Long Day - sub dude

From about noon till about 1:45am, with time out to eat and take a 15 minute walk in the rain to get milk, I spent the day in front of my computer reading a script and making a visual effects/playback breakdown. The script is 106 pages and in there, there's 216 visual effects and playback sequences. I wrote about six and a half pages of notes and will finish up the rest tomorrow morning.

Because the script deals with submarines, I also did some research on Russian subs, American subs, and even the victoria class Canadian submarines. For some reason, with the exception of the recent tragedy (a man dying in Canadian sub a few months ago), I've never been able to imagine Canada with more than a set of tug boats. Perhaps it's because I live in the central part of Canada and do not see "big ships" or the military vessels every day.

As an interesting note, I found that getting information on subs that were stationed anywhere but the US was really easy. Another little piece of trivia is that most submarines can only go as deep as 400 m. Some of the newer ones can go to 600 m (like the Russian Akula class). So if you see a movie or TV show where the sub is 2 km or more down, chances are some writer didn't do his homework. Then again maybe 400 - 600 m is the depth a sub can safely dive.

Which brings me to the question "Why is it that submarine movies always have..."

1. the sub diving to and past crush depths where things (like rivets) start popping out of the walls, pipes break, glass gauges smash and everyone has to wonder if the ship will hold together.

2. someone always dies in the room that was sealed because of the leak (where the rivets were).

3. There's always someone else that has to lock the door on the previous guy (see 2). Also the guy locking the door usually breaks down in tears while watching his friend get drowned through the little window in the door or at the very least touches the glass window in the door with his hand.

4. something wrong with the oxygen (or lack of).

5. a scene where everyone has to be quiet so the enemy sub or destroyer will float by without detecting them.

6. There are no women in submarines that are not just passengers (with the exception of "Up Periscope"). In "Hunt for Red October" there's only one woman in the whole movie, Caroline Ryan, played by Gates McFadden.

7. submarines with dim lighting (with the exception of "the Spy who Loved Me" - I seem to recall the shower scene being well lit).

I thought my eyes were red after that ordeal (the work on the script not the shower scene) so I went to the mirror to look. That's when I got the idea to shoot my eyeball. The things I do for you guys. The on camera flash was too far away from the lens so I took my external flash and held it up to my eye next to the camera lens. Eighty-eight pictures later... volia! (see picture above). Although it's too bad the flash is so apparent in the shot. It would be nice to get that small Nikon ring flash....