The team arrives a with truck load of equipment. Shipping weight is about 7,000 pounds. The housing parts require the use of a crane. Some parts are as heavy as 700 pounds.

 

In Mexico a boat crane was used to load equipment. Loading and prep takes about ½ day. Dock cranes area often required.

The camera crew is no less than 12 and as many as 14 depending upon space available

 

Assembled for topside shooting, the camera is about 345 pounds.

 

The underwater camera is 1,300 pounds. Load factors in even a gently rocking sea can double the effective weight.

 

On the Conception in California a davit was built and the camera was hoisted up against a plywood slide. Reasonable modifications to the lifting systems on boats used will be covered by the film budget.

 

  

The Ocean Explorer in British Columbia used its Knuckle crane to launch and recover the camera.

 

On the Solmar V in Mexico, the only option was to lift the camera to the upper deck. This was a dangerous procedure in gently rocking seas. It is much better to place the camera on the dive deck.

 

   

In the Bahamas aboard the Caribbean Explorer, we built a rail system for launch and recovery. This consisted of an I-beam that allowed the camera to slide out beyond the swim step and over the water. This system was easy and inexpensive to build and proved the most versatile of all the systems we used.

 

  

With the rail system, rollers allow the camera to slide out on an I-beam. A block and tackle rig attached to the roller and is used to pull the camera out over the water and back in.

 

  

The camera housing breaks down into three pieces. A flat place on the deck is required to allow these parts to slide apart and together. In most cases, boat crews built a low, flat platform for this purpose. The platform needs to be at least 4-feet by 8-feet with some walk-around space. It is covered with a sheet of Teflon, polypropylene, or other plastic to facilitate sliding the housing parts.

 

The camera is loaded and maintained by two camera technicians who remain topside. Here the camera platform is covered with Plexiglas.

 

We will bring approximately 60 loads of film for each expedition, each of which weighs 20 pounds. That’s a total of 1,200 pounds of film alone. We prefer keeping the film in a cool dry place such as an empty stateroom.

 

We use two dive teams: a rebreather team and a launch/recovery team. Here the L&R team prepares to bring the camera down to the rebreather camera team. We prefer that the L&R team use Nitrox when available.

  

The launch and recovery crew remains topside (low-nitrogen on-gas status) until called to recover the camera and gear. They need to remain free to travel vertically with safety. The L&R team is a minimum of two divers. Often a scooter is used to help retrieve the camera.

 

  

A variety of ancillary gear is used to support the camera. The underwater tripod weighs about 70 pounds. Often three or more bags of lead shot are used to stabilize the tripod. This gear is often lowered over the side on drop lines and moved to the filming site by either members of the rebreather crew or L&R crew.

 

The team descends with all the gear.

The rebreather team is four divers (with one back up who does L&R when not needed). A roll of film lasts for only three minutes. But a typical dive to shoot that three minutes averages over 90 minutes. The rebreather team almost always requires decompression and will sometimes stay underwater while the L&R team returns the camera to the surface for reloading resulting if dives sometimes lasting longer than four hours.

 

Communications: Michele Hall on the deck of the M/V Conception monitors the comm and talks with the divers.

Underwater Communications: This is Howard wearing a Kirby Morgan full face mask with an Ocean Technologies Systems’ (OTS) microphone integrated in the mouthpiece. The divers can talk with each other and with the surface.

Underwater Communications: Here, Howard’s OTS microphone is integrated into his rebreather mouthpiece. He’s wearing an OTS SSB 210 Transceiver.

Underwater Communications: Here Michele has an OTS microphone imbedded in her open circuit regulator. There’s an OTS Buddy Phone transceiver strapped to her regulator hose and an OTS bone-conduction earpiece above her right ear.

Howard Hall Productions will bring its own CO2 scrubber material and oxygen booster pump for use with their closed circuit rebreathers. We will, however, need the boat to arrange for the rental of four 200-cubic foot oxygen storage bottles per diving week (at our cost).

 

  

The act of placing the tripod is a rather beautiful aquatic ballet. To avoid damaging the reef, the tripod is opened, then gently lowered using a lift bag. Tripod feet are placed on dead coral or sand before the lift bag is deflated. Even with all the heavy gear, our team does considerably less coral damage than an average group of sport divers.

 

Underwater lights are 2600 watts powered by the boat’s 220 Volt power supply. The cable floats to avoid entanglement.

The camera is so unwieldy that it requires two cameramen to operate. Working in any significant current is problematic. Howard Hall directs and operates the shooting while Bob Cranston assists with composition.