first workflow underwater

C

cmus

Active member
Here is a link to a little piece I put together from my first foray underwater with my new HVX. Hit me with whatever feedback you have. The fooage is of a turtle from a dive in Puako on the Big Island of Hawaii.

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~musburge/Turtle.mov

I am most proud of myself for figuring out the workflow - quite a new challenge for me with this new gear. Briefly, here are the technical details of what I did which might be useful for other newbies out there (believe me, it took a lot of playing around for me to figure out exactly how to make this pretty mediocre movie).

Shot to P2 in 720p30 with some shots overcranked to 60 fps for slo-mo. Edited in Avid Media Composer. Exported as a Quicktime Reference file. Compressed for web via Sorenson Squeeze.

Thanks for any and all feedback.

Aloha,
cmus
 
Vincent -

Scuba.

I am currently resolving a serious dispute with the vendor of this housing but will reply with a full review of the housing and the company that distributes it as soon as I am finished dealing with them. Sorry to be cryptic.

More to follow...

cmus
 
When you say work flow under water what do you mean?
I am guessing you still had to go above water to dump your P2 cards, if you
figured a way to do that underwater I will be really impressed!
Did you figure out a way to switch frame rates while underwater with the housing you are using?
Footage looks nice.
 
Brian -

My HVX, computer, and RAID array are all waterproof, so I did all the filming, dumping, editing, and compressing underwater on a single breath hold. The new vesions of all these fun tools will be announced at NAB.

But seriously, as far as changing frame rates it is done via scene files - accessible with this housing.

Thanks for the feedback.

Aloha,
cmus
 
Looks beautiful. Do you have some underwater plastic bubble studio or something? Do you also upload to the net underwater?
 
White balancing underwater is done exactly the same as it is done topside - point at something white and press the wb button.

Scene files I used for these shots - nothing special. I shot with the factory default scene 1 setting and then an identical scene file setting with the only change being a 60 fps frame rate which I stored in scene file 2. I will be experimenting more with these in the future.

Thanks to all for looking.

Aloha,
Cmus
 
Cmus,
Turtles are my thing. Been working on a HD docmentary on the Kemp's Ridley (most endangered in the world) off the coast of northeast Mexico for a couple of years. Everything we shot was in HDCAM with a couple of Amphibico housings. But, I'm going back in a couple months to shoot some more underwater sequences of hatchlings entering the Gulf of Mexico. I plan to use my HVX since the budget for the project is running thin. What housing did you use? I'd love to know soon since I need to decide a direction very soon.

Also, I'd really like to see a larger screen version of your video. Perhaps shorter but larger frame size. Just to see how the video camera holds up underwater.
Jim
 
Jim -

Sounds like a great project on the Ridleys. I'll look forward to seeing it. I have never shot HDCAM underwater, so I don't have the ability to compare to that setup, but needless to say this camera is an unbelievable upgrade to the VX2000 and Amphibico setup I was using previously. I have had a couple of problems relating to my housing. When I finish working them out with the vendor, I will post a full review of it here.
I don't have the footage at this computer, but I will try to post a screen grab or 2 at full res for you to see this weekend.
As far as switching to an HVX due to budget, I don't know your budget, but my system has now run into about the 20,000 range. It might be cheaper for you to hire a cameraman with this system rather than purchase all the equipment. Shouldn't be hard to find people willing & able to join you on such a great project.

More later. Aloha,
Cmus
 
Hey cmus,
I have all the camera gear already in house. It's just the housing I'm after at this point. Most likely I will rent the housing. However, I have another documentary set to start production in the fall on the Right Whales so I will need a housing for several weeks then as well. It may be a situation where I just take the leap and buy a housing now in order to get used to it before the extended shoot later this year.

The HDCAMs were great. I hired Tom Campbell and his crew out of Santa Barbara. NatGeo ranks him as one of the ten best and I have to agree. His specialty is Great Whites (without a cage)... so turtles nibbling at his hair was no big deal. You have probably seen his work. Tom was the first to film Great Whites launching themselves out of the water as they killed unsuspecting seals. It's amazing stuff. If I'm not mistaken the shot in the Mellow Yellow commercial where the guy is riding the Great White as it jumps out of the water is his.

Anyway, when you get to the point where you can say, I sure would like to know which housing you are using and how it faired. Ups and downs.

Good luck on your project as well.
Jim
 
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