The Cine Technician (1953-1956)

December 1955 CINE TECHNICIAN 185 UNDER SWEDISH SEAS FOR ten years now the Royal Swedish Navy have been producing their own recruiting films, newsreels and instruction films rather than contracting out their productions to independent companies, which seems to be the practice in most other countries. In their tenth year of film making a special effort was made in order to bring out prestige films and some very enterprising productions are under way. This year also marked the introduction of under-water filming in Sweden, with the Navy's project of four sub-aqua instruction films. As there were no underwater cameramen in Sweden I was approached to do this assignment. I accepted the offer with great enthusiasm and from the moment I arrived in Gothenburg on June 4 to the moment I returned to Tilbury on September 3, I had no reason to regret my decision. Work commenced at a Coastal Base situated on a tiny island in the Baltic near the approaches of Stockholm. SWEDISH GEAR After a quick inspection of the Swedish diving equipment I decided that it would be an advantage to make use of their gear rather than my own for the sake of speed and interchangeability. Particularly impressive was the wool-and-nylon combination garment which goes underneath the rubber suit to keep you warm. In spite of all this protective clothing there is no denying that when being lowered over the side of the diving launch with the Vinten-Hodges underwater camera the next day, it was just like being dropped into liquid ice! At fifteen feet the temperature was only 40° F. and after four minutes you start shivering. After six minutes you turn blue. If you can stick it for eight minutes you have only enough energy left to pull on the signal line, " Take me up." It took a long time to get the shots in the early part of the summer, and I seem to have spent most of my time trying to get By EGIL WEXHOLT warm. One day I had the unpleasant experience of ripping my rubber suit on a notch on the wireview-finder. As the water suddenly floods one sleeve, your whole body jerks with the cold shock and then gradually you feel the water spreading through the rest of your All Set To Go suit. It is like somebody packing you up in ice and you feel as though your blood is freezing in your veins. There are many snags in connection with submarine filming both when using artificial light or sunlight as we did. Apart from the usual weather problems, which apply to all exterior work, the sea must not be too choppy, as the sun rays are refracted in the waves and little light will penetrate the surface. The main concern, however, is the clarity of the water. If it is muddy you are just out of luck. If it looks " quite clear " from the surface you may still be out of luck. When you go down there, you may find tiny particles floating about like dust The result? Just like filming in a snowstorm! Another time you may go down to do a sequence, having studied the water carefully through a water-glass first. You start looking along horizontally as soon as you are in a position and everything you see appears as though you were looking through jelly. This is most likely to be a concentration of plankton, and on the screen it doesn't look exactly pretty. A shoal of small fish just out of the visual range of the camera may suddenly give thousands of reflections of light through the murky water and into the camera. But nobody would believe you if you told them they were herrings, because they were never actually seen. If you have shots to do on the sea bed, look out! The moment you touch down, the finest layer of small particles go flying upwards and they may take hours to settle down again. When not actually doing swimming shots or tracking shots, I always work heavy, that is, with diving boots (about 181bs.), lead weights around my waist (lOlbs.) and an iron anchor (501bs.). I stand on an iron table or diving platform on the sea bed or sit suspended on it in midwater when required. Toward the end of the summer, I was equipped with a three-way underwater telephone, to the diving tender and other divers, and a constant air supply from the diving launch. This left my air flasks on my back for reserve, and I could remain submerged for indefinite periods, often up to one hour at a time. The camera which the late Lt.-Cdr. Jimmy Hodges had designed together with Messrs. W. Vinten and Siebe Gorman behaved beautifully all the time. Using Kodak Trix stock my exposures varied according to depth and brightness from f8 to f2 with a Wratten G15 Filter. The type of work involved was all military, and included training of divers, compass swimming, searching for mines, dropping of mines, mine demolition and experimental work.