Case study: QYSEA FIFISH ZEN‑V × Cinematographer Jake Pollock

The shot that had to mean everything

On the first day the idea arrived, it looked deceptively simple: a bag leaves Zhang Ziyi’s hand at a riverside dock and slips beneath the surface. The audience doesn’t yet know who she really is, what has happened, or what’s inside that bag. Cinematographer Jake Pollock wanted the camera to become the bag, an underwater crane‑down that sinks with it, a point‑of‑view that would plant curiosity in the audience and, with it, the film’s mood.

He pitched the notion to director Peter Chan. The response was instantaneous: eyes lit up. If the camera could truly inhabit the bag’s POV, steady, graceful, and repeatable, the opening of She’s Got No Name would not just begin the story; it would define it.

The classic methods, and why they weren’t enough

Pulling off a move like that is one of cinema’s oldest challenges. A weighted crane from above could force a camera under, but buoyancy fights precision, and small changes in current or lift turn “elegant” into “unruly.” A diver‑operator can hand‑hold a housing, but human bodies negotiate gravity and water at different speeds than lenses and story beats. Weight belts, breath, lift, drift, each take becomes a new negotiation. The risk isn’t only safety or time. It’s the erosion of the exactness that the shot demanded.

Jake needed a different kind of partner underwater, one that could behave like a technocrane, not a swimmer.

Discovering a new kind of tool

Early in prep, Jake’s equipment manager introduced him to a prototype of QYSEA’s FIFISH ZEN‑V, a cinema‑ready underwater ROV capable of carrying professional camera payloads and repeating pre‑planned moves with smooth, programmable control. The promise was simple: crane‑level motion, below the surface, without a crane or a diver.

The production pivoted to a deep studio tank, about five meters, where water clarity, lighting, and safety could be controlled. Jake and his second‑unit DP took the ZEN‑V for a full day of tests with an ARRI Alexa 35, cycling through lenses from 50mm down to 21mm to find a perspective that felt intimate at the dock yet allowed a long, unbroken descent. They mapped the pathway and speed, learned how thruster vectors influenced pan and tilt, and discovered where to start the move so that performance and camera could breathe together.

By the end of the day, a pattern emerged: the ZEN‑V would hit its marks again and again. The start felt inevitable; the landing was where it needed to be. The move had the quiet confidence of a crane. Only, it was happening underwater.

On the day: a choreography above and below the surface

When it came time to shoot, the set was divided into two lines of attention. On one side of the tank, Jake stood with Zhang Ziyi and a monitor, watching the throw that triggered everything. On the far side, the A‑camera operator worked shoulder‑to‑shoulder with the ROV pilot; the 1st AC rode focus and exposure over a clean SDI feed.

“Once we worked out the pathway,” Jake recalls, “it was so repeatable you wouldn’t realize it was underwater.” The bag left the frame, the camera followed, calmly, patiently, and always along the same falling arc. Take after take, the move returned to its start and end beats like a metronome.

Embracing the water’s fingerprint

The tank water, of course, was crystal clear. Real rivers rarely are. During tests, the team noticed something unexpectedly cinematic: reverse thrust from the ZEN‑V’s propellers pushed a faint ripple and shimmer through the water column. Not turbulence that ruined the take, but texture, just enough to break up the pristine clarity and suggest the swirl and breath of a river. The actress remained legible; the world felt more real. A small, physical cue became a finishing grace note.

What the film needed, what the tool enabled

The opening shot worked. It didn’t call attention to its own difficulty; it simply carried the audience into the mystery with a single, assured motion. In trailers and conversations, it became an emblem for the movie, a hero shot that says, without exposition, you are already in over your head.

Behind that simplicity was a very practical calculus. The ZEN‑V gave the production:

• The accuracy to land a frame where performance and story required it

• The repeatability of syncing actor timing and camera choreography takes after each take

• The safety and speed of a crane‑like move without the overhead of cranes or diver‑operators

Looking forward: choosing real water when it matters

Jake has shot underwater in pools, in open oceans, and on blue stages with actors on wires. Each has its place. But when a shot calls for composed, exacting motion in real water, FIFISH ZEN‑V turns “maybe we shouldn’t” into “let’s see how far we can go.” It reduces the reliance on simulated water and heavy CGI and invites filmmakers to put the camera back where audiences feel it most, in the water, for real.

The challenge now isn’t whether the move can be done. It’s creative: finding tanks and stages large enough for more ambitious paths, designing sequences that carry the audience through water with the same fluency we expect on land, and discovering the next hero shot that an underwater technocrane can make inevitable.

Credits

Director: Peter Chan

Cinematographer: Jake Pollock

Lead Actor: Zhang Ziyi

Underwater System: QYSEA FIFISH ZEN‑V

Considering underwater for your next project?

QYSEA’s cinema‑grade ROVs bring programmable, repeatable, crane‑like motion to real water, safely and efficiently, so your story can speak in a single, unforgettable move