South Devon Based DP, Director & Film-Maker

Ray: A Life Underwater

A rogue with an eye for salvage – and the ladies – Ray: A Life Underwater is an affectionate portrait of one man’s deep sea diving career, told through his extraordinary collection of marine artefacts.

Like a modern-day pirate, 75-year-old Ray Ives has been scouring the seabed for treasure his whole life.

The former commercial diver has plundered the deep for over fifty years, bringing to the surface anything that glittered — even gold.

In a shipping container near the water, Ray tends his museum of cannon, bottles, bells, swords, portholes and diving gear.

To this day, he still takes to the water in a 1900s diving suit.

Behind the scenes stills by Neil Hope:

Director Amanda Bluglass helps to prepare Ray

Ray sitting idle in his standard gear, whilst my father helps to pump the air

Zacuto z-finder: making it a breeze to shoot in harsh sunlight

This entry was posted on August 31, 2011. It was filed under Blog, Documentaries, Video Production.

  • Kevin Childs

    I would just like to say how well you have captured Ray’s personality on film. I have been his son in law for 18 years and known Ray for 21.
    He is a great character, a “one off”.

    Excellent short film.

  • Danny

    Many thanks Kevin

  • Eric A. Williams

    This is a beautiful film and I would like to ask you a some questions about how you made it. For the aerials did you shoot from a fixed wing plane? What kind and did you shoot from a window or door? I will contact you through your email with more questions.
    Again, this is absolutely superb.

  • Danny

    Many thanks Eric, the aerials were filmed by Peter Thompson who filmed the BBC Coast series aerials. They use a helicopter with a Cineflex V14 gyro stabilised system, its mounted out the side of a helicopter. Hope that helps.

  • Scott

    Danny that was great!

    I love the way the DSLR is a great dynamic tool and a great way of filming in respect to depth of field. May I ask what prime lense you used and after editing techniques?

    Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

  • Danny

    Thanks Scott, I mainly used Sigma 30mm f1.4, Canon 50mm f1.4 and Canon 70-200mm f4 lenses, the film was edited and graded on Final Cut Pro.

  • http://www.wix.com/pickeringdevin/dp-web-v1 Devin Pickering

    I just wanted to say what an amazing job you did. I loved how you shot it, and also really impressed with how the sigma and the canon lenses looked, who needs L glass anyway? How far did you stop down to get that sharpness?

    your compositions combined with the pacing of the cut really worked, I think you told his story perfectly.

  • Danny

    Many thanks Devin!!! L glass can be a little too sharp at times – I did use a L series 70-200 f4 in places, mostly the closeups e.g. of the coins in Ray’s hand – I used 2 stops down from the default in the picture profile settings :-)

  • Peter Marcou

    Ray was my diving supervisor when I met him in Coulport, Scotland back in 1990. I was amazed to see this video. A friend of mine had posted this on FaceBook. He is as I remember him. If there is any way I could contact him, just to say hi, I would be very grateful. He is truly a very large rough cut diamond and would love to give him thanks for all the help and advise he gave me, including my nickname.

  • Danny

    Hi Peter, I’ll send you details on how to get hold of him :-)

  • Adrian Beard

    Danny,

    Really really nice film. Loved the pacing and the music works really well.

    I used to work in shipwreck salvage (not as a diver) and seeing Ray’s container full of the artefacts he’s collected over the years, brought it all flooding back – very evocative. Almost makes me want to forget the film-making and get back into it again!

    I’ve often thought that salvage would be a great subject for a film – so many anecdotes and stories from the crew and especially the divers.

    I’m going to send the link to some of the people I used to work with.

    Thanks for sharing the film.


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