jump in the
water, shoot some color charts.
And once we got done with that,go find some turtles.

yeah.
That's exactly right.
Let's find some moving targets.

Yeah.

So in terms of those of those kinds of changes
that were made, are they thingsthat happen in the camera above
water as well?
Did like does the camera and.
To be changed, like, is there asetting that needs to be changed
to tell it that it's now underwater?

Uh, no, not necessarily.
Um, early on, you know, if youwould do something like.
Install that underwater old PF,you would have to go into the
menus and you would have to tellit, you're now using this
filter, which is, you know, ifyou guys aren't familiar with
this, it's basically just afilter that's in front of the
sensor.
It's a piece of glass.
And so you're telling it, you'renow using this filter instead of

(08:50):
the one you had previously.
So switch your color science toadapt to that filter.
And so that was something youhad to do manually, but then
eventually in the new iterationof the cameras, it had
intelligent pins to detect.
What LPF you'd already put inthere.
So once you turn the camera backon it automatically switches all
that for you,

Oh, okay.
So this is actually like a, likea physical filter that you, plug
into the camera.
If you're going to use this

correct?
Yeah.
Yeah,

That's amazing.
And it made that much.

it did.
Yeah.
It's in specific, uh,environments, especially, you
know, that, that real blue waterand I'm shooting back at the
surface things like.
It definitely did.
And in certain sensors it made abigger difference than others.
Um, dragon needed it.
Absolutely.
Nowadays it does make adifference in certain

(09:41):
situations, but the LPF that redis producing now in front of the
newer sensors are so good.
And so in tune with a lot of thethings that were brought up with
that development, that they kindof, they kind of make it, um,
negate the use for underwaterLPF at certain times.

Okay.
So you can just use the onethat's already there,

Yeah, nowadays, you know, you, you, you don't
have to think about it as much.
It's more of a using thestandard.
OLPF, we'll get you by in mostsituations.
Um, could you optimize itfurther with the underwater?
LPF that's, that's definitely aquestion to ask and, you know,
in certain environments it mighthelp.

Yeah.
And then, so how did therelationship with gates come
about or did You already have arelationship with them?

You know, the, the way gates was introduced to red
was that very first NAB, uh, amutual friend came over to John
L.
Brock.
Who's the owner of gates alongwith his wife, Karen, and
introduce him to red, said, yougot to see this, come check this
out.
This is like the future ofcinema.
You know, um, there was a lot ofbuzz, you know, that first year

(10:47):
or two, there was a ton of buzzand.
He introduced them to JimDennard, the owner of red.
And Jim looked at John and said,well, we've got our underwater
guy then.
And they had a closerelationship developmentally,
um, all through R and D youknow, it's, there's with a, with
a product like red, you, youkind of had to keep a lot of

(11:08):
stuff secretive because it wasso groundbreaking and John had
access.
To those, a lot of those secretsin development because of the
close relationships.
So, you know, NDAs were signedbefore.
A lot of folks can get an NDA infront of them.
And it's, it's been a strongrelationship since, and they've

(11:28):
created, uh, housings for eachone of the cameras that have
come out since.

Yeah.
they definitely do seem to gohand in hand.
Like when you think of gates, Ithink of red and.

Yeah.
I mean, gates makes incrediblehousings for, you know, all the
top cameras out there, all theproper areas that are being
used, the mini and, andeverything.
That's really out there that'sbeing used, um, commonly, but
yeah, it's, it's, it's alwaysbeen, uh, a beautiful marriage.
What's what's been done betweenred and gates.

and I think, think with the thing with gates
too, is what would I associatewith them is, is custom stuff.
Like they seem to be.
Um, you know, if there was acamera that maybe hasn't got a
housing yet, you know, likegates.
seem to be interested in, inpushing that envelope a bit.

True.
Yeah.
I mean, on the engineering side,they've they can really tap into
something different than I'veseen from a lot of folks.
And I've watched them do someamazing custom work for LA
people.
Like the, the, the big BBCshows, um, worked with them.
Uh, when Elisha productions wasAlicia productions before.

(12:34):
Evolved.
And, um, they created customhousings for their submarines,
um, and integrating the redcameras into those custom
housings.
And then I came along with kindof helped tie up the loose ends
of the camera side of things andgot on board Elisha, which was,
you know, featured in, in blueplanet two quite a bit.

(12:56):
And a lot of the footage fromthose submarines featured.
Uh, so yeah, they, they, they doa lot of custom work and
realistically I have a feelingthey could pretty much do
anything as long as somebody iswilling to fund it because I've

Yeah,

do some pretty wild stuff.

that's it.
And I think as engineers likethat, that must be the fun part.
Yeah.
I kind of the problems.

I had imagined, so yeah.
I mean, It's pretty incredibletoo.
When you see the final results,like the mega dome, they did
like the split shots that camefrom that, that were, that was
in blue planet two.
That was phenomenal.
It just,

Yeah.
How big was that dog?

it large

It was like measured in feet.
Right,

it's measured in a washing machines, I think is, is
the new term.

right.

What I hear.
Yeah.
It's definitely, it's, it'slarge to travel with.
It's large to use.
You need a little bit of crew.
Um, the folks at a spree didphenomenal jobs of constantly
maintaining, buffing outscratches and supporting the
productions that would use that.
But it, yeah.
And the proof is in the pudding,like to say, you know, to see

(14:01):
what came from that was, wasreally amazing.

Oh, yeah.
I mean, those split shots andlike the, the BBC stuff, the,
you know, the blue planet andall that series, As, as a kind
of, uh, I'm not a, not a geek,I'm like a visual geek.
and just seeing how they woulddo these shots, like, was it
like, it seemed like half theseries was trying to do shots
that they'd never been donebefore.

Absolutely.
I felt the same way because it.
It's kind of come to that point,hasn't it?
Where, you know, it's, you gotto get some incredible animal
behavior and if that's not whatyou have in the bag, then it's
gotta be done in a way that'sjust never been seen.
Right.
It's gotta be completelygroundbreaking cinematically.
It was very cool.
And then when you get both ofthose together where you have

(14:46):
incredible animal behavior andsomething that, you know, hasn't
been filmed that way beforeit's, it's, it's, it's.

it's.
so immersive, you know, like Iremember when, I can't remember
what the series was called.
Maybe it was planet earth, like,you know, 10, 15 years ago.
and you, they using likemilitary grade optics out of
helicopters and stuff to, to,you know, to chase antelope and
stuff around, but.
you know, the distances are waythat they could get from their
subjects meant that they weren'tdisturbing or, you know,

(15:14):
effecting the subjects.
So it was so real.
It was things that had never,never been seen before.

Yeah, that is the, that is the coolest, you know,
when you are.
Just there, this literal fly onthe wall situation for animal
behavior.
I mean, it's kind of the goal,right.
Is just making sure that you'renot influencing anything.

Yeah.
I think at the end of that,planet earth series, like an end
of every episode that had like alittle short documentary on how
they got some of the shots andthey would kind of talk about
the gear they used and all thatsort of stuff.
And I think one of the ones thatblew my mind was this, you know,
long tracking Dolly time-lapseup this massive pile of bat
crap.

Oh, with all the Beatles running all over it.
And.

And just how they set that up and it was stinking
hot and, you know, it was, itwas kind of like camera on a
wire sort of thing.
And, um, and it was justincredible.

No I'm with you.
That was one of the mostincredible BTS things I've ever
seen and made me appreciate thatcrew so much for what they were
doing to go what they were goingthrough to get it.

Oh, totally.
And that's what I get.
That's what gets me aboutwildlife?
You know, people in general isthat you never know if you're
even going to get the.
You know, you might do all thiswork and come away with nothing.

Absolutely.
I mean, it is, it is a gamble.
Every time you try to setyourself up for success best he
can.
Right.
Um, try to knock out as manyfactors as you can to put
yourself in the best situation,but it's, it's always a gamble.

So for you, what do You what are you doing?
What are your kind of processesto try and get the results?

You know, if it's something I'm doing for myself,
um, it, it's very differentwhere I will preplan and try to
figure out best practices.
I mean, a lot of the times I'mbeing told what folks need and
kind of doing it on the fly.
Um, I, I feel like I have.

(17:12):
I feel like I've excelled a bitin really improving in the
moment to adapt to whatever'shappening in that situation and
change whatever our planmight've been to possibly
something better.
If a plan goes out the windowand then if the plan is what we
wanted, being able to stick toit, but still being able to put

(17:33):
my fingerprint on it a bit andkind of giving it a bit of my
own.

And so is that the sort of thing that you're
doing on the fly?
Like once you're under the watershooting, so you, you kind of
can't check in, or is it a, likea semi, approved kind of.

I've spent a good bit of time filming other people
underwater other than justanimals.
It's people doing their thingunderwater and it becomes a fun
kind of improv play where I'mresponding to what they're
doing.
You know, I, I can't have.
Preconception of what to do,because I need to base my moves

(18:10):
and what I'm doing to cover whatthey're doing.
And it's actually a really fungame to play.
I gotta say, like to just improvon the fly and make things up
creatively underwater it's,that's a blast.

No, I, I totally agree.
And that's my kind of, my joyof, of underwater is kind of
rolling with the punches, youknow, like I like that.
Um, you know, seeing what'sbeing thrown at you and then
trying to make the best of.
That's what that's kind of mylittle drug being under the
water creating.
So it's interesting to hear yousay that as well.
And because you do do like you,you you've done, you know,
filming people and narrative anddocumentary stuff, as well as

(18:46):
the wildlife stuff.
Right,

Yeah.
I somehow find myself pointingmy lens at people underwater or
more than animals.
Realistically, there was a wholeseries of, uh, of.
Documentaries we made at redcalled the red collective.
Um, you know, we did one on PaulNicklin.
We did one on Andy Casagrande,um, and Shannon and Russ, the

(19:09):
wilds, we call them, um, andit's following them, doing their
thing.
And again, going back to that,fly on the wall type of thing,
trying to.
Change how they would work andcapture their work at the same
time and try to capture theenergy of their work.
And that's a, that's a blast tome.

(19:30):
And then one of the more recentthings I did, which was actually
about a year ago now at thispoint, um, being out on ocean X
on their maiden voyage, a lot ofwhat I was shooting was
following the science andfollowing the teams of
scientists and documenting theirefforts out there.

Yeah.

And that was a blast because they're making
discoveries every day

Oh, yeah,

underwater I'm seeing that happen and it's
actually processing.
They're extremely excited rightnow.
That must be something totallynew to this person.
They've, you know, they've beenlooking at all these types of
corals and I'm seeing similarresponses.
All of a sudden this scientistis extremely excited.
We just discovered something Ican tell.

(20:13):
Then all of a sudden, you know,your energy starts flowing and
then your work starts changingto make sure you're documenting
that right.
And showing the intensity of themoment.

Yeah.
So, I mean, that's, that was onething I really wanted to talk to
you about.
And I'm actually going to, mynotes here is underlined, but
it's, you know, the submersiblessubmit the submersibles, you
know, with the ocean acts andstuff.
Um, cause you did on yourFacebook, you posted some sort
of, um, some images from thattrip I think was out in, was it
out in the.

It wasn't the red seat.
Yeah, it was in the waters ofSaudi Arabia on the red sea.
So, you know, most, most folkssee a lot of.
Red see footage from theEgyptian side of the waters.
And this expedition was, wassolely in Saudi waters.
Um, and one of the coolestthings I've ever done in my
life, because realistically, wewere seeing things underwater

(21:03):
that we knew.
Nobody's been there before

Oh, well,

and for better for worse.
Cause you know, you're alsoseeing, you know, tons of fish,
net, debris, and trash andthings like that.
You know, it's not, as, it's notas bad as some of the places
I've been in the world, but yousee the human impact and you
know, a lot of folks haven'tactually seen that because
they've been on the surface andthat area.
Nobody's been underwater there,no fish traps left behind and

(21:29):
things like that, but it was, itwas very exploratory.
It was, it was verygroundbreaking, exploratory.
And working the submersibles wasphenomenal.
Um, Ivan Agatston was one of themain, uh, side DPS and he did a
lot of the sub work, but I alsogot to do quite a bit of work in
the submarines where, you know,you're operating two cameras at

(21:50):
a time with your joysticks andyour two iPads with, uh,
Mikhail's full control upcontrolling both cameras,
switching back and forth fromthe macro lens to the wide lens
and capturing stuff that.
nobody's ever seen, you know,we're when we're on scuba and
we're at whatever it is, youknow, 20 feet to a hundred feet

(22:12):
and we're, we're covering thatside of things.
We know we're seeing things, noone has before, but it's a
definite when we were down inthe submarines and we got some
pretty phenomenal discoveriesand some pretty phenomenal
animal behavior, and it's justabsolutely surreal being in.
In a submarine operation likethat.

(22:32):
And with the, you know, top crewin the world that you could ask
for taking you down, keeping yousafe, running everything
properly.
It's, it's really amazing.
I mean, ocean X is absolutely onthe forefront.

What sort of depths where you were working
in, in the, in the submarines?

That's an, that's an interesting one because not
as deep as they would usuallygo.
And it's, it's for a prettyinteresting reason because in
the red sea and especially thatpart of the red sea.
typically we all know as diversas you go deeper and deeper and
you hit Thermo clients and thewater starts getting colder and
colder, not so much in that partof the world, the water actually
stays extremely warm.

(23:08):
So you're basically sitting inthis giant acrylic bubble,
right?
Those of us that have acrylicdomes on the front of our
underwater housing, similar tothat.
But you have humans inside ofit.
Right?

Yeah.

So those acrylic bubbles are.
Right into a certain depth, butalso that's based off of the
fact that the water's gettingcolder and colder as you go to
these deeper depths.
So it can withstand a little bitmore, but if the water staying
that warm, that actually playsinto the integrity of the dome
as well.

(23:42):
So their math ends up beingrecalculated to where we can't
go that deep.

Oh, cause of the cause of the, the warmth of the
water changes, how strong thatdiamond can be.

Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
And how much you can withstand,you know, how much pressure it
can withstand plus thetemperature of the water.
And so it basically limits thedepths to a lot, lot.
Lower depths then they wouldusually come.
But I mean, you're still talkingseven, 900 meters, you know,
it's, you're, you're down there,

that's

you're watching it.
You're watching all the lightdisappear.
And then you reintroducing lightby the onboard lights on the
subs.

Yeah, you're still a long way from home.

Very true.
Yeah.
It's and I got to say, it's avery surreal thing too,
especially for anybody's firsttime in these submarines, when
you go through the safetybriefing and they have to tell
you, and I love them to death,they always start, they always
start off with I'm feeling finetoday.
You're not going to have to dothis, but I'm going to have to
teach you how to take over justin case something happens to me

(24:39):
and how to, how to, get thissubmarine to the surface.
It's all part of the process isall part of the, you know, the
safety briefing, but it's, it'svery interesting.
And I guess I, you shouldprobably pay attention to the
details there on how to get thatsubmarine in the surface.

that's right.
It's like getting on a, like aprivate jet and then the captain
coming out and going look, I'mfeeling okay, but just in case
you have to do it, this is howyou fly.

Yeah.
And then it's shortly followedby.
We expect that we'll all be ableto hold our bladder, but just in
case, this is what you do.
If not.

Oh,

So there's that safety briefing as well.

taking a pee at like, you know, 7,010 for 700
meters below.

Yeah.
It's a, it's an interestingthing.
Um, when you know, you're goingthat afternoon or that morning,
you know, you maybe don't eat abig breakfast.
You maybe don't have that secondcup of.

Because how long is the trip?
How long, how long does it takeyou to get down and get back up
again?

Yeah, all depends on what we're doing.
And it could be anywhere fromthree hours, six hours to a, you
know, beyond that, it justreally depends on, on what the
run is and what the mission isat that time.
Typically, we would be doing acouple of times a day, so, you
know, somebody would go down inthe morning and then they'd
switch out scientists andpossibly camera folk.

(25:57):
Uh, you know, the, the mediateam would switch out.
But sometime it would be an allday run where, you know, you're
8, 8, 10 hours or something.
And yeah, it was, I mean, it wasincredible to be in the greatest
research vessel.
I can imagine the facilities.
Mindblowing or whether it cameto the dive operations, uh, it,

(26:20):
the, the submarine operations,but everything involved, all the
science involved on board, itwas just top notch.
Um, so to be diving three, fourtimes a day, and then tomorrow
can't dive because I've got tooperate camera's on a submarine.
Oh,

Yeah,

I guess I'll do that to the itchy.
I just an amazing, amazing.

that's incredible.
There was one photo that I sawon your Facebook, um, and it
looked, and it took me a littlebit to kind of work out what was
happening, but it was of thespace X, you know, submarine
That that acrylic dome or bubbleand.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but itseemed like you were filming
someone inside the submarinefilming whilst they were being

(27:02):
filmed by cameras on the outsideof the submarine.

That sounds about right.

Yeah.
It was like this inception kindof thing

Yeah.
And it's, it becomes the, inthat infinity shot when you just
point a camera at a monitor,right?
it's I think that might've beenback in the days of Alicia,
where we were underneath the,underneath the boat and, uh, I
just had a handheld camera inhand, possibly.
I'm not sure what that one was.

Yeah, I dunno.
Yeah.
I, I might've been confused withit, but it kinda, it looked, I
think you had, I think therewas.
a camera person inside the, thesub, but then who would probably
had a handheld, but then therewere, um, cameras attached to
the inside of the, of the.

Yeah.
I mean, we went all out.
If you're you're going down intouncharted territory, we
absolutely had POV cameras, youknow, session cupped.
Um, Ivan did, uh, you know, dida lot of effort to kind of get
the.
POV aspects proper for, for someof these shots.
And then share a lot of times wewould have a handheld camera in

(28:10):
the sub filming that one of thescientists and what their
reactions were.
Cause one of the submarines is,is solely there for science.
They have the articulating armsto pick up samples and put them
in the baskets and stuff likethat.
The other sub would be geared upwith the underwater housings.
Granted.

(28:31):
These housings off and put thearms on, if you had to have both
subs doing science, but you wantto document the science as well.
But yeah, it was very, it wasvery common for us to be filming
in the media sub with both waterhousings, shooting, macro and
wide.
And then, then the othersubmarine we'd usually have one
of the filmmakers with ahandheld camera documenting,

(28:52):
documenting what the scientistswere going through and their
reactions and their discoverieson the fly on those played into.
The short films that ocean X isreleasing about the scientists
that were on board.

Right.
Yeah.
And that must've beenincredible.
W what's the communication like,like with those submarines, are
you, are you, are you tetheredlike, or is it just purely on
its own?

Yeah.
Not tethered perfectcommunications to the surface,
to each other.
They've got it all figured out.
It's it's, it's pretty amazing.
It's pretty amazing.
I was lucky enough to visit.
The manufacturer and submarines,uh, some years ago, probably
this five, six years ago.
And they're out of Florida andto see where they actually
assemble these and where theytrain folks.

(29:37):
Um, it is, it is a reallyincredible leap of technology
that they've, they've gone to atthis point.

It's I mean, and this is a nice little segue for
me, but it is, It is likebuilding.

It really is, and it doesn't feel.
Much different than I wouldthink it would feel to be an
outer space and to bediscovering new things on new
planets.
But I think we've got one up onBezos.
Folks because we get a stay downthere longer.
It's something that's a lot moreeasily repeatable.

(30:12):
Um, I don't know.
I appreciate making discoverieson our own planet more than
others.
Let's concentrate on what'sgoing on here and put our
efforts into that first.
And for.

But it's also like, so much harder to do that,
right.
Like, you know, is easy comparedto, to go into the depths.

it seems like it might be at this point, you
can't just launch something upthere and then it just got to
come down.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Who's got more logisticsinvolved, but I feel like it's a
lot more fun being, being underthe sea.

Yeah, totally.
Well, there's a lot more lifedown there.

Absolutely.
That's what we know that atleast, and you know, so much
life we don't know about too.
And it was, it was very realthat on a lot of the dives, we
were making discoveries andthat's a, that's a really
incredible feeling, you're, youknow, you're, you're not just in
somewhere that nobody's everseen before, but all of a
sudden, you know, Me either a,uh, an animal behavior discovery

(31:10):
or a discovery of a new animalor a new coral, you know, they
were discovering all kinds ofnew species of coral and things
like that.
And then when it comes to theROV work, uh, you know, that was
also something else I would doon certain days where I might be
out diving to three dives in themorning, come back and then
operating the ROV.
And they're set up for the ROVis just incredible.

(31:32):
It's it's like, it's likenowhere else.
Um, there's so many details Iwouldn't get into cause it would
get so long-winded but the waythey have this thing set up,
it's it's just absolutelytop-notch.
And to be able to bring thatthing to depths that the manned
submersibles cannot go to

Yeah.

really cool.
And I mean, there's, there'scertain stuff they have not
released yet that I can't talkabout.
I'm sure my visa.
Uh, self-destruct

Yep.

um, but there is some really, really cool stuff
that happened out there.

That's incredible.
Do you know when that sort ofstuff is going to be released?
Like when they're going to kindof make that stuff public?

I don't, because certain things have been
trickling out as stories aboutthe scientists.
Um, and then I'm sure they'regoing to do with some of the
bigger discoveries.
I wouldn't doubt.
They'll probably do moreconcentrated programming on what
happened there, but.

that's amazing.
But speaking of the space stuff,cause you've done, uh, you've
worked on documentaries in termsof, of the space stuff and
working with NASA as well.

Yeah, it's amazing how, you know, this underwater
world is kinda, it translates tospace to so many times over.
Yeah.
Um, the first time I worked withNASA in any capacity, uh, it was
at the neutral buoyancy lab andthat was for a documentary
called a year in space.
It was documenting Scot.
Who was about to go up to theISS and spend a year.

(33:00):
And nobody had done that lengthof a trip.
And I had the pleasure offilming the underwater scenes
with Marco grub, um, JonathanWood, the producer, um, and you
are in the biggest swimming poolin the world.
And.
You're filming astronauts,basically running through the

(33:21):
process of what they're going todo when they get up to the ISS,
you know, they're, they'retraining for what operations
they have to do with this,switching out this battery or
whatnot.
And they have a full mock-up ofthe international space station
underwater, and you're watchingthem go through their whole
process and documenting that.
And it was, it was, yeah, it wasabsolutely amazing.

That must be because I've seen some footage
of that sort of stuff and, and,you know, In documentaries and
also in, I think it was like,um, again, back

Yes.
Yeah, it wasn't Armageddon.
It was in space Cowboys.
They kind of, they have thoseposters up on the wall.
Um, I'm going to have toremember to shout back out to my
boys at the ambulance and see ifwe can get a poster up of a year
in space.
Cause it was, it was, uh, itwas, a big documentary and ended
up winning an Emmy.
No proud, proud of that, but itwas, um, it was really cool

(34:11):
being there.
And I remember seeing it inArmageddon and a couple, couple
of different things.
Um, and just went back thereactually a couple of years back
with my friends, from gates,with John, the owner and, uh,
Pete light tower.
And we.
Taught a STO, a gates STO, whichstands for setup test operate.

(34:31):
And that's kind of the, theworkshops we teach about gates
products.
And we did one for their staffthere, which already has gates
housings on hand, but theywanted to up their knowledge and
also kind of get some more folksinvolved from the department and
teach them how to operate thosecameras.
So, yeah, just went back asecond time a couple of years
ago and it is.
It is the coolest, most surrealplace ever.

(34:54):
You know, you feel like you'rein space, you really do.

That was, my question was like, while you're
down there filming, do.
you kind of get a bit confusedsometimes and then you go, oh,
hang on.
I'm actually just underwater.

You know, I, I, I try to detach as much as I
canceling and get the job doneproperly, but you know, there's
moments where.
It hits you how cool it is, howsurreal it is.
Uh, when we were filming for ayear in space, there was this
moment where, you know, they'vegot the underwater PAs going.
So they're, they're announcingwe're about to run the drill for

(35:25):
this emergency situation.
And I don't really understandexactly what they're saying, but
I know it's a kind of.
Uh, oh moment.
This is what if this happens, wehave a red alert.
You've got to fix this fast orelse all hell breaks loose.
So we're going to start thisdrill 3, 2, 1.

(35:45):
And as I start the drill, theystart playing Bob Marley.
Don't worry.
Be happy over the PA underwater.
It's just the weirdest, surrealmoment looking around at each
other.
And you're watching theseastronauts basically save
everybody's life on the fake ISSand yeah.

That's

Here's your, then you can't, you can't deny that.

Yeah, totally.
That's incredible.
W uh, when would the suits that.
the national to wearing.
They, they, um, like closedcircuit or do they have bubbles
coming out of them or.

Yeah.
Those are closed circuit.
Yeah.
It's the same type of suit thatthey'd be wearing up in space.
And you know, there's a wholeteam of suits.
That basically not only helpthem get in and out of the
suits, but of course they're theones that are, they're tweaking
it and making sure it's allgonna work right.
For them when they get up there.
But yeah, that's all closedcircuit.
And an interesting thing is inone of the big efforts they

(36:38):
have, right.
When they get them.
Is trimming the suit out, youknow, for all of us underwater
photographers, we know abouttrimming our housings, right.
Making it perfectly balanced.
They got to trim the suit outtoo.
So they're, they're putting leddown in the back, left calf,
counteracting that with someover here, some over there and
getting the astronauts perfectlytrim.

(36:59):
And then once they're in, in thewater, They need help to move.
Unlike when they're in space,where they have surface tension
and they can actually push offsomething and, and really keep
moving since they have thefriction of the water
underwater, they need help kindof getting pushed around and
stuff.
So I'm sure that's not theirmost fun part because they
probably feel a little lessastronauts.

A little, Yeah, Like they need, need assistance.
and, and in terms of that, like,so with those suits, do they
then have buoyancy control aswell?
Or is that what you mean interms of being moved around?

Yeah, that's out of their hands.
So basically all the buoyancycontrol is, is whatever their
assistants are doing to trimtheir suits out.
Um, and you know, I get thefeeling, they have calculations
where they get them very closebefore they even get in the
water.
And then it was pretty much justmore about balancing a bit.

Yeah.
And then they just climbingaround on the, on the ISS, I
guess.

Exactly.
Just going hand over hand orhand.
And it's a surreal moment too.
And watching them train and theMBL is when they detach their
lanyard, uh, you know, theydetach their carabiner to move
over to a different part of thisfake international space
station.
And then watching them clip theCaribbean or back here.
It's not a big deal cause we'rein a 40 foot deep pool and you

(38:15):
have all this assistant staffaround you.
But if you think about itenough, that's something that
we're going to have to do inspace and you don't clip that.
Right.
And all of a sudden you losetrack.
You're drifting off into space.

Oh,

You might have a problem.

yeah.
And that's when all the spacehorror movies stuff kind of
comes back to me where it's.

Exactly.
That's what I was thinking too.
Yes.

because at least with underwater, like you're
eventually going to hitsomething like you're eventually
going to stop, but in space,depending on what your robot is,
you're

going to, you're going to stop when your life
support stops and

be exactly which, you know, depending on how good
your suit is, might be a reallylong time.

Yeah.
And these, these folks have somepretty interesting stories.
You know, we're working with anastronaut, a Russian astronaut
who was famous for being.
The first person to almost drownin space.

Oh,

They have these cooling systems in their suit
and basically a malfunctionedand it started filling up with
water and it basically put likea baseball, softball size ball
of water over his mouth, overthe communications to where he
can't even communicate anymore,that he has a problem.
And the only thing that heattributed to.

(39:26):
Uh, his survival too, was thefact that he had facial hair.
He had a goatee that basicallyjust separated that ball of
water off of his mouth enoughfor him to breathe a bit, to get
back and grab onto the spacestation and start working his
way in until his partner couldtell he had a problem.

That's the crazy stuff.
Like the things you don't reallythink about is, cause I think
there was something like thatwhere someone had a, like had a
T or an eyelash or something andinside their suit.
Yeah, Sticking them in the eye.
So they couldn't see what theywere doing.
Like the idea that, that, youknow, everything is foreign.
There's no gravity things don'twork.

(40:04):
Hey, expect them to

Yeah, we think it's bad enough when we get down
to depth on a dive and all of asudden you see that there's a
hair bouncing around at the domeport or something like that.
Yeah.
They've, they've got a littlebit more involved.

that's.
Right.
Well, so that's a good point.
What is the weirdest or probablythe worst kind of situation
where you've had something likethat.
Where, you know, there'ssomething in the dome or the
does a malfunction.

Um, you know, I've had some malfunctions,

Yeah.

some of them not as fun to talk about than
others.
Um, I would say a weirdsituation I have had before, and
this was in Indonesia.
Um, and.
Add depth, everything seemsright.
You know, you've done all thechecks you could possibly do
before button and a backup afterputting new medium battery in

(40:54):
and you get down to depth andall of a sudden it just,
something keeps moving in myLCD.
And what is that?
So I think he's any, you know,there's plenty of things
bouncing around in the ocean.
So you figure it's a small fishout in front of the dome.
It's something like that, butit's just so consistent that
it's in my shot, no matter whereI point it took me a minute or
so to read.
Yeah, there's a small flyer andthat, you know, on the dome

(41:15):
bouncing in front of the, infront of the lens.

God.

Yeah.
So that's not fun.

So you had to hit hitchhiker.

Yeah.
You just try to kind of welcomeit towards the back of the
housing a little bit and see ifyou can get a couple shots
without it in front of the lens.

Yeah.
That's crazy.
And not something I'd everreally, again, not something
I've really thought offhappening.
That's crazy.

I don't even know how he snipped snuck in there.
It was, it was a quick.

But do you, do you now check T now do a flight
check.

Flying check.
Um, yeah, pretty much.
I mean, I definitely have mychecklist before jumping in and
making sure everything is readyto go.
And that is now in the back ofthe mind, I guess, you know,
look for, you know, when youlook at that dome port,
definitely look for anythingmoving.

I think that's the thing.
Like once I got into underwater,I, I think I've done everything
wrong once, you know, you onlyneed to do it once to realize
that you never want to do it.

Yeah.
How else, how else are you goingto get better?
Right.

Yeah, You know, I've, I've done dives where I'm
at, you know, not, not at depth,but like 20, 30 feet down and
realized that my, um, the autofocus button on my, on my lenses
turned to manual when I can'tchange it.
Sorry.
You know, I've got no way of,and now I have gears on my, on
my, um, housing so I can domanual focus, but this was
before then.

(42:37):
So I was like, oh God, like I'm,I'm out of focus for this.

it's a showstopper.
Yeah.

Yeah.
And it's a showstopper for you.
Didn't realize until you go backto back to the ship and then
suddenly realize everything youtook was out of home.

Yeah.
And been there, done that too,where.
Not noticeable in the image.
You didn't see it in prep, butthere might be just a tiny spot
on the back of a lens orsomething like that.
And then it's heartbreaking, youknow, especially if you got
something good and you realizenow, is that a fix it in post
situation or?

Yeah,

not even.

no, that's the thing I know.
I think.
Learning how to edit and how todo post-production and stuff
really makes me appreciate how,how well we have to do as crack
camera operators and, and, anddo our job properly so that it
makes the other end easier.

True.

put it all to.

And I think everybody, whether you want to
do it for yourself for aprofession, regardless, you
should learn editing him.
I mean, not just.
The software and not just learnthe tools, but learn the mindset
of editing because that's onlygoing to help you film better.
You know, especially when we'retalking about emotion footage, I
mean, you kind of have to putyourself in the editor's place.

(43:55):
Um, you know, from a, from adirector standpoint, you're
always thinking like that, butfrom a camera operating
standpoint, sometime, sometimesfolks are just worrying about
getting the shot and nothingelse.
Where is, if you can step thatup to thinking about how that
shot will cut into the next.
Um, and you know, not sometimesnot as basic as just making sure

(44:15):
you get the wide, get amid andget a close up.
That's great too.
But also like the motion of yourshots.
How is, how are you loopingaround from left to right behind
the subject?
Is that really gonna work foryour next shots?
Um, if you can think like thatas a cinematographer, I think
you have a, you have a reallybig leg up on.

Yeah.
I think one of the things that,that I got from, you know, from
Pete Romanos, um, and the, andthe SOC, um, you know,
underwater cinematographersworkshops was learning about,
you know, clean ins and outs andthe different types of shots
that you can do that will helpthe edit.
That's going to help thenarrative.
You know, like, I guess if youshooting, if your subject is

(44:55):
always in frame, it's reallyhard to cut from that to
something.
Yeah.

Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
The clean ins and outs, I mean,at a minimum, you know, that's,
that's something that youreditors or your director will
just bless you for forever andwant to rehire you for it
because it's, if nothing else,you know, take that extra few
seconds to, to get them a cleanout and to be able to have a
clean frame.

And are you shooting like kind of B roll
stuff at the same time?
Are you, are you kind of keepingan eye out for that?

Sure.
It depends on the project.
Um, you know, it, there is a lotof projects where I'm the single
shooter and I have a singlepurpose and I kind of know what
we have to do, but at the sametime sure.
Constantly trying to shoot Broll.
If you can, if the, if thesubject matter dictates it, you
know, if it's more of a.

(45:47):
To in tank work and pool workand things like that.
Of course you have a kind of asole objective, right.
But yeah, once you're out therein the ocean, if, if I'm my
objective is to film thisscientist and they're studying
this piece of coral, then I haveabsolutely blown it.
If I haven't spent another fiveminutes plus, or whatever,

(46:07):
filming this coral after they,they kick away from it and
really getting the inserts thatare gonna help the editors tell
them.

And do you have a preference for the open water as
opposed to tanks?
Like do, are they just differentbeasts and you'd like them.
both?
Or do you have a preference for,for the, which place does.

Uh, certainly different beasts, you know, um,
if I had a preference, I mean,my heart is of course in the
ocean, but there is somethingreally special about tank work
and like feature film, TV work,where it's a different energy
and it's a different adrenaline.
It's a different.
Uh, just perspective on yourwork.

(46:46):
And I love that too.
Um, you know, a movie that justcame out about a month ago, the
colony was, it was the DP isMarcus Federer, um, real
brilliant stylized DP and theworld he created visually is
just financial.
And I was lucky enough to shootthe underwater sequences for

(47:09):
that.
And the movie actually startsout with an underwater sequence
was, which was really cool tome.
You know, like my work has to beimmersive because that's the
immediate thing you're going tosee when you start watching this
movie and luckily, you know, setup for success by that
production and what they did.
And it was a really interestingenvironment to show.

(47:29):
You know, they shot in all kindsof locations, but the underwater
sequences we shot for thebeginning of that film was a
wave tank basically in, uh,outside of Hamburg, Germany.
And it was built with thepurpose of teaching people, how
to survive a helicopter crash,

Oh, wow.

You know, this, these folks that are going out
to the oil rigs more so in thatarea, I think more out to the
windmills.
Um, you know, they're not intothe oil rigs as much as we are
here in Southern California,thankfully.
and it had wave machines on allfour corners that could send two
meter waves at you from fourdifferent directions at once,
which we did of course.

(48:12):
And we had simulated pouringrain.
With giant wind turbines.
And then you add in floatingpieces of flaming debris and
shoot a split shots of that andstuff.
It was, it was so fun.
You know, I can't imagine beingan add on that had to be
terrifying and, and all of that,but to be a shooter in that

(48:35):
situation, a house so much fun.

Oh, it was like an extreme sport, right?

Yeah.
It kind of was, it was quite, itwas quite the adventure, but
yeah, that was, that was thelast day of three.
Shooting those opening sequencesand a lot of it, other than that
was basically shooting thesimulation of this space,
capsule, plunging, underwater,and then falling to the depths
of the sea.
Well, our heroine rescues peoplein or tries to rescue people and

(49:00):
herself and get out of this.

Yeah, What sort of technical challenges do you
have in a, in a situation likethat, where you've got massive
waves coming through and, um,set pieces and props kind of
coming into the water.

Yeah, technical challenge wise.
I mean, yeah.
I would say logisticallychallenged was the fact that,
you know, the big pieces offlaming debris would all of a
sudden up there anchor and startmoving closer towards you and
closer towards you and thingslike that, which I could tell it
probably freaks out some peoplethat were in the water there,
but it was more interesting tome.
I could get more flame in theforeground.

(49:35):
It was

Yeah, that's right.
Bring it closer.
Bring it closer.

He had the overall though for that shoot, I would
say one of the biggest technicalchallenges was lens choice.
Um, Marcus Marcus loves to shootanamorphic and he shoots pretty
much everything on anamorphiclenses when he can, and Hawk
made this.
The set of vintage 70 fours thatwere in a 65 mil, uh, format,

(50:03):
you know, cause it was a shot onMostra.
So it had to be a full framecoverage lens, and it was also
their vintage version of theselenses.
And there was one set of them inthe world.
That was it.
So literally them handing methis lens that I had to make fit
into my housing.
Um, big props to gates again forbeing.

(50:24):
Adaptive and, and so flexiblewith the way they design their
products.
Because for me to even fit thislens in, let alone optimize it
and make it work properly.
It was quite the feat.
I mean, it was, you know, I hadclearance of a millimeter on
lens gears and things like that,but it was also just a giant
honker glass.

(50:44):
So I had a foam ring.
I wrapped around the front ofthe port extender to try to help
the front float a bit that stillwasn't enough.
So put two float arms.
Pointed out towards the front ofthe housing, we just kind of
ended up calling it the insector the bug because it had two
antennas, basically, you know,the little lights on the float
arms just for straight buoyancyand got it about as close as I

(51:06):
can to being really neutral andproperly trimmed.
And it was very close.
But of course, once you startadding stuff like that, that
starts to take away from yourkind of hydrodynamic aspect, all
your, um, you know, it's alittle harder to push something
through the water and, andreally do dynamic shots.

Yeah.
So how did you find that it didit, did it, you then have to
adjust the shots you were goingfor, or you just had to push.

I would say I probably just pushed harder, but

Yeah.

I'm sure subconsciously I was making all
kinds of adjustments, but trynot to concentrate on that and
just get the job

Yeah, yeah, totally.

But, but very interesting lenses issue with,
you know, like shootinganamorphic underwater in general
and making sure you can actuallyget a proper close focus to get
through the, uh, you know, thevirtual image on the, on the
dome port and, you know,diopters all day with
anamorphics, but you can, youcan make it work.

(52:01):
It's just always an interestingchallenge.
And luckily I had a production.
I was not going to rush.
They were not going to doanything hastily.
It was plenty of time for me toprep, you know, filled up a pool
in the back of the studio inBerlin, where we were prepping
and where they were currentlyshooting, just so I can kind of
test diopters.

(52:22):
Um, so yeah, set up for successand that's, that's a huge thing,
you know, you can, you cancertainly get hired by some jobs
that just don't get thatunderwater work is a different
animal, you know?
You can't rush things, you know,whatever you're used to, it's
probably going to take a lotlonger than that.
And really, you got to give yourteam plenty of time to prep and

(52:46):
plenty of heads up on whatyou're actually expecting and
what you're planning on doing.
Whereas some folks just thinkwe'll just show up and we're
going to shoot this thing.

Yeah.
So, so with this production, wasthere someone on, on the
production already here who knewhow underwater worked like did
Marcus kind of have a goodexperience and know that it was
going to take a lot longer?

I feel like Marcus probably knows everything about
cinematography in the world, buthe would never, he would never
shove it in your face oranything like that, but he's a
brilliant cinematographer.
So he ha he totally has his headwrapped around it.
He knows, but very importantly,um, they.
Didn't scamp.
They, they made it a focus.

(53:28):
Um, you know, and possibly someof that is because it was the
opening sequence of the movie,but they hired a full underwater
team.
So they had a full local team ofutility divers.
Uh, you know, I had folks on thesurface that were a dry tech
plus just kind of organizingthings.
I had underwater assistance.
And then of course, You had thesafety divers that were more

(53:50):
concentrated on the talent andtaking care of them and
brilliant safety divers, theywere keeping the talent real
calm and comfortable with thesituations they were going to be
in because there were somepretty gnarly situations, to be
honest, you know, you're inenclosed environments, um, had
this simulate them beingstrapped into these, you know,
these chairs in the spacecapsule and things like that.

(54:10):
And you're talking about folksthat aren't experienced with
waterworks.
And that's.
I mean, I can't imagine that'sgoing to be extremely
intimidating when now we'regoing to put you strapped into
this chair and plunged thisthing under water, and don't
worry, you're not actually goingto be stuck, but you know, in a,
from a mental perspective, it's,it's gotta be pretty, pretty

(54:30):
tough for a lot of actors.
But these safety divers that wehad out there were just, they
were taught notch.

I think that's an interesting thing with the
actors, you know, like, um, youknow, I've spoken to quite a few
people now and sort of gettingtheir, um, perspectives on how
actors deal with this kind ofthing.
Like some of them love it andkind of get enough of the, you
know, the.
The comfort zone, pushing sortof thing.
Whereas other people were like,you know, like this is scaring
the crap out of me.

(54:56):
Um, but it really must make theperformance really come home
when they're, you know, feellike they might die themselves.

Sure you don't have to fake that look of terror

Yeah, exactly.

feel like you might be drowning.
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.
I mean, they, they did, they didphenomenal it's especially, you
know, I, I know there was somefolks that were way outside of
their comfort zone and it wasamazing to watch them overcome
it and then not just overcomeit, but bring it into their
performance and embrace it andreally, really make something.

absolutely.
Um, no, somebody just wanted toget back to, which was the
anamorphic lenses.
Um, can you just give us anoverview for people who don't
know, um, the difference betweenanamorphic and surgical lenses?
Like, why are they so.

Yeah.
I mean, realistically, it comesdown to a different look.
Um, you know, technically you'retalking about a square frame
that ends up getting restretchedout in your monitor and
stretched out in the projectionthat you're watching, but that
doesn't.
Isn't really that importantcompared to just what it does to
an image.
Um, you know, we always, we talkabout Boca a lot, you know,

(56:05):
where these out of focus, lightsreally bloom in a certain way,
or, you know, the or lightsflare in a very certain way.
That's, that's definitely a veryspecific characteristic to a lot
of anamorphics is how lightsflare.
And a lot of times you see thosehorizontals streaky flares, and
it's, it's very stylistic, butoverall too, it just has.

(56:27):
Different kind of softness in agood way.
You know, a lot of times inphotography and cinematography,
we're so scared of things beingsoft.
You know, we need sharp focus.
We need to make sure theresolution and the focus is
there.
And then you could soften it uplater if you have to, but
anamorphics bring this organicsoftness to things, if you will.

(56:48):
Um, in general, you know, inevery, every different piece of
glass.
I can, I can't just speak to oneanamorphic lens.
Um, like I can the rest, becausethey all just have their own
characteristics are differentanimals.
They're they're different paintbrushes.
They're, they can be veryexperimental and at times you
can get a lot of happy accidentsout of it.

(57:10):
I don't feel like somebody likeMarcus goes for happy accidents.
I think he knows what he's goingto get when he puts a certain
lens.
On a camera and he's setting uphis lighting and he's setting up
his scene, for me shootingunderwater.
They allowed me to improv a lottoo, which I love, um, the

(57:30):
director, Tim fell Bon andMarcus really said, you know,
after you get done shooting,what.
Asking you to shoot for thatscene.
If you see something that youthink is interesting, go for it.
And they, they really let mejust kind of fly with that.
And it was, it was really,really a cool thing, very
empowering for one personally,but also it's, it just kind of

(57:56):
lend itself to a different typeof energy to know, to always be
looking and searching forsomething different.
We could capture that wasn't.

Which is, I think that's the gift that underwater
gives you, is that kind of, youknow, you never know what you're
going to get.
Things are moving, things arechanging, the lights changing,
you know, he kind of.
Usually surprises every now andagain.

Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's, what's so fun aboutit.
Isn't it is why I loveconceptualizing things and
starting with that.
But it's the most fun part of itis when all of a sudden
something new just happens.
A new spark of energy happensout of nowhere.
It's very.

Oh yeah.
And that's kind of, you know,when you look at your monitor
and you kind of scream silentlyto yourself,

Screaming bubbles.
Yeah, absolutely.

Sean, this has been amazing, man.
Just hearing your experiencesand everything I could to talk
to you all day about this stuff.
Um, manual depth of knowledge isjust amazing.
Thanks for sharing it.

Oh, thank you so much, Brett.
Appreciate it.
Yeah.
Appreciate what you do.
And uh, I love seeing your work.
and I appreciate youappreciating mine.
Thank you.

Thank you.
man.
We'll speak soon.

All right.

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Sean Ruggeri - Cinematographer

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