Stingray: We Are About To Launch Stingray!

7 - Filming Underwater Sequences

Anderson had originally envisaged filming inside a water tank, but the cost of the specialist cameras and equipment required would have made this impractical. These scenes were ultimately filmed using a variation of a technique first used on Supercar: mounting a model ocean floor against a cyclorama and "flying" the puppets and miniature models across the set on wires from an overhead gantry while shooting the action through a thin aquarium to distort the lighting. Vegetable dye was added to the aquarium to make the water more noticeable. Several aquaria were used; constructed by a company that supplied fish tanks to London Zoo, they were re-built with thicker glass after one of them burst from the water pressure. This came at a time when the film crew had left to go for lunch, until they found that the glass was bulging and had cracked, meaning the entire tank had all the water broken out from the tank, creating a nightmare of a disaster for the film team. The move away from black and white sometimes caused problems as build-ups of algae in the aquaria caused the water to change colour. The tank of water was still being built when the series began production in June 1963. The tank could contain 2,000 gallons in water that was kept in motion by an automatic pump.

The illusion of scenes being set underwater was further enhanced by populating the aquaria with tropical fish of various sizes to create forced perspective. Food was dropped at various points around the tanks to keep the animals in shot. Often in various shots if the fish came too close to the camera, they would look like they're the size of sharks compared to the smaller fish in the background, and if the wrong species of fish were in the tank, certain fish would act as predators to other fish. If fish were fed too much, it could have led to high mortality rates. Other times the fish would multiply too quickly or grew too big compared to other fish. The feeding of the fish needed to come before the shooting of underwater scenes to make them more alive.

A disc with various portions cut out was placed in front of an overhead lamp and rotated to give the impression of light being refracted through the ocean, while the water in the aquaria was disturbed to create "rippling" effects. Wires were painted over to make them non-reflective and fans were used to simulate currents passing over puppets' hair and clothing. For the climax of the Stingray launch sequence, in which the vessel shoots out of an underwater tunnel, part of the set was painted onto the aquarium to conceal the air line that produced the accompanying rush of bubbles.

Ocean surface shots in Supercar and Fireball XL5 had been filmed in an outdoor tank, but for Stingray several tanks were built inside the studio. Among the challenges presented by these shots was the need to make the scale models appear realistic while filming on water, which cannot be miniaturised. In a 1980 interview, Derek Meddings, the series' special effects director, described the process as "designing the shot carefully [...] then shoot[ing] it at very high speed (to make movement slower and therefore seemingly vaster) and hope you didn't get huge globules of water that would give the game away." Models were controlled using wires, poles and underwater tracks and rigs. To make the water look blue, the crew first tried experimenting with various lighting effects; these proved inadequate, so the water was dyed blue instead. Various powders were used to create foam and whitewater.

Each tank incorporated an artificial horizon system whereby the back wall was built low and the tank was deliberately overfilled to create a waterfall, blurring the divide between the rim of the tank and the painted-sky backdrop. The effect was sustained by collecting the escaping water in troughs and pumping it back into the tank. To conserve studio space, some scenes were filmed in a wedge-shaped tank that was tailor-built to align with the camera's field of view. One of the effects shots in the series' opening titles shows Stingray and a pursuing Mechanical Fish leaping out of the ocean and then plunging back underwater; although this required complex manoeuvring of the wired scale models that made the shot extremely difficult to film, in the end the effects crew succeeded on the first take.

Ocean shots were filmed in tanks containing dyed water. Each tank had an artificial horizon: the back wall had a low edge and the tank was overfilled to create a waterfall over it. Despite the complexity of this shot, in which Stingray and a Mechanical Fish leap out of the sea, it was filmed in one take. Rather than film underwater scenes in water, the crew "flew" puppets and models over a dry set with an aquarium mounted between the set and the camera to distort the lighting. Small fish were added to the aquarium to create forced perspective, while air was blown across the set to make puppets' hair and clothing move as if in a current. The tanks filled with water took hours to fill, and needed to be built into the schedule of filming. Lighting the tank needed to be carefully shot due to the reflection of the water. The interior tank was constructed to a lens angle not showing the tank, and any overflowing water out of the tank was collected out of shot and pumped back into the tank.

The shot of Stingray bursting from the Marienville tunnel was an ingenious design. Stingray was pulled along wires out of the shot of the tunnel and this was carefully lined up when a concurrent release of air that ran simultaneously with Stingray's launch to look like bubbles. A matte painting of the ocean wall was lined up that was built from polystyrene that looked like it matched the rest of the ocean wall. The puppets/models would only get wet if they were actually on the water. The bottom of the model of Stingray needed to be covered with a coating so the water wouldn't seep through the bottom of the model and cause problems to the interior of the model. One particularly effective explosive scene was the destruction of Bahl Island in Emergency Marineville, where the imploding island led to huge crashing waves that soaked the cameraman in the process.

The six new cutting rooms at the new AP Films studios were equipped with Ciniloas and Films & Equipments synchronised so the final 35mm film prints could be made on. David Lane, Eric Pask, and Harry McDonald had all worked as editors on Fireball XL5, and continued to edit for Stingray. Lane had worked as an assistant editor for Supercar and then full time editor for Fireball XL5, and left AP Films. Impressed by his work, Anderson asked him back for Stingray. John Peverill supervised the sound editing, and Richard Best Jnr worked as the series' dialogue editor (both of whom had already worked on Fireball XL5). The editor for Barry Gray's music was Tony Lenny, a newcomer to AP Films who had worked as an editor in documentary films. The 35mm film prints (and cheaper 16mm prints) were processed at Key Laboratories at Finsbury Park, the episodes were comprised from 3 reels of 35mm film and 1 reel of 16mm film. The final dubbing of the episodes were undertaken at the Gate Recording Theatre in Elstree.