We filmed a documentary about great white sharks off of Baja California. As we were planning this project, we knew we were going to need some type of a way for the host to talk to the camera underwater. So we investigated various intercom systems with full face masks.
What we ended up with was the OTS Ocean Technology systems. We used their masks, cables, and Aquacom mixing box at the surface. We had the host and cameraman with mask systems. These were connected to the Aquacom box at the surface so I could actually use this box to have 2 way communication to both the host and the cameraman. I was able to record a direct audio feed from the box to combine with the video later in editing.
Having underwater audio gave us a great dimension to the final program. The host was able to communicate the emotion in the moment, which is very important. I was a little nervous because on the way out to this island the captain says, “You know what, I take a lot of film crews out to this island and they're always having problems with their microphone systems.”
But those systems were not OTS. You know what, after five minutes everything was working so well! On our first cage dive, I said, “Okay this was just going to be a test dive, but let's just start rolling.” We started going through some of our lines and the host literally finished everything with time to spare. The captain was pretty impressed.
Over the three days of intense filming, things stayed smooth rolling. When you're way out there in the middle of nowhere, and you've got a crew out there with the clock ticking, it’s important that your gear is working correctly. And it did. We got ahead of schedule, finishing everything we needed to do and more. I'm glad I made the choice with OTS because according to the captain, people don’t have good experiences with the alternatives.
