OPERATING UNDERWATER •BRADEN HAGGERTY

PLUCKY DIPPER

By Michael Goldman

Despite the obstacles she overcame as a woman of colour in the largely male-dominated field of underwater cinematography, Vancouver-based Braden Haggerty has “found a satisfying corner of the market in British Columbia” as one of the most sought-after underwater camera operators.

Haggerty started in the industry first as an extra, then in stunts, then in safety diving and as a camera assistant, and now works routinely as an underwater operator on major projects in that part of the world. She has a long list of credits, including recent TV series such as Apple TV+’s Pachinko (2022, DP Florian Hoffmeister BSC/Ante Cheng), Netflix’s Breathe (2022, DPs Jon Joffin ASC/Alicia Robbins), and Disney’s feature Peter Pan & Wendy (2022, DP Bojan Bazelli ASC)

Haggerty emphasises that none of this would have been possible without a solid base from Concordia University’s film production programme (in Montreal) and the mentorship of underwater cinematographer Pauline Heaton CSC, the first female underwater cinematographer in Canada to routinely work on major film productions.

“When I went to film school, I worked in the equipment room, and really got to learn the film cameras of that era,” Haggerty recalls. “But I also loved being in the water and had my diving certification. I wondered if I could put that together with cinematography, and a friend told me to look up Pauline when I went back home to Vancouver. She ran a company called Watervisions, and that is where I started my underwater training in the early ‘90s.” Haggerty points out that underwater cinematography has evolved significantly since those days.

“Back in ‘90s, the underwater assistant worked in the water because you pulled focus right off the housings,” she recalls. “The system I use nowadays has the operator pulling focus from the surface remotely from a cable – they don’t even need to be a diver. Instead of being hands-on the camera, the assistant is wireless at a distance.

“I was fortunate to work alongside the camera when I was assisting, and that gave me extra water time to hone my diving skills and be a part of what was happening underwater.

“Today, for the most part, when I’m in the water, there is the main cinematographer involved, and that person is working off an image sent from the underwater camera through a video cable to a calibrated monitor where they can manage their light levels and other things with the help of a DIT and gaffer. I’m in the water operating the camera and helping to coordinate putting the shots together with the talent and

Main picture: Braden Haggerty shooting on Altered Carbon, photo by Herb DeWaal. Opposite: filming on Pachinko, photo by Connor Lucas.

the underwater crew.

“I used to be a lot more involved with the lighting, as I would have to take all light meter readings. But really, for me, the biggest difference from when I started is that you now know what you have exactly – like focus and exposure – at the time of the shoot, just the same as on land, because it is all digital and you don’t have to wait for dailies to show up.”

How hard was it as a woman of colour to break into this specialised industry sector?

I have been fortunate – it has been very egalitarian for the most part. I remember early in my career, in the mid-90’s, being on Highlander, and I did not know either the director or the DP – both of whom were male. They came to me and said it was time to do the underwater sequence, and plainly said, ‘You tell us what to do.’

Underwater work is such a mystery to so many people, and they showed a lot of respect because I knew what had to be done. But you have to be confident in what you tell them. As you get more experience, and things get more complicated, you have that behind you and you speak with more confidence. I think that is where the respect came from. I’ve always gone about it with mutual respect. There may have been times, I suppose, where I was not hired, and a man was chosen instead simply because of gender. But here in Vancouver anyway, I haven’t really felt that way much.

But I do wish I had been more aggressive about promoting myself. When I talk to women in this industry, one thing I realise is we are not as good as we should be at self-promoting, even when we work really hard to show we know what we are doing. But it has changed for the better in terms of more opportunities for women in the last five years or so.”

I like to come in as sort of an underwater coordinator and help production in early meetings and come up with a plan of attack. What is the best-sized pool? What depth should the tank be? It can be hard to find tanks, so you have to figure out what body of water you can use. And then, you have to work through all the potential safety concerns.

Another big thing is working with the art department. If they don’t have a lot of experience with underwater sets, I can help guide them in a lot of very important directions, so you don’t end up with a set that doesn’t work. I’ve seen, in the past, sets made of Styrofoam or wood, which don’t sink. And certain materials can really impact visibility. You need to avoid those problems ahead of time, and it’s best to use your underwater expert to help coordinate those things. As much as possible, I try to be included in those conversations.

I’m also involved in making sure the tank is prepared correctly. We recently found a new fabric

Image – filming on Somewhere Between, photo by Herb DeWaal.

to black out a pool, for instance, and it’s been a real game-changer. It’s a fabric called Cinemattex, from Best Films in Vancouver. We love it, because it is easy to work with and does not degrade in chlorine. Originally, it was used on Airwall partitions, but I think we are the first to use it in chlorinated pools for extended periods of time.

What about camera housings in the digital era? What system do you use?

I work pretty much exclusively with a HydroFlex housing. Everyone has their own system that they like, and some build their own. For me, the HydroFlex system, from engineer/underwater cinematographer Pete Romano, works great because it will take any camera, any time, and will adapt to pretty much any lens system. It’s a bigger housing, but I like swimming with something a little bigger that has more drag in the water, because it is easier to stabilise.

I didn’t want to get into making my own housing. When you do that, as the years go by and productions get fancier, with more Anamorphic and cameras change, there are always modifications you have to make for each show. HydroFlex is already set-up to adapt the housing for multiple camera and lens combinations. Every time a new camera comes out, they build a new shelf for it, but it retains the same exterior structure.

What are your thoughts about the challenges of underwater light refraction and colour absorption?

Basically, you have a dome port and a flat port. The dome port corrects for refractions in the water, so you have to understand how those work. For the majority of the jobs I do, we like to be on the dome port to avoid distortion. As you get into longer lenses, though, you probably are going to end-up on a flat port, because your depth-of-field becomes less forgiving with the dome as the lenses get longer.

So, you can get to a point where you end-up with the flat port, and you are also accommodating for when you go to Anamorphic lenses and end-up using diopters. Often, you are on the longer lenses to start, because your wide shots are done with those. So, in those cases, you might be using the flat port more. Really, it’s just about working with those different combinations.

As far as colour absorption goes, I’m pretty-much a narrative filmmaker, and the majority of the time, we are actually in a tank rather than the open ocean, so we don’t too often get to a depth where we have a lot of colour loss due to absorption. A lot of what I do involves the bright beam of light that everyone loves coming into the water from the surface. So deep-water colour rendition issues don’t affect my work too often.

If you are a nature or documentary filmmaker and are going to greater depths, then people often like to use filters, or video camera lights, or whatever other lighting set-up you have available, but that is more for an open ocean situation.

How do you approach underwater safety challenges?

I come from a stunt background and also have a background in water safety, so all that has been really helpful in figuring-out solutions that keep everybody safe. I’m very close to the lead safety person on each job, and we always have at least two to three regular scuba safety people that we work with on typical projects.

I get very involved in terms of liaising with those people and the stunt coordinator. I’ll tell them where I want to place my camera, so they know what skills to train the actors in — like scuba or breath-hold, and so on. But we always try to keep it shallow. If something has to go deeper, we’ll train them to do scuba, but if they aren’t comfortable, we’ll bring it up shallower.

Sometimes, if the job requires deeper work, due to the regulations in British Columbia, actors are required to become certified scuba divers, so ahead of time, the production will get the talent certified. But the point is, I’ll be involved in a lot of the conversations with the stunt coordinator and dive safety personnel, so that I can give my perspective on how we can shoot what we need for the director’s vision, and they can design a protocol for safety that fits, or if we have to change things for additional safety, we’ll do that.

But safety isn’t just in the water. In terms of camera, we deal with electrical, so we always have safety meetings about that. Once, I saw a hair dryer right over the water, melting wax. The safety coordinator asked me if I thought that device was properly plugged into the interrupter system, designed to automatically shutoff electrical circuits. I wasn’t sure, so that was an alarm. I followed the extension cable, and sure enough, it was plugged into house power. If it had fallen in, it could have electrocuted people in such a small body of water. We made them change it, of course.

So, you have to be really diligent, and make sure all the safety suggestions are being followed in and out of the water. In British Columbia, the government safety board is called WorkSafeBC, and their regulations are very tight, especially where diving is concerned, so naturally, we do our best to maintain a good relationship with them.