Dive Bar by Garth Brooks
“Garth Brooks, directed his latest music video ‘Dive Bar’ working with executive producer Robert Deaton, whom I have worked with for more than 20 years and count as a friend. Also country singer Blake Shelton joined Garth for this project, as the song was a duet between these two singing legends.”
“It was a really good giggle of an idea for the name of this song, and a lot of fun to shoot. After a long search we chose the La Mirada Aquatics Center in California and a location shoot at a Country and Western Bar in Longbeach California. The pool location was critical, due to our needs regarding depth and size. La Mirada facility was perfect. It was easy to access with a large amount of gear as we were able to drive right into the pool area with our trucks, etc. We had to build a stage and also accommodate a 75ft underwater green screen.”
“There are a lot of considerations to take into account when shooting underwater scenes like this. For one, there is water clarity. Now for some work, murky water serves the story. This certainly applies if you’re shooting in a lake or in the ocean. But in a pool situation, like ‘Dive Bar’ where water clarity is really important, it’s critical to be conscious of every element that is added to the water. Water temperature is also important because we have talent in the water for many hours, even in a 3mm wetsuit people will get cold after some time.”
“All of the dive gear must be clean and the talent wardrobe should be washed in fresh water without detergent. Any set elements, props or equipment also need to be thoroughly cleaned. You can’t even use sandbags, but stainless steel ball bearing shot bags are ideal. It's amazing how fast the water can cloud up and it doesn't take much to screw things up.”
“The other thing about working in water, is it’s slow. It's just the nature of it. Also there is safety to be considered, especially when using lights above and underwater, as we were. Above water, normal land lights use 208/120V power which needs to be kept dry. They also have large GFI units, so that if anything hits the water it shuts down power immediately. Underwater lights are also very safe. They have to be! Hyderoflex has done a really great job with their underwater lighting equipment to make them safe, providing you still run the power through a GFI.”
“Then above all else, there is crew safety. Especially when you have underwater sets in place. Talent is often in clothing, which makes it very hard to swim. And often they are not necessarily ‘water’ people, as was the case with Blake’s band members. The other aspect, is that they need to be weighted and be supplied air from scuba air supply between takes, etc. That means adequate safety divers need to be in place or things can fall apart really quickly underwater.”
“The other factor is the scuba system itself. Some training is required to put people on a scuba regulator. Even in fairly shallow water if someone holds their breath on scuba and ascends to the surface, they risk air embolism. This is due to the air being delivered at ambient pressure as opposed to surface pressure. Even at 5ft deep, this can be a problem. So again it's important to have qualified scuba instructors in place.”
“Because we had all of Garth’s band members playing underwater in scuba gear, I needed to have every band member become scuba certified. Because of the number of ‘land’ people we had in the water for this shoot, I had to bring on eight safety divers as part of the crew. And that was on top of the six underwater grips, four under water electricians and a first and second underwater AC.”
“Above on land, I also had a first and second AC, focus pulling using a WCU-4 remote control to an Alexa Mini that was in a Nauticam underwater housing. I had a lot to shoot in just one night. There were all of the underwater shots of the band playing and then there were all of the bubbles coming out of Garth and Blake’s mouth, and off his guitar, that we had strip in at post production.”
“I also own a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K and the latest Nauticam underwater housing. So I thought, why don’t we just shoot all of the bubble scenes ourselves during the pre-light day and night, which was going to save me a heap of time during the shoot.”
“I love the Pocket Camera for so many reasons. But number one, is because it matches the Alexa perfectly. Because I was shooting in Blackmagic RAW on the Pocket Camera, it is very easy to match all of the footage shot on ARRI RAW.”
“There is probably a little more saturation to begin with using Blackmagic RAW, or ARRI Log has less saturation; which every way you want to look at it. But all of these things go into DaVinci Resolve anyway, so it’s super easy to balance them out. So with Blackmagic RAW and ARRI RAW you’re always in the right window when shooting with both of these cameras. I have proven this time and time again. Not just with the underwater shooting, but when I am shooting on land too.”
“The second thing I love about the Blackmagic Pocket Camera, is it’s very easy and quick for me to set up and we had a pretty limited with the amount of time. If I hadn’t decided to take this little Blackmagic camera with me, I would have burned up a lot more time shooting solely on the Alexa.”
“You have to get really good separation on the bubbles from the background, because it’s shot on black. So the Pocket Camera’s dynamic range plays a big part in making that happen. You’re putting everything into back light with all of the heat that comes from doing that. You've got to get those bubbles to pop right out, so they gets pretty hot!”
“So being able to find the right balance between exposure and not losing the details on the bubbles becomes the challenge. But the Blackmagic Pocket Camera kept everything, really, really sharp, which is surprising given we were underwater and shooting through a dome port. But all of those elements were beautiful in the end.”
“Garth also has his own video team that shoots behind the scenes footage for his online channel. So Garth’s personnel DP was with us shooting the on land BTS of the production using his Sony A7S and a GoPro for some of the underwater scenes from the setup.”
“Because we had the Blackmagic Pocket Camera with me, meant that I could also shoot a lot more underwater footage for Garth’s BTS. To reload and re-power the Alexa is a 20 minute operation. So while we were down with the Alexa reload, I would just keep shooting with the Blackmagic Pocket Camera. And when I was back shooting on the A camera, I would then hand off the Pocket Camera to my first AC, who shot the rest of the BTS underwater footage.”
“You can easily pick what was shot on the Blackmagic Pocket Camera and the Alexa, because they pretty much look the same, whereas the GoPro has its highlights blown out. If you look at where the shot flares off in the BTS scenes, you can see just how much the image falls apart with a GoPro.”
“Working with Garth was such a pleasure, a really nice man. Robert and Garth were thrilled with the project as a whole and certainly hope we can work together again down the road.”
