DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2025 ISSUE 410

marine life caught on film, including live sharks. An ambitious sci-fi spectacle such as this was rarely ever seen, but despite all that, Universal Pictures was unable to recoup its budget. If you would like more information about diving pioneers, contact the Historical Diving Society Australia-Pacific by email at: info@historicaldivingsociety.com.au or visit our website www.historicaldivingsociety.com.au or Facebook https://m.facebook.com/groups/120950924589540/

Based at Nassau in the Bahamas, John and his brother George managed to produce some amazing still life images of the corals and underwater scenery. So good were their results, they decided to try a movie camera, as the greatest boom industry of that time was the ‘movies’ albeit in its infancy in that year, 1913. Bankers and film companies were all interested in his movie expedition and soon Williamson got a new camera chamber, or ‘photosphere’ made and fitted it with deep sea mercury vapour lamps. However, in Nassau, the crystal clear tropical waters provided astonishingly natural illumination, as marine life paraded past the movie camera. It was not long before news of the Williamson’s amazing underwater images came to the attention of the nascent film-making industry in Hollywood. In typically trail-blazing Hollywood film-making style, Universal Pictures contacted the Williamsons in 1913 and by 1914 had begun filming Jules Verne’s 1869 epic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The two-year old company spared no expense filming their underwater epic silent-film, on location in the Bahamas, even building a life-size mock-up of a submarine. The film had a budget of $500,000, which was an astronomical sum in those days. The Williamson’s ‘photosphere’ facilitated the filming of amazing underwater scenes, as the film’s cast of divers trudged past the camera, in old copper helmets fitted with self-contained breathing apparatus. This black and white, ground-breaking motion picture is still revered today, because it took theatre-goers to a whole new level of entertainment. The film was very well-received by audiences. For most, it was their first time witnessing

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DIVE LOG Australasia #410 - February‘25