THE VIDEO ZONE: Plan Your Film - Film Your Plan

We have all heard it a hundred times before - “Plan Your Dive - Dive Your Plan” - and it’s the same when it comes to filming your latest diving epic! Once you have decided on your dive location and dive buddy you need to sit and plan your film and you need to create a storyline. A storyline is the written outline of what your underwater film will show the audience. Creating a storyline is simple, just sit down and write the story that you want to film. Without a storyline, a film is nothing more than a compilation of random shots strung together. This will likely bore the audience very quickly.

The biggest trick is to keep it simple! Use in-camera edits to cut down on post production time. All that means is you just shoot the film as the story unfolds. Go through each part of your storyline and mentally visualise each scene and how long it will last before moving onto the next scene. Once you have created your storyline you then need to create a shot list on a waterproof dive slate that you can take with you on the dive as this gives you a visual reminder of what you need to film. Each shot will need a description and length. For example: Diver 1 descending shot line (shoot from below for silhouette against surface) - 10 seconds. You will also need to think about framing each shot. All initial shots of a production need to be ‘establishing’ shots. This may be a marina with the dive boat in shot. Generally it is termed as a ‘wide establishing shot’. A good rule of thumb for filming a scene is Long Shot (LS) - Medium Shot (MS) - Close Up (CU) - Medium Shot (MS) - Long Shot (LS). All that said, if there is one thing I have learnt when filming to scripts on underwater productions it is that you will need to be flexible.

Basic Storyline Example: Diving the Kyarra Wreck - Swanage, Dorset

On Surface:
Fade up from black - Divers arrive at Pier
Divers board and load dive boat
Boat leaves dock and divers kit up
Boat arrives at dive site
Divers prepare to dive
Divers enter water
Underwater:
Divers descend shot line
Divers arrive on Kyarra wreck
Divers explore wreck
Divers find conger eel
Divers explore wreck
Divers ascend
Divers make safety stop
Surface
On Surface:
Divers climbing aboard
Crew ready’s for departure
Divers de-rig equipment
Closing shots of horizon - fade to black
Credits

Top Tip - KEEP IT SIMPLE TO START WITH!

For more information about H20 Films, click here.

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