Feature Documentary

Jago: A Life Underwater

Client: Underdog Films

Jago: A Life Underwater is a multi-award winning documentary, which tells the incredible story of Rohani, known as Jago (master), an 80-year-old Bajau diver who has spent a lifetime hunting in the darkest waters of the Togian Islands, for several minutes at a time.

Working closely with director James Reed from the very early stages of development, Robin produced titles and various visual effects throughout the film. The embedded subtitles were meticulously designed to flow with Rohani’s delivery, and became an important artistic element of the storytelling.

Bullet-time

Together, we also worked to develop and produce high impact bullet-time vfx shots to freeze significant moments in the film, and capture underwater hunting moments as never seen before. We designed and built an adjustable rig that would house 30 GoPros and have the flexibility to quickly transform in order to change the angle of view - as tight as a complete circle, which allowed us to effectively spin Jago at the moment his ear drums burst.

The post process of every bullet-time shot comes with its own challenges, and with the added water refraction and the other cameras in frame, these were particularly troublesome. The wider shots also needed additional frame-by-frame manipulation in order to slow them down by more than 10x.

 Poster design