Fighter Pilot: Operation red flag / production notes
Behind the Scenes: Lighting, filming and exploring the coolest, hottest, deepest, most alien places on the planet
More Light than Ever. Before he’d even wrapped Titanica, his 1993 deep-sea experience, Stephen Low (whose credits include a dozen other giant screen films) wanted to do a film on hydrothermal vents. “We knew the most interesting thing in the deep ocean was not a bunch of wrecks, but the vents," he says, "easily one of the most important discoveries in the history of exploration.”
It took nearly ten years to bring Volcanoes of the Deep Sea to the screen, but it was worth the wait to do it right. During those years, Low and his team worked closely with members of the deep-sea science and exploration community to develop the project and create a method to light the ocean far superior to anything ever before used.
It was a unique partnership with Rutgers University and leading deep-sea scientists working at the institution that ultimately made the venture possible. Rutgers biologist Dr. Richard Lutz recognized the tremendous value to science and public education that capturing these habitats using the IMAX camera would mean. Although scientists videotape vents on a regular basis as part of their research, no one had been able to light and record these habitats at any significant resolution and scale. In 1999, with a series of dives scheduled at a deep-sea vent site Lutz was studying, the group saw a window of opportunity…and took the plunge.
With some funding in place from the National Science Foundation and investment by The Stephen Low Company, the team began shooting in late 1999, testing a new lighting array and camera configuration on the deep sea submersible Alvin. The test took place during an expedition to a deep-sea vent site known as 9°North, located in the Pacific in 9,000 feet of water. Filming during four dives to the bottom proved that not only was a giant-screen film going to be possible, it was going to be breathtaking. “It was great,” says Alvin pilot Bruce Strickrott. “Here we are with all these lights and we can see twice as far as normal.”
Alexander Low, a producer on the project enthused that the footage “exceeded the team’s expectations.” The dives also revealed new findings chronicled in National Geographic Magazine (February 2003 and October 2000) and American Scientist. Volcanoes of the Deep Sea was on its way to becoming a reality.
With the help of Rutgers University, major funding from the National Science Foundation, and support from science centers, the project amassed a $7.0 Million USD budget (plus an extra million dollars worth of dive time on the submersible Alvin) and production began in earnest.
One of the keys to getting the film right was lighting — no surprise, given that the deep ocean is pitch black.
Titanica pioneered the use of HMI lights underwater, offering the best views yet of the ocean floor. After screening a pre-release version, Titanic director James Cameron was impressed enough to use the same type of array to help light his Oscar-winning epic. Cameron was to become an early investor in Volcanoes of the Deep Sea.
As impressive as Titanica was, Volcanoes of the Deep Sea shines even more light — 4,400 watts — out much farther into the water.
Fast forward to August 4, 2001. The research vessel Atlantis pulls out of the Azores. Owned by the US Navy and operated by Woods Hole, the 274-foot (83 meter) Atlantis can chug halfway around the world before needing a break. It carries the film production crew, scientists, and Alvin, modified to accommodate the 200-pound IMAX camera. Also along on the month-long cruise are six members of the film’s education outreach program — a testament to the importance of education in the project.
Flying Blind. Alvin normally operates with one pilot and two scientific observers. But for Volcanoes of the Deep Sea the IMAX camera sits in the pilot’s seat. The pilot steers from the starboard observer’s seat while watching several video feeds.
Chief Alvin pilot BLee Williams, who has nearly 300 dives under his belt, says the experience was disorienting at first. “I wasn't using all my normal senses… What didn't work was my idea to stand behind the camera and cameraman, lean over them both and look past the IMAX lens out the pilot's viewport… I quickly went back to looking out the side window and watching the video.”
Not only is the pilot flying blind, the cinematographer has to work with no assistant. “It’s a bit improvisational. On Alvin we have to do our own loading. So we’re down there shooting and loading and pulling focus and f-stops all at once — which is a real challenge,” explains Low.
Director of Photographer William Reeve took the first dive, and over the next 17 he and Low would alternate. “Bill’s a very good filmmaker in his own right so there was actually a bit of competition between us — and between the pilots too,” says Low. He says that he and Reeve worked so closely with the Alvin pilots you could call them co-cinematographers.
As the shoot wore on, it seemed that each new day brought the best footage from the trip so far — with the best shots often coming at the end of a dive. Williams recalls a particularly memorable dive: “As we flew forward Bill kept saying, ‘Don't stop. More! Forward!’ So I thought it must be looking good, but I couldn’t see what he was seeing. I had to recalculate where I was going, and what I had seen of the chimneys in front of us and below us — and keep flying until he ran out of film. I think it was the last shot of the day.”
Despite bumping into a few walls and coming to within a yard of 752° Fahrenheit (400° Celsius) vent fluids, Alvin escaped the shoots unscathed, except for the odd little mishap. “Occasionally the booms with the lights would bump into things and that would stretch some of the components — we’d have to fix them at night,” says Strickrott.
Bringing Home the Deep. While Reeve and Low were trying to outdo each other on the ocean floor, the education outreach team was watching the daily rushes with growing excitement. Kristen Kusek is the team’s coordinator, and you’d be hard-pressed to imagine someone better qualified for the job: she holds Masters' degrees in both marine science and journalism.
Kusek’s enthusiasm comes through loud and clear. “Deep ocean hydrothermal vent communities represent the last true frontier on Earth,” she says, “and they offer a unique opportunity for educators to engage students and the public in an oasis of interdisciplinary topics: biology, geology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, science communication, deep ocean film technology and more.”
While Stephen Low has always tried to do the impossible with his films, he’s also always been about much more than just thrills and chills.
“The reason the story is so good is that the locations are really spectacular if you can throw enough light out far enough,” says Low. “And that’s the starting point to explore what’s going on down there, which is fantastic. They are fabulous gardens that few people have ever seen. Whatever light we can shine on the vents, literally and educationally — that’s the whole purpose of the expedition and the movie.”
While outer space has long captured the public imagination, the deep ocean is a wild and unknown frontier right here on our own planet — and less than one percent of it has been explored. Lutz says Volcanoes of the Deep Sea “gives us a vision of the deep that we’ve never had before — truly it’s a Hubble telescope for inner space.”
