Ernie’s Whale Watching: No One Gets You Closer. I shot in these water tanks all the time. In this shot, the whale was made out of green foam and painted. The backdrop was hung and lit with 3 heads. The heads on background had diffusion and blue gels. The water was sprayed form large hoses coming form camera left. We had a large wall of plastic on the right side to direct the water back into the tank. I used 2×4 small soft box as the light source on the people from camera left. The small boxes are a harder light and worked well on their faces. We used a head with a reflector from behind to light the water. The lantern had a small flash in it at 100 watt seconds. We set two fans on camera left to blow the water back at the boat up front. The actor in the back of the boat was Andy Dick. He was just starting out and loved shooting with us. This was before he joined the Groundlings. He was a blast to work with. This shot was done on a 4X5 view camera. The water tank was built with 2X6 walls and plywood. It was lined with carpet padding and 4 layers of heavy plastic. The plastic was large enough to cover the entire tank. The people were great to work with. They were getting very wet but loved it. It was very hard to keep all the electronics dry and safe with all the water. Sometimes the water would get away form us and we would have to try and I mean try and not let it run under the walls into the space of the place next door. Scary but so fun.
