American cinematographer (Jan-Dec 1942)

1 E^'^^l 1 r4 * A*^ i Frame enlargement of a 16mm. scene filmed under water at Silver Springs, Florida. Making Movies Under Water By THOMAS TUTWILER, A.S.C. IF you're looking for new cinematic worlds to conquer, you can find one — literally — by taking your camera undei-water. You've probably seen what the professionals have been doing along these lines in such pictures as the MGM "Tarzan" films and (in Technicolor) Paramount's "Bahama Passage" and "Reap the Wild Wind," to say nothing of a number of short-subjects. You can do the same thing in 16mm. and 8mm., even in Kodachrome, and get pictures that are really different from the ordinary i-un of home movies. The first problem, of course, is how to get your camera under water without soaking it. There are plenty of ways to do this. For instance, if you should happen to be in Florida, you can make use of the same facilities the professionals used : the two underwater "camera boats" at Silver Springs, and the "hole in the water" at Wakulla Springs, which Lloyd Knechtel, A.S.C, described in The American Cinematographer about a year ago. Naturally, if you're an amateur shipwright and live on or near a river or lake where you can have a boat, >ou can build one of these cinematic submarines for yourself. All that's necessary is an open-topped box or tube big enough to contain the camera and cameraman and deep enough to get your lens six or eight feet below the surface. It can be built as a part of a fair-sized boat, as in the Silver Springs submarines, or attached to a barge or divingfloat as in Wakulla's "hole in the water." In either case, it is sunk to the proper depth by ballasting with rocks or concrete blocks, and the camera shoots out into the water through a plate-glass window. But this sort of construction is rather ambitious for all of us except the most ardent home-workshop addicts. A simpler way of getting underwater movies is to shoot your pictures in a swimmingpool from one of the glass-windowed observation ports which are being built into more and more private pools, and some public ones, as well. Another way to do it is to build yourself a smaller "hole in the water," just big enough to hold your camera, while you work it from above. The gadget itself is of course simple enough — just a long, nairow box, open at one end and with a plate-glass window ,at one side of the bottom through which to shoot^but there are two ways of mounting your camera. One is to mount it at the top of the box, handily out in the open air, shooting down toward the bottom of the box, where a mirror reflects the image seen through the porthole up into the lens. This is handy, but unless you use an expensive and delicate frontsurface mirror, you're likely to have trouble by getting a double image from the mirror — one reflected by the silvered reflecting surface, and a secondary image, slightly out of register, from the front surface of the glass. A more practical idea is to put the camera down at the bottom of your tube. so that it shoots directly out through the port, and operate it by a simple remote-control lever. The problem here is sighting the shot when you're in a position where you can't use the regular finder. But this can be solved easily enough by making the porthole a bit bigger, and outlining on the glass at one side of the camera a rectangular field matched to the field of the camera, and reflected up to your eye by an inclined mirror. Since your tube may not be perfectly water-tight, it's a safe practice to mount your camera three or four inches above the bottom, so if any water seeps through, it will collect below the camera. Finally, there's the possibility of putting both the camera and yourself into diving helmets, and getting your pictures that way. There seem to be quite a number of diving addicts in all parts of the country who have made themselves simple diving helmets — usually a pVoperly-shaped end-section from an old water-heater boiler, which fits snugly over their shoulders and receives air pumped down through a hose, while they look out at the undeinvater landscape through a glass window in the front of the helmet. If you can borrow or make one of these outfits, you'll find there's a lot of fun in going down yourself and shooting your pictures with the camera in an underwater diving-box. Quite a few of these have been made, some very professional, like the one Lt. Al Gilks, A.S.C, U.S.N.R., took around the world with him several years ago, and others more amateurly simple, like the one director Norman Foster used one vacation in Tahiti. Foster's gadget consisted simply of a watertight box with a plateglass window for the camera to shoot through, and another window in the rear through which he could watch the finder. The whole front of the box was removable to permit inserting and removing the camera, and was held in more or less watertight seal by means of bolts (tightly screwed down with wing-nuts) and a rubber gasket. The camera was held tightly in place by wooden blocks fitted to match the shape of his camera, which happened to be a Bell & Howell Eyemo, and a simple lever connection passed through a watertight joint so that the camera-release could be worked from outside. A strap of strong webbing passed around the box, and heavy weights were attached to the bottom of this strap to balance the camera and to off"set the buoyancy of the device. The strap also served as a handle by which the camera could be manipulated underwater. Foster, clad himself in a regulation diving suit, took this box down to depths as great as 50 feet and brought back excellent pictures. No matter how you choose to get your camera beneath the waves, you'll find there are definite photographic tricks to be learned if you want good underwater movies. Most important of these are the effect of the refraction or light-bending action of the water on your focus and (Continued on Page 370) 3G0 August, 1942 American Cinematographer