Wide Eye Productions just wrapped up a shoot in the South Pacific on board an oceanographic research vessel. The shoot documented a study of the Samoan Passage, a deep underwater canyon and “choke point” in the Pacific Ocean. University of Washington Oceanographer Matthew Alford contributed this report about the voyage. You can read more of his Samoan Passage blog, here.
Inspired by a viral Youtube video series called “Will it Blend?,” my sister-in-law Jane Boatman Geller inspired the analogous “Will it crush?” this summer in Nantucket. Only a few months later, we filmed the first episode of Crush TV.
The pressure at the bottom of the sea is over 500 times what it is at the surface. Even getting the camera and lighting to survive these massive pressures takes planning – we did it in a semi-ghetto fashion (as can be seen in the photos) for the first time – but it basically worked. The light didn’t quite work on the first cast, but otherwise it was great. We’ll post a video soon to show the great first results – a simple styrofoam cup. Stay tuned for soda cans, a phone, and a styrofoam wig head.
We think this is a pretty intuitive and fun way to get people more involved with ocean research and some of its challenges – as well as to learn about the ocean. We aim to broaden the concept to allow kids to suggest items to be crushed, and to guess what will happen to them.
