And you just had to know the man behind the lens was the late, great Wes Skiles.
It's photos like these that makes you understand how daring and ridiculously talented Wes truly was.
No, it's not a still from Sanctum - although James Cameron's new diving film was inspired by a near-catastrophic expedition by the man who took these pictures, Wes C Skiles.
This is a real photograph from one of the most mysterious environments in the world. You could visit Abaco Island, in the Bahamas, and have no idea that beneath you lies this vast network of caves, accessible by as many as a thousand 'blue holes' - submerged vertical caves peppered with entrances to this forbidding domain.
Exploring these passages is the diving equivalent of climbing K2 - you've got to be exceptionally well trained and well prepared. Even then, safety is no guarantee; Wes C Skiles died during a dive last summer.
TREADING water in scuba gear in the dead of night while waiting for a 3D camera to be fixed, actor Richard Roxburgh weighed up the benefits of 3D technology.
The 3D element made our lives just a little more difficult," says Roxburgh of his experience on the Gold Coast Movie World studio set of action thriller Sanctum.
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Roxburgh and fellow cast members Rhys Wakefield, Ioan Gruffudd, Alice Parkinson and Dan Wyllie went to work on an elaborate, lifelike set. It was manufactured, but that didn't make facing 1000 litres of water while scaling its walls in scuba gear any easier.
Roxburgh plays an uncompromising cave explorer leading a group of divers through a deadly flooded underground caving system. They fight raging water, deadly terrain and rising panic as they search for an escape route to the sea.
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"3D was a nightmare," he says. "Its camera is famously slow, and because it is new technology, it's fraught with issues. For instance, the camera runs very hot, and when it breaks down, it has to be rebooted and that takes time.
"Consequently the actors were paddling in water the whole time in wetsuits and we were freezing while waiting for the camera to be fixed.
"Also we had to shoot all the underwater scenes at night. I still don't know why. It was just one of those weird things. A lot of the time actors don't ask questions, you just do it."
Roxburgh had only a resort-holiday diving course in Fiji under his weighted belt when he took on Sanctum between two other major acting gigs.
NOTE: This entry has been cross-posted from MarkGlesne.com
Last Friday I had the privilege of being asked by Universal Pictures to attend a screening the new film SANCTUM (which is out today) at the historic Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. I was also honored to be asked to join cast and crew the next day at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons for a Q&A round table of sorts.
I’ve been anxiously awaiting the film’s release since I first caught wind of it last summer. So you can imagine my excitement to be asked to view it a week before its release, as well as meet with those involved in its creation.
There aren’t too many movies centered around scuba diving, so this was certainly a movie you couldn’t pay me to miss.
If you have yet to see the trailer, check it out...
And here’s the official synopsis:
The 3D action-thriller Sanctum, from executive producer James Cameron, follows a team of underwater cave divers on a treacherous expedition to the largest, most beautiful and least accessible cave system on Earth. When a tropical storm forces them deep into the caverns, they must fight raging water, deadly terrain and creeping panic as they search for an unknown escape route to the sea.
Master diver Frank McGuire (Richard Roxburgh) has explored the South Pacific’s Esa-ala Caves for months. But when his exit is cut off in a flash flood, Frank’s team—including 17-year-old son Josh (Rhys Wakefield) and financier Carl Hurley (Ioan Gruffudd)—are forced to radically alter plans. With dwindling supplies, the crew must navigate an underwater labyrinth to make it out. Soon, they are confronted with the unavoidable question: Can they survive, or will they be trapped forever?
Shot on location off the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, Sanctum employs 3-D photography techniques Cameron developed to lens Avatar. Designed to operate in extreme environments, the technology used to shoot the action-thriller will bring audiences on a breathless journey across plunging cliffs and into the furthest reaches of our subterranean world.
I have to admit, I was a bit worried going into the film.
The movie is quite obviously centered around cave diving — extreme cave diving, no less. So I suppose I was worried the movie would be over-produced. That is, worried Hollywood would take a dive story inspired by true events and… well… make it too Hollywood.
That wasn’t the case. This is a movie scuba divers of all stripes and specialties will enjoy. Now, if you’re looking for in-depth character and plot development — you’re looking in the wrong crevice. SANCTUM makes no bones about being a non-stop, action-adventure flick. And I prefer movies (of all genres) that don’t attempt to be something they’re not.
I was also incredibly pleased with the way in which 3D technology was incorporated into the film. Again, not over-done. I don’t need a barrage of things jumping off the screen at me while trying to enjoy the movie’s experience. The 3D effect also added quite appropriately to the underwater effect experienced by divers.
As for the storyline, no spoilers here. You’re going to have to experience that for yourself. However, I will say this: At one point I caught myself literally holding my breath. When you see it, I think you’ll know which point. The closest I’ve come to the sort of diving depicted in the movie was scuba diving Riviera Maya cenotes with my wife. SANCTUM will take you to a whole new depth.
I returned home around 11:30 Friday evening, well after my wife and son had gone to sleep. I couldn’t help but smile as I used the illumination from my iPhone to navigate the long, dark, narrow hallway that leads to the master bedroom.
WARNING: Divers may experience residual effects.
As I mentioned, I was also asked to join members of the cast and crew for a press conference Q&A the following day. I was stoked to meet up and speak with Jeff from Psycho Solo Diver. After getting a feel for those in attendance, I can all but guarantee we were the only scuba divers in attendance.
From the actors, I was interested to hear about receiving their Open Water PADI certifications and then moving immediately into re-breather training. Talk about moving from one end of the spectrum to the other in no time at all. I asked Ioan specifically about the cast’s dive prep and schedule during the last four weeks of filming — when all the underwater scenes were shot.
He explained first that they filmed underwater only at night. This is, after all, a movie about diving where the sun doesn’t shine. He also described the two phases of topside dive prep they had to undergo before each scene could be shot. The first was cast and crew huddled around a miniature model of the set. Each person was shown where they would be, where the safety divers (3-4 per actor) would reside, and where the cameras would be set. The second phase consisted of cast and crew walking through the motions in a parking lot, or “blocking the scene”, as he called it. (The set was terrific, by the way. If you’d like to see more about its construction, I recommend watching NatGeo’s special, The Real Sanctum.)
From my own experience, this isn’t at all unlike what military forces do before certain missions. Proper planning often consists of drawing tactics in the sand, walking them out, and then executing — each exercise getting larger in the process.
Thankfully, the cast didn’t describe any sort of particularly serious accidents during the underwater (or topside) training or filming. It sounds like dive coordinator John Garvin ran a tight ship — enforcing the time-honored tradition of “Plan your dive, dive your plan.”
James Cameron discussed with us how the project was actually four years in the making, as the film’s financing fell through during the economic downturn and took time to be re-established. I spoke one-on-one with Andrew Wight after the round table and asked about Wes Skiles’ involvement in the film. As painful as the recent passing of Wes must have been for Andrew, he appeared relieved to be asked a — shall I say — more in-depth question about the film. Don’t get me wrong, the press did was it was called to do. Questions were asked about past and future films, production considerations, and technical difficulties. But I’m not press. I’m a member of the dive community. I saw the film as a diver, not a movie critic.
Andrew and I discussed how Wes was involved early on — after all, he was there for the true events that inspired the project — but was not specifically involved in the filming of the movie. He had hoped Wes would be able to be more involved, but as we all know, Wes was out there doing what he loved until the day he passed.
Were Wes still alive today, I think it’s fair to say he’s be quite pleased with SANCTUM. A film that depicts the sort of mentality required to push yourself into Earth’s previously unseen cavities and cave systems.
A film about true bravery, tough choices… and even tougher decisions.
In this special episode of Talking Scuba, host Bob Shoemaker speaks with legendary cave diver, underwater cinematographer, and independent filmmaker Jill Heinerth.
Jill shares some of her amazing cave diving stories, fond memories of the late Wes Skiles, and insight from work on underwater films such as The Cave and James Cameron’s upcoming film, Sanctum.
The four-time Academy Award nominee passed away at his home in England last weekend.
He was 81 years young.
British director Peter Yates literally submerged himself in his work when he was making the movie blockbuster “The Deep” in Bermuda in the summer of 1976.
The man who described himself as a “barely passable swimmer” before production began on the adaptation of Peter Benchley’s thriller about vacationers who stumble upon two hidden treasures on Bermuda’s reefs — Spanish gold and World War Two-era morphine — ended up diving more than 600 times during the course of the shoot.
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Released in the summer of 1977 — and the second highest-grossing film of that year after “Star Wars” –”The Deep” was successfully marketed as a follow-up of sorts to Steven Spielberg’s phenomenally successful 1975 adaptation of Mr. Benchley’s “Jaws.”
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The film was shot on location in Bermuda and in the British Virgin Islands.
“I thought I could sit topside on a boat watching television monitors of what the camera was shooting below,” said Mr. Yates (pictured at left) in an interview at the time of the film’s release. “This is one picture made out of total ignorance.
“We took it for granted that we’d all do a little diving. But none of my cast had ever done any scuba diving before.
“I expected to use doubles a great deal more than I did. The more my cast dived, the more they wanted to do the dangerous work themselves.
“Robert Shaw was the first to volunteer to do his own diving. Then Nolte and Jacqueline really threw themselves into the spirit of the thing.
The folks over at AquaViews have a very interesting post about James Cameron's love for scuba diving and how that love translated into certain graphic elements of his huge box office hit, Avatar.
It’s a pretty well known fact that Canadian film director, producer and screenwriter- James Cameron has a love for the Ocean and of Space & Alien life. One of the most well known Celebrity Scuba Divers, his love for these two subjects is apparent in most of his movies right from the ‘Alien’ series, ‘Titanic’, ‘The Abyss’, ‘Volcanoes of the Deep Sea’ and is even clearly seen in his latest blockbuster and superhit movie ‘Avatar’. Now you’re thinking, you get the Alien bit about ‘Avatar’, but you don’t see anything to do with the Ocean, right? Well if you look closely, Cameron’s influence of Scuba diving and love of the sea with it’s fascinating and unique life is deeply embedded in the movie.
The actor admits he was a nervous wreck at having to swim in shark infested waters off the Bora Bora coast for a stunt in the movie but managed to get through it without being eaten.
“I grew up around a lake so I was uncomfortable with what might be lurking in the water,” explains Vaughn. “There were sharks and we swam with them.
“It’s like anything in life. Once you get around something, you go, ‘Oh, this is kinda cool.’ But, originally, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going in the ocean with a shark!’”
If you have yet to see it, Couples Retreat is worth the cost of admission.
The film is Dark Tide, described as a thriller centered on a dive instructor who returns to deep waters after a near-fatal encounter with a Great White shark.
Halle Berry has signed up to 'Dark Tide'.
The Hollywood star - who is remembered for her bikini scene in the James Bond film 'Die Another Day' -is likely to strip down to swimwear again for her role as a diving instructor in the upcoming thriller due to be directed by 'The Wire' star Clark Johnson.
In the movie, the 43-year-old actress's character has to face her fears and return to the sea after a near-fatal run in with a great white shark.
Filming of the movie - which was written by Amy Sorlie - is due to start in South Africa in the next three-months and will be released sometime next year.
The Navy will be naming a ship after Carl Brashear, the first African American to become a U.S. Navy Master Diver.
A new cargo ship will bear the name of the Navy's first black deep-sea diver.
Carl Brashear joined the Navy in 1948 when he was 17 years old. 1 of 6 children born to a sharecropper in Kentucky, he dreamed of becoming a Navy diver. No blacks were Navy divers at the time.
Brashear remained determined and made his way into the service, eventually retiring as a Master Chief Petty Officer in 1979.
He died at age 75 in 2006.
If you remember, Brashear was depicted by actor Cuba Gooding Jr. in the film "Men of Honor".
And you just had to know the man behind the lens was the late, great Wes Skiles. 
