We just have completed work on a five-month film project for DeepOcean, the offshore services company. The films document the recovery of the enormous Miller Subsea Isolation Valve (SSIV).
Located 150 miles off the Scottish coast, lying 100 metres below the surface, and weighing over 400 tonnes, the Miller SSIV is the largest in the North Sea. DeepOcean were awarded the contract to recover the SSIV and commissioned Signal to produce a film about the project. As a world-leader in safely and effectively executing subsea work, DeepOcean was committed to making the recovery operation as safe as possible, by extensive use of remote technologies. They achieved this using their ROVs and skilled personnel for all the major tasks including initial survey work, cutting, cleaning and disconnecting, and fastening strops to the SSIV prior to lifting.
Our Director of Photography, Jamie Baikie, travelled out to the site onboard the Dina Star, DeepOcean’s multipurpose vessel. Once there, he filmed the initial cutting and retrieval of parts of the SSIV structure using multiple cameras, including one of our aerial drones. This cutting and cleaning process would reduce the weight of the SSIV so it could be retrieved later.
Jamie returned a few weeks later on DeepOcean’s Edda Freya vessel, to film the remaining 400-tonne SSIV being lifted from the seabed. It was a one-time event, with only one chance to capture it on film. When the structure surfaced it was the first time it had been seen by human eyes since it was installed 30 years earlier.
In total, the Miller and Don subsea scope utilised 4 different vessels from DeepOcean’s fleet on 11 offshore campaigns, with over 100 days offshore in the last 2 years.
Jamie said, “this was a major project with multiple locations, on and offshore with a lot of logistical issues to tackle. We were filming complex operations and there was only once chance to capture each task – there were no retakes!”
We did additional onshore filming in Aberdeen and Norway to cover interviews with key personnel and the recycling process and edited together with survey footage recorded from the four ROV’s.
Two short teaser films have already been published. A long form documentary is currently in post-production and is due for release in November.
Watch the short film here.