"The Choice" Movie Documentary

THE CHOICE

The documentary movie about the Italian Extreme Diver and Explorer Luigi Casati

Shot by digitalmovie’s filming crew over 2 different explorations back in 2016 and 2017, “The Choice” documentary movie focuses on adventurous Luigi Casati’s exploration of Italy’s deepest cave at Sorgente del Gorgazzo.

Beside the exploration itself in its technical and physical challenges, the documentary goes deep into the many different decisions Gigi faced during such an extreme mission as exploring this deep underwater cave. From physical training to self-awareness under extreme conditions to medical research we covered a wide range of topics getting to know more about one of the most successful underwater explorers.

“As for the interview I wanted the image to nicely match the relaxed and informal atmosphere typical of many friendly chats with Gigi. Therefore, I chose to arrange for a sit-down interview in the warm room at the local Bar, Alla Sorgente, right next to the water entrance. In order to craft the image I was after, I had the scene lit with warm tones and some subject-driven lighting techniques with the Chimera medium sized VideoPro lightbank as a key-light and a Chimera pancake finely positioned to serve both as a backlight and ambient light for the background. Two HMIs from K5600lighitng served brightly into my modifiers completing light control precisely driven by 40° Lighttools EggCrates.” – Matteo Mescalchin

Filming Gigi for “The Choice” Documentary Movie is just great, as no matter how you light the scene, it feels totally natural. This is something unique in his attitude as he is consistently authentic. There’s no false element in how he takes care of dive equipment or during his meditations.

Lighting is an essential and highly demanding part of the filming process, whether on land or in a cave. Andrea filmed various scenes using on-camera lights, headlights, as well as lights positioned by other team divers for selected off camera effects.

Underwater cinematographer Andrea Mescalchin before the shoot. Andrea did several dives filming different angles over the shooting weeks. Andrea filmed different angles in the cave down to -110 mt. From that depth, Luigi went on ‘solo’ carrying body cameras with special housing from carbonarm.com

Luigi Casati has been recently Awarded with the prestigious Golden Trident 2018 by International Academy of Underwater Sciences and Techniques

Framing for a shot during the pre-dive operations. Several divers take different shifts in order to get all equipments positioned along the cave. Getting ‘ready to dive’ is something that can take up to a couple of hours including all safety procedures, depending on the dive plan.

Filming crew at work capturing audio effects and video from the small boat. Getting the right angle sometimes requires unconventional camera rigging… luckily the calm water has played on our side providing smooth camera movements. Water temperature is typically around 8°C and a single dive can be 6 hours long.