The Making: Equilibrium of Diving

Production Anctedotes, BTS, and the development process of a documentary I directed.

The highly talented Director of Photography, Luis Felipe Mameri, capturing some amazing shots for the documentary.

When we went out to the Florida Keys to shoot our scuba-diving portion of this documentary neither me or the DP were certified in Scuba-Diving, and we were just going to wing it with the Resort-Style dive and get what we can. But because of weather our trip got extended and we had enough time to get certified while simultaneously getting all the shots we needed for the underwater portion of the documentary.

Achievements

Grays Reef Film Festival (2017)

Official Selection

Savannah, GA

Heritage Film Festival (2018)

Official Selection

Largo, Maryland

Specs

Film Type: Poetic Documentary

Runtime: 4 minutes 54 seconds

Completion Date: January 27, 2017

Country of Origin: United States

Country of Filming: United States

Film Language: English

Shooting Format: Digital

Aspect Ration: 16 x 9

Resolution: 1920×1080

This project was pitched in my Environmental Filmmaking class and with the help of the resources at the Savannah College of Art and Design was able to come to life and eventually get recognition at multiple film festivals.

Development Process

Treatment

The freedom of diving brings such joy and adrenaline rush to people. The fast paced high fall feeling of sky diving, and the slow paced and submerged feeling from scuba diving. But do these different types of diving’s have any similarities? Two polar opposites, with so many differences, can be viewed as visually similar from my perspective.

An adventure film with a poetic narration of the feelings you get when you dive, whether it is scuba diving or skydiving. Combining the differences, they both have into one film. But where do these polar opposites meet? They meet at sea level. Water.

The detached feeling you get when you sky dive can’t be compared to the attached feeling you get when you are scuba diving, but they can both be shown visually, and they can be married by a poetic narration. Visually showing sky diving first, starting from the highs of the sky, having a wider perspective of nature and Earth, the fast paced of everything flashing before your eyes. Then the environmental feeling you get when you are submerged in water and surrounded the aquatic eco system, floating in water slowly in an enclosed environment, the lowest of the low.

Combining both of these visuals with a split screen, after showing them separately, and watching the differences of both at one time, trying to catch the small similarities they have. Surrounded by blue, the adrenaline, and how in both people are horizontally floating whether in water or air. Both visuals of the two different types of diving will be combined into one experience.

For the ending the split screens will be combined into one and show the equilibrium of where sky diving meets scuba diving, a person floating on top of the water, looking up at the sky and then down at the bottom of the sea. Where sky meets land on water, the horizon.

BTS Photos

Overall we both had to do two Scuba Dives and two Sky Dives to get all the shots that we needed. On the way we unexpectedly learned and got certified by Padi on Open Water Diving. This project really taught me the love I have for traveling to new and different places to shoot the natural beauty each unique place has. It taught me that I am meant to work in the world of non-fiction entertainment.

Final Product