Cameron premieres Mariana Trench dive footage in 3D | 3D Focus

James Cameron has premiered footage of the Mariana Trench including the moment where his one man submarine touched the bottom of the deepest place on Earth writes Adrian Pennington.

From 3D Focus on 9/9/12

The extended 10minute trailer shown in Amsterdam is for a National Geographic documentary Deepsea Challenge about the adventure and shot in 3D using specially invented technology from Cameron Pace Group.

Footage included scenes of the various test dives at progressively deeper depths in the mini-submarine built in secret for the endeavor in Australia. Cameron dived twice to a depth of 11,000 metres last March, the culmination of 7 years planning.

The director, who narrates, was shown inside the sphere which was only 42 inches in internal diameter and contained life support systems, control joysticks and comms systems.

At one point Cameron is shown having lost all communications contact with the surface support vessel.

“I knew that at that depth if anything went wrong there would be no way out. You have to treat that as an intellectual challenge,” he said.

3D images inside the sub were from a pair of tiny 1080p 24 HD cameras twinned side by side designed by CPG.

 “When I went down to the Titanic the camera and housing weighed 150lb. For this we needed a unit that weighed just 5lb,” said Cameron.

Outside the sub were two other pairs of mini-cameras inside a housing capable of withstanding  16000psi in pressure at 36000ft and connected to a small recording device designed by Samuari inside the vessel. They could be operated by Cameron on a pan and tilt basis to take pictures of the craft and surrounds.

“We see applications for this technology in sports including on helmet cams, race cycles or motoGP,” he added.

“Vince [Pace] and I love the challenge of doing something new. We had a supercharged time working with prototype technology.”

Cameron premieres Mariana Trench deep sea dive footage in 3D | 3D News from 3D Focus.