Returning to the surface. As the sub comes up from the ocean floor, ABC cameraman Chris Nickless is waiting to capture the moment with his underwater camera.
(ABC News)More Photos
The Florida-based undersea research group, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, is in the midst of a month-long mission with scientists scouring the sea floor in search of corals and sponges that will yield new chemical compounds for medical research. An ABC News crew joined them for one of these undersea missions, packing cameras and correspondent Jeffrey Kofman into the submersible.
The following is Kofman's explanation of how they created an underwater TV studio.
Q: Just how do you shoot a 2½-minute news story at the bottom of the sea?
Kofman: With a lot of planning and a lot of cameras.
You could never accuse ABC Miami engineering whiz Joe Biscotti and cameramen Al Durruthy and Chris Nickless of traveling light.
They lugged 15 cases of gear onto a charter fishing boat that took us to the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution's research vessel R/V Seward Johnson, 15 miles off the Fort Lauderdale coast.
Once the gear was transferred onto the Seward Johnson, Al with his camera and Chris with the sound gear, began shooting the preparations for the day's dive with producer Arash Ghadishah and me.
Meanwhile, Joe disappeared. He and Don Liberatore, the pilot of the underwater submersible Johnson-Sea-Link II clambered inside and began converting the sub into an underwater TV studio.
Because there is only room for one visitor -- and as correspondent I was lucky enough to get that seat -- the underwater camera work would have to be done without a cameraman.
That is is why Joe brought along two tiny Toshiba Lipstick Cameras with 4mm lenses (they really are the size of a lipstick tube). One was attached with a suction cup to the Plexiglas bubble of the front compartment of the submersible, its lens locked on a wide shot showing pilot Don and me. The second camera was attached to the wall of the rear compartment, where it could capture scientist Amy Wright at work. Each of us would be outfitted with a wireless microphone. I was given a remote control to turn the front camera on and off.
