Forget everything you think you know about filmmaking!
This is the first lesson (of many) I received from the underwater world.
By Olivier Burgeois
I never thought of myself as Kubrick or Scorcese, but I have been filming on dry land professionally for many years, making feature films, television documentaries or commercials, so I naively imagined that I had mastered the art of cinematography a little. WRONG! When I started shooting underwater... Crash bang! Everything I thought I knew, like composition, lighting, color or movement, became completely irrelevant and most of my shots were a disaster. So, I had to start all over again from scratch I'll give you the short version: I experimented, I failed (a lot), I also tore my hair out a few times and I dug deep to find solutions to the puzzle of producing good underwater images...
Generally, this is where everyone drops out and says... yeah, we already know the end of story: "You found the magic formula!" NO! I did not. Instead, I learned to question everything constantly. What oceanographic parameters affect underwater filmmaking? Water temperature, tides, currents, etc ... The first step was therefore to learn to read the ocean like an open book and to understand how much of an impact this could have on the result of an underwater shot. The second biggest challenge in underwater filming is approaching marine animals.
It's a common misconception that everything underwater is slow. In reality, everything moves very quickly, and you have less than two seconds to adjust your camera settings. Knowledge of species and their behavior is therefore essential to the success of underwater shots. For example, it is much easier to film a turtle when it is feeding on the corals, busy eating, it is not very concerned about you. Another example is a manta ray in the middle of a "cleaning session" which is too busy for your presence to really disturb it, increasing your chances of capturing a good image.
Jacques Cousteau said: “The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish.” And this is where the 3rd step begins (which was actually the first for me), become the best diver possible in order to have perfect buoyancy, because underwater, there are no tripods, dolly, cranes, drones, steadicams or other tools that make the life of filmmakers so much easier. The only tool you really have at your disposal is your body, which, moreover, evolves in an environment that is not naturally its own. So, having complete control over your movements, mastering your ability to change depth in an instant and avoiding unnecessary bubbles (to become a fish) requires training and hard work. Last but not least, post-production. Here too, you need to completely review your workflow.
Back on the surface, reviewing your footage is often a pleasant moment but can also turn into a nightmare: Stability is not there, another diver has entered the camera's field of view, your white balance was not adapted to the depth, etc. So with my friend and master of post-production Franck Meyer we made a slightly crazy bet: WHAT IF we could produce BBC or National Geographic-quality underwater images a mid-range camera and traditional diving equipment? I guess, we made it, because after a few months our footage was integrated into productions like Netflix or BBC, we even signed contracts with international tourism boards, major diving companies and global organizations such as IUCN. Regarding post-production, I would say that the most difficult part was color grading. Indeed, underwater, the colors are absorbed from the first meter, I'll let you imagine at 30 or 40 meters. So we had to find a way to restore the colors, a system that includes multiple calibration passes.. Well yes, in the end we finally found the magic formula :) by completely rethinking my workflow in order to overcome the many challenges of underwater cinematography: from shooting to post-production.
