A haunted house at the bottom of a lake? This is the original concept of the genre film

The Deep House

, and has made it a tour de force to be discovered in theaters since Wednesday. It must be said that the duo of French directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo did things well and surrounded themselves well: a 9-meter-deep pool at the Lites studios in Belgium, the cinematographer Jacques Ballard specializing in shots underwater and already at work on

Le Chant du Loup

, a couple of professional divers to double the main actors Camille Rowe and James Jagger, and a complete and clever camera system (drone, GoPro, manual camera) which allows to multiply the points of view in

found footage

mode

.

If they are not, literally, wet, the directors have had a few sweats, as is often the case with underwater shoots.

Isn't that true James Cameron?

"Abyss", "Titanic", "Avatar" ... James Cameron the unsinkable

The Abuse

, do you know? This is the nickname given by part of the crew, and even printed on t-shirts, to the movie

The Abyss

because of its nightmarish filming. With 40% of the film underwater, director James Cameron had, as usual, seen the big picture. As big as using the tank of an abandoned nuclear power station and filling its 13 meters deep with 28 million liters of water. A technical challenge, and several advances for the 7th Art, "but also physical and emotional," comments producer Gale Anne Hurd in the documentary

Under Pressure: The Making of The Abyss

, cited by the Allociné site.

Water leaks, power cuts, hair bleached by chlorine, submerged several hours a day, tensions with James Cameron ... The shooting has chained the incidents, not helped by the behavior and the perfectionism of the director, to the point that the actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had a panic attack, which her sidekick Ed Harris almost drowned. James Cameron also put his life in danger. "I knew it would be a difficult shoot, but even I had no idea how much," he explained, before adding: "I never want to go through this again."

Except that the sequel will make him lie, with

Titanic

of course, but also soon

Avatar 2

which will explore the underwater world of Pandora.

With already a feat: Kate Winslet broke the freediving record in Hollywood with 7 minutes and 14 seconds, against 6 minutes for Tom Cruise in

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

.

James Bond, “47 Meters Down”… The Underwater Stage in London

James Cameron is perhaps the best known, the most "specialist", of the directors to have shot underwater, but he is not the only one, also with Tim Burton on

Dark Shadows

and

Miss Peregrine

, Jean-Pierre Jeunet on

Alien, the Resurrection

, without forgetting James Bond and especially the shark films. As the journalist François Cau details in a special report in the magazine

Mad Movies

, underwater filming has developed with a specialization and professionalization of certain cinematographers, most of them self-taught and resourceful. Like Jacques Ballard on

The Deep House

, but also Mike Valentine (several James Bond,

The Lost City of Z

), Denis Lagrange (

Point Break

2015,

Dark Tide

), Simon Christidis (

The Reef

,

Godzilla vs Kong

), etc.

There is even a studio entirely dedicated to underwater filming at Pinewood Studios near London: the Underwater Stage, open since 2005, with water at 30 ° C, UV filtered to be completely transparent and thus facilitate the work of teams.

Several blockbusters, series and clips use it, and we recommend the diptych

47 Meters Down

and its shark cage.

"Underwater", "Aquaman", "The Shape of Water" ... Turn without getting wet

"I was almost never in the water except in the morning in my shower," reveals Vincent Cassel about the

aptly

named

Underwater

, released in early 2020. Yet this monster movie takes place well underwater, at best. in the shelter of a submarine base, at worst in a wetsuit in the depths. "We filmed in a dry place, everything was created in post-production and I was the first to be surprised by the result", specifies the actor. If you are no doubt familiar with the American night technique, which consists of shooting outdoor scenes that are supposed to take place at night by day, there is an equivalent for underwater scenes, called “dry for wet”.

Green background, filters, lights, smoke, slow motion… A whole range of effects are available to simulate water in post-production, as in

The Shape of Water

by Guillermo Del Toro, or

Aquaman

by James Wan.

If the purists tick in front of this technique and the rendering on the screen, it allows more security and also to make the impossible possible.

Because Aquaman has neither a bottle nor a diving suit, and it is hard to see Jason Momoa going in apnea for 2:30.

Well, unless the film was directed by James Cameron.

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“Oxygen”, “Buried”, “Cube”… If you're claustrophobic, you'll love these movies (no)

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Must-see shark films (after "Les Dents de la mer")

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