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Filming the Feature Film, “BREATHE!”
For 7 years, Tom has been on the cutting edge of HD filmmaking. Most recently, Tom has been shooting award-winning documentaries for the Save Our Seas Foundation. However, in a diversion from wildlife filming Tom has spent the past few months working as DP on a HD feature film that has an unusual twist: he was personally involved in the incident about which the film is based.
As a dinner party guest recounted a harrowing story of death-defying adventure, director Don Murray (who has a Star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame for his myriad theatrical accomplishments) immediately sensed the material would make for a remarkable feature film. One year later, he had acquired independent financing, and the HD Production was being filmed at locations on both coasts of the United States.
The story is based on actual events experienced by award-winning marine cinematographer, Tom Campbell, who relates that he never expected to survive the ordeal, let alone find himself one day behind the camera as DP reliving the harrowing incident.
One October morning Tom along with his then wife, Cindy, and their best friend, Bruce, set off in their cabin-cruiser from Santa Barbara, California for a three-day lobster diving trip. As they enter a familiar cave on the first dive, an unexpected giant swell hits, and the huge surge of water sweeps them deep inside the caverns into an area they’ve never explored.
After nearly an hour - now running low on air, injured and hypothermic - the trio miraculously discover a small chamber filled with trapped stale air. Sixteen hours later, realizing that no outside rescue would ever occur, they decide that Tom, a former member of the USMC’s elite Force Recon and a military-trained diver, would be their best hope of survival. Sick from vertigo due to a broken eardrum, with tanks low on air, Tom ventures out alone. Disorientated in the silt-laden darkness, he has one final chance to find the cave exit. As his tank runs dry, Tom sees a faint glow. He sucks the last breath of air from the tank, and ascends towards what he hopes is the cave opening to the surface... but the adventure doesn't stop there.
It did not take long for Tom Campbell (who has been on the cutting edge of HD production for nearly a decade) to convince the director to film the production entirely in Hi-Definition. "Murray not only wanted to create a very realistic look with the picture", emphasizes Tom, "but he was also blown away by the quality that HD can provide".
The production took place at two different cave locations in Florida and, additionally, in Santa Barbara, the Channel Islands and Catalina Island in California. For the water sequences, Campbell's team utilized Inspiration Closed-Circuit Rebreathers (instead of traditional SCUBA gear), which let them remain underwater for up to 5 hours at a time. They also used a fiber optic cable system from camera to surface for picture monitoring. Using pre-set white balances for different water conditions, Campbell was able to establish a near perfect color match for all the sequences.
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