Taming the Wild Ocean

Since the advent of the moving picture, it has been innate in the soul of cinematographers to push the boundaries of the latest camera technologies. DP D.J. Roller, a certified diver having submerged in the waters surrounding all seven continents and founder of Liquid Pictures, is no anomaly as he continues to push the durability limits of a Fujinon glass-outfitted Cameron/Pace Fusion 3D camera system.

Eight years ago, Roller started working with Jim Cameron and Vince Pace using the Cameron/Pace Fusion system—the modification of two tandem, customized Sony HDC-F950 Cine Alta HD cameras. Roller''s knowledge of that system, matched with his robust list of credits on underwater shoots, made him the perfect candidate for the task of capturing nautical wildlife in a new way for the IMAX 3D film, Wild Ocean.

"I've done a lot of projects with the Navy and submarines and undersea laboratories and habitats,” Roller says. “So that coupled with the fact that I've been a diver for a long time and have done a few Cameron films below water—the diversity of skills that I had kept me working with (Cameron and Pace) on many projects along the way."

For his latest adventure, Roller says the Fusion camera gave him the opportunity to shoot underwater like never before. Directed by the Oscar-nominated duo of Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas (Pulse: a STOMP Odyssey) the 40-minute movie documents the massive sardine runs up some of South Africa's most pristine coastline.

"The location where we were shooting was along what is called the ‘Wild Coast'' in South Africa,” Roller says. “That part of the ocean is a lot like how the oceans were a long time ago, as you don't have a lot of fisheries like you do in other parts of the world. Subsequently it is extremely remote. So a lot of the time you're going down small rivers and along very shallow waters over big surf to get out to the locations—places we couldn't take a larger boat to.

“So a traditional IMAX housing that weighs over 1,500lbs. would have been quite expensive and quite a challenge just to get the equipment to the location. The Cameron/Pace system allowed us to use small boats to negotiate heavy surf and big seas to dive in parts of the ocean and capture subjects we wouldn't have been able to capture in the past.”

For Wild Ocean, Roller was the underwater director of photography—taking the cameras, along with a first AC, down to the necessary depths to capture their subjects. They also had up to three safety divers for dangerous situations or to keep the animal subjects at a distance.

"If you imagine a bunch of divers in the water in a tight huddle with a bunch of sharks and dolphins around, they'll tend to come closer,” Roller says. “But if you fan out a little bit, they'll tend to keep their distance. So we didn't get bumped into much by birds or dolphins or sharks—at times I wanted them to keep their distance a bit from a photographic standpoint so things weren't too close to the lens for the IMAX screen."

Roller and the Cameron/Pace Fusion camera would do upwards of 20 to 25 dives in a day, doing a lot of short dives of between 5 minutes to 35 minutes before moving along to another location.

While some have remarked on the weight of the camera system and the handling of it, Roller says all of the equipment performed beautifully. In fact, just the nature of the location and the pounding they endured—sometimes traversing waves as high as 10ft. just to get out past the surf—no matter how good boat captains are, Roller says it''s inevitable to break a wave and come pounding down so violently that complete camera system will take some hits. Thus, they did a lot in prep for the cameras to endure that environment, but to Roller's assurance, all the gear held up really great on it's own.

“Versus the projects I have done in the past, this project was a testament to how much rigor you can put this newer 3D technology through and have it hold up,” Roller says.

Underwater footage for Wild Ocean was recorded to a Sony SR1 deck, which can record either 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 HD—but a little-known secret is that it also has the capability to record 3D in 4:2:2. By recording dual 4:2:2 onto a single piece of tape such as Roller did, the tape maxed at a 26 minute load due to the footage being recorded at a higher speed. Essentially when Roller and crew hit the water, they knew they had specific constraints on recording time for the 1920x1080 SR format.

The underwater housing for the camera and lenses was custom built by Vince Pace and gives the shooter full control of the system with focus, iris, zoom, and convergence controls. With a left eye and a right eye—the two cameras and lenses are all driven by motors to provide synchronous focus, iris, and zooms—which works in a very hyper-finite fashion due to the need for everything line up in three dimensions.

“[With the Cameron/Pace Fusion camera,] we have the ability to link the convergence to the focus so if you change your focus say from 5ft. to 10ft. the point of convergence and space go along with that,” Roller says. “And we can also drive that separately—so if we want to focus on one spot and converge in a different place we could do that.”

Roller had the cameras fitted with Fujinon HA10X5B-W50 HD cine-style zoom lenses. He has used Fuji lenses for a few years and says he tends to gravitate to that manufacturer because the lenses seem to perform really well in the underwater environment.

One of the projects Roller had used the camera setup before was for James Cameron's Expedition: Bismarck where he put Fujinon zoom lenses on the Sony cameras, so he went into Wild Ocean knowing that he could rely on the technology. He also says that the South Africa shoot was the first production needing a serious amount of diving in real, natural environments—not a set or a tank—and, in turn, really put the gear through the paces in a Scuba-type of camera configuration. Over the course of the production the system endured between 200 to 250 dives.

Roller also used Fujinon glass in Antarctica in 1999, where he compared many different lens types in a high-contrast underwater situation, similar to South Africa. He found that the complex sunlight situation—with ice that is very dark below the surface—the contrast properties of Fuji lenses proved exceptional. While comparing lenses in such a way may be seen as splitting hairs to some, to Roller says that to him it definitely has high worth.

“At the end of the day, I think that everyone in what we all do, we're always out for that unachievable, perfect image,” Roller says. “Those lenses are extremely fast lenses and we were generally on that—our normal working depth was between 30ft. to 50ft. We had plenty of ambient light—although it was a bit darker than on the surface.”

By nature the 5-50mm lenses gave Roller a wider field of view to deal with the varying conditions underwater. At times it was very murky; while other days, it was almost a Bahamas-type of clear. But the wide-angle lenses allowed them to get closer to the subjects, thus having less-articulate matter in the water column between the camera and the subject, which helped them get a sharper picture and work very close when needed.

“I think that lens combination, the two 5-50mm lenses, definitely gave us a big advantage to get a little wider,” Roller says. “The extra-wide lens was a big advantage as far as field of view—especially with the footage going to IMAX.”

Reed Smoot, ASC, did all of the top-water cinematography for the project. There were two first units working very great distances apart--not necessarily on the surface and underwater right next to each other. Thus, the movie took on it's own look for above and below water sequences, with both cinematographers getting together during post to do the color grading of the film to create the final look. Roller found the team approach helpful when creating transitions from above to below water footage—naturally working towards something that complimented both DP's work.

The color grade was done at Fotokem, Burbank, Calif., using the Quantel iQ Pablo system equipped with the new 3D features package that the U.K.-based manufacturer unveiled at NAB in 2007.

Wild Ocean premieres March 4, 2008 at the GSCA Film Expo in London, then continues to roll-out world wide through the rest of the year.