Looking for the blue whale
The late Peter Scoones
JR : After seeing some friends go diving on a marine field course we were doing , I vowed I would learn . I joined Reading University BSAC and did all the training . They were great and very welcoming , but I could not afford a wetsuit or much of the gear and so throughout university all I did was play ‘ Octopush ’, which I really enjoyed . It was a long training time for me , but it gave me the confidence for diving , when I eventually did it at the BBC , and it became a ‘ second nature ’ kind of thing so I could concentrate on the filming work . To this day my only qualification is HSE Professional Scuba , which we all need for work .
SR : In your book you write of the ‘ translation ’ process of converting ideas into footage . Is this in essence the work of the producer ? What would happen if cameramen were just sent out with risk assessors and given a checklist by a studio-based editor ?
JR : It doesn ’ t really matter what you are called – there are all sorts of people making films in all sorts of different ways . In TV , producers usually determine the storyline and how it is filmed to keep in budget , working with larger teams of researchers , logistics people and camera crew . In Hollywood a producer is mainly someone who organises the money .
So probably the smaller the production team , the more different jobs everyone does . To answer the question directly about a single camera person ( they are not all men ) or DOP ( Director of Photography ) it would depend on how independent they were , and there are indeed many self-organising cameradirectors . However , on a diving shoot , they should never be a ‘ lone ’ camera person – you would expect several qualified and experienced people in the location team to help them , and a responsible producer would always make sure they had the right sort of safety support .
John Ruthven films an immense ocean sunfish
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