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THE CAVE
New York, NY, August 26, 2005
Having been hired by Lakeshore Entertainment to serve as part of the Karst production team, ANTHONY S. LENZO worked as second underwater camera operator/underwater systems engineer for THE CAVE which was recently in theaters nationwide.
THE CAVE is about a rescue team sent down into the world's largest cave system to try to find the spelunkers who first explored its depths. But when the group's escape route is cut off, they are hunted by the monstrous creatures that live down below.
ANTHONY S. LENZO: "The equipment we had was the Sony HDC-F950 camera in the Amphibico Amphibicam 4:4:4 HD housing connected to the cameras CCU and being recorded on an SRW 5000. I tied the camera’s communications system to an RTS system that fed an Ocean Technologies System’s (OTS) underwater transducer so that the operator through the camera’s fiber could talk to the director, to the HD Digital Imaging Engineer and to all the talent and crew while being underwater."
WES SKILES (renowned underwater director and cameraman, owner of Karst Productions, and underwater unit director and DP of the HD underwater footage for THE CAVE): "The ability to look at pictures and to talk three-way and to talk to the team underwater was really an accomplishment that had never been achieved before. In the past, we’ve had limited types of communications, really clunky, not very effective. But in this case, we were able to have direct communication to talent, direct communication to the grips, to engineering, and we were able to tell them what is about to happen, what kind of move they were going to have to make to get out of my shot, and to clarify an issue about what type of look we wanted for that picture. It was a very powerful tool for us that made an enormous difference. If you took that away, if you just put in what you normally do underwater, what is the comfortable norm for production underwater in the theatrical film business, we would have been maybe 40% as efficient as we were. So that was a modification to technique that I think provided an enormous benefit.
Not to mention, the Amphibico 4:4:4 Housing is so well balanced, and the symmetry is flawless on it’s x,y & z axis, that it allowed us to move the camera literally in any direction we wanted without having to counter it with a great deal of force. And that is absolutely an enormous advantage in creative shooting underwater. For those dramatic moves where we tilt up and twist around and pan down off of formations quickly to the action, if you are battling a housing which definitely does not have buoyancy nor trim figured out, then you are having to counter that with a tremendous amount of force, and that is exhausting and damaging to our bodies. So, in that respect, the Amphibico system made a huge difference."
To rent the Amphibicam F950 4:4:4 Housing, please click this link for further information http://www.airsealand.com/rentals/underwater/Amphibicam
To view the trailer for THE CAVE, please click on the link below:
http://www.diverite.com/Sightings/mov/VTS_02_1.mov
http://www.airsealand.com/home/
http://www.karstproductions.com/
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thecave/
http://www.airsealand.com/about/press/articles/37/
(link for American Cinematographer article about THE CAVE)
 
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