Filming Underwater

For my thriller, I wanted a shot of my victim underwater. The purpose of the shot is to make the thriller opening more exciting with a variety of shots and to show my victim lifeless underwater. However, filming underwater at the actual location (as shown on left) was impractical for several reasons. Firstly, the water was extremely cold meaning myself and the actor wouldn't be able to stay in there for long. Also, the lighting underwater because it is so murky, is very poor. This meant that the footage would be terrible and the lighting would be too low for the NIKON D3200 to record high quality film. The solution was to film in a tank/swimming pool where lighting is far better and alter the shot in post-production to make it look it actually happened in the murky lake.





For the underwater footage, organisation was important. Many local swimming pools said no! The main reason for this was because, filming isn't generally permitted in public pools. Also, a lot of pools have stringent policies on entering the pool with non-swimwear clothing. I rang up a large number of swimming pools, utilising Google to find local pools.












Literally all the pools in Harrow, of which there aren't many, said no to the filming.

I decided to extend my search to Brent and eventually found a place that were willing to allow the filming as long as it was after hours. The place is VALE FARM SPORTS CENTRE. I filmed at 10pm and got a variety of shots using the GOPRO HD BLACK EDITION.

A problem with filming was actually trying to swim underwater, whilst keeping the camera stable under the victim. The camera itself is designed to float as a safety precaution incase it is dropped underwater, which meant I couldn't leave the camera on the swimming pool floor. I managed to get the shot in the end, so it all worked out, but it wasn't the easiest shot to film.