Seiko’s short film “Time to awaken your Zimbe spirit”

Posted Oct 7th, 2022 by Elisabeth

In August I was the DOP for the underwater part of a production for Seiko featuring actor Ananda Everingham.

A wonderful, but busy day! On the 12th of August I got a taxi pick up at 4.45am to go to Ao Leuk, one of the beautiful bays on Koh Tao, where we started with filming the sunrise. From there we were transported from the beach to the big boat on a long tail with all our gear and 40 people! The weather was not too bad, the visibility at Sail Rock was good and we did 3 great dives there. We filmed for 16 hours straight, including 2 night dives. It was not all easy… one dive in Tao Tong we had strong current and the actor (diver) Ananda and I were drifting away from the boat fast while taking some close up shots of his face and the watch and the boat had to come pick us up. Then after the camera crew shot a land scene we set sail to White Rock to do a night dive. Meanwhile it was past 9pm and everybody was cold and tired. The wind picked up and we jumped in the dark in the water. It was actually the best weather for the feel of the movie, however we were dropped off on the wrong dive site and couldn’t find the reef. So we made another attempt, and yes, we did it and that was a wrap!

By 11.30 pm we were back at the pier, but we managed to shoot it all in one day. What a great production team. I am sure the editing team put many more hours into the finished product, but the result is awesome. Watch it here!

It was such a pleasure to work with the true professional Ananda Everingham, all the crew from Triton and the local Koh Tao team Petcharat Nuchcy Korbuakesor.

Koh Tao News FAQs

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What was the production for?

In Thailand oftentimes big brands will have lifestyle stories made to advertise their new products. This advertisement was for a new watch that Seiko was launching on the market.

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What equipment did you use?

I used the Sony a7RII in a Nauticam housing and the 16-35mm lens and for the close ups the 90mm Sony G-Master lens. For the night dives I used 2 SUPE 12000 lumens video lights.

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How do you get these kind of jobs?

Lots of production work is word of mouth…. And sometimes having good connections in the advertisement or film making world helps too.

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