As many of you I guess already know, I have done most of my underwater filming over the years filming marinelife in open water. Much of that filming was for Earth Touch, the South African based production house that used to commission me to collect underwater footage for their archives.
In between those shoots often I was, and still am, engaged to film for TV commercials that require an underwater scene. I thought for today's post I could show you a couple of TVCs (Television Commercials) and let you behind the scenes.
This first one was filmed in a swimming pool at a navy base about three hours from Bangkok. It was a scene for a TVC about the smartwatch Fitbit. Often I am asked to shoot close-up, underwater shots of a model or an actor in a controlled environment, and then they will use the footage to edit using CGI techniques in to the ocean. This TVC is a great example of it. We wanted to film our talent encountering a Blue Whale. So the director simply lined a swimming pool with black plastic and the superimposed the footage on to a stock clip of a Blue Whale that was filmed in Sri Lanka. Here are some screen shots from the final TVC and the video below.
Video Source:
So let's have a look at the reality of shooting this.... Below are some images of the swimming pool where we filmed the underwater scene, the camera and housing I used and the body double that was on standby for the model in case there were any problems underwater.
Next TVC was for a mobile phone called the IQOO. The director wanted me to film a free diver struggling to go beyond his personal best on a deep dive and retrieve a light that he had allowed to sink to the sea floor. First they asked me to do a location scout to find a suitable location. I travelled to the island of Koh Lanta in Krabi province of South Thailand. From there I joined a dive boat out to a group of islands called Koh Haa Yai and did 3 dives for them shooting as much as I could to give them some options. Here are some screen shots from the scout....
So this commission was quite tricky as they required their free-diver to descend as deep as possible - beyond 20m. This is a very demanding endeavour and finding a double that would match the surface actor. The production company were at a loss and starting to panic as the shooting date drew closer and closer. I introduced them to my old friend Paul, an awesome free-diver and underwater hunter based in Phuket. Here's my good friend Paul in his element....:)
He was approved immediately for the role and what followed was a very tough day of filming in deep water with strong currents and poor visibility. Paul was amazing and after hours of up and down we finally got the shots the director was wanting. Here is the director's cut which means it is longer than the publicly released TVC....
IQOO // Hardcore [1min35] :: EDITOR & COLORIST from AARON on Vimeo.
Filming for TVC'c is super fun because I love the challenge of getting exactly the shot that the director has envisioned for his masterpiece of advertising..:)I hope you found this interesting.