American Cinematographer - May 2010 - 44

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Wonders of the Sea

Top left: A cloud of krill. Bottom left: Filming sea nettles in Monterey Bay, Calif. Above: For shots taken from the back of boats, camera capsules were placed in Torpedoes that were attached to the stern with a long leash, which allowed the filmmakers to avoid the boat’s wake while shooting.

nodded. It was incredible — I felt like we knew each other.” The production’s main film camera was the Arri 435, which was used on boats, in helicopters and on land. An extensively modified Arri 2-B was used in the tiny Birdy Fly helicopters that could hover above whales and other large mammals without startling them. Much of the above-water work was done with a 435 on a small crane with a Thetys, a rugged, gyrostabilized head designed and built by the production. Because whales and other mammals are less threatened by smaller boats, the Thetys rig was often put in an inflatable Zodiac. Operating the Thetys was cinematographer Luc Drion, who
44 May 2010

used a variety of Angenieux zoom lenses, including the Optimo 1780mm, the Optimo 24-290mm and an HR 25-250mm. Drion recalls that his job involved a blend of patience, guesswork and reactivity. As example, he cites the shot of a huge shark leaping out of the ocean, capturing a bull seal in its jaws. “We spent a lot of time on that shot, and the game was to follow a seal, hoping it would be eaten by a shark,” he says. “That shot was the result of stubbornness, ours and the production’s! We had to throw away 20 or 30 1,000-foot loads, unprocessed. We didn’t get the shark the first year, so we went back in the second year and got it. Then they
American Cinematographer

said they wanted a close-up for the edit, so we went back the following year and we got the shot! “The work was a mixture of joy and frustration,” he continues. “It was fantastic at certain moments, and completely depressing at others. Sometimes I just missed an extraordinary shot because I was a little too tight, and I was only too tight because I’d zoomed in for no particular reason right before the whale jumped.” Many of the most spectacular jumps were shot at 50 or 100 fps. Drion used an Easy Look unit with the video assist to simulate the slow-motion playback. Although the land-based footage was shot in 3-perf Super 35mm, less predictable material was shot in 4-perf to allow for reframing in post. Drion also remembers moments of bliss: “You’re there with hundreds of dolphins jumping around you, and you’ve been looking for this shot for two years. You’ve already seen dolphin cavalcades, but they didn’t have the same energy, the same sea, the same everything! There’s a kind of miraculous synchronicity, and that’s also due to the directors, who wanted this shot and sent you back to the same spot the following year because you didn’t get what they needed the first year. It’s stubborn work at every level.” Drion was also the operator for a

American Cinematographer - May 2010

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