Shooting Wakeboarding on the Cable VS. Behind a Boat

When talking about filming wakeboarding there are a few things that first come to my mind. Where, Who, How and When are we shooting. From knowing those things we can kind of get a feel for the style, location and pace of video we will be making. On most of my shoots I do the cinematography as well as the postproduction part of things, which gives me total control of the final product. Different countries have different lakes, rivers, scenery, obstacles and local riders. Knowing how is a huge part because we always need to be aware of what gear we might use, and knowing when just gives us an overall idea of the time set and natural lighting conditions. (If there are any at the time)

I think the biggest difference about filming someone ride behind a boat vs. a cable park is that when you shoot behind a boat unless you have a chase boat/jet ski you’ll be pretty stuck in that one angle, from the boat that pulls the rider. Or you can always try to set up off shore but that wont always be close enough, so sometimes you might have to crop into your footage later just to bring some more details. When filming someone ride cable you can pretty much walk around the lake and stand close to different obstacles for different time periods, constantly changing up the angles/location from which your filming from.

I like mixing up the shots as much as possible when editing, giving an intense experience that gets viewers/riders stoked about wakeboarding. Another huge advantage of the cable is that you can have up to 8 of your friends riding beside you, following you and gaining experience on the water while having a good time watching everyone else do the same thing.  

Epic VS Ewa housings

Since wakeboarding is a watersport you cant forget to have the right protection for your equipment if you`re thinking about shooting from either above, or under the water level, you must have a waterproof housing. In my own experience I`ve had a chance to use some of the Epic underwater housings but there`s also the Pelican cases that are fairly known .

While Epic is more about just manufacturing video housings Pelican also makes smaller, more portable solutions for your IPhone, IPod and even just Flashlights.

First thing that I remember about using the Epic housings is that you cant really get into the brains of your camera and adjust the settings while in the water because it only has a soft back that you can push in and either start or stop recording. On the other hand there`s this other brand EWA that makes soft bag like housing solutions for cameras and with that you can pretty much press any button on your camera. Just maybe the focus ring wont be as easy to roll, as it would be on the ground.

The prices wary but if you have a professional grade camcorder you might as well protect it. If your trying to scuba dive though I would definitely recommend the epic housings because they can withstand way higher pressures than the little plastic bag looking ones. With that said I’ve used both and even though the ewa marine solutions might look real easy to use, I would still trust an epic housing over the ewa. Because of the effective sealing effect and the better weight distribution. After all there must be a reason why surfers use it way more to shoot their movies. And If one day it comes down to shooting a major movie like that recent Kelly slater one, on one of those Imax cameras than I`d just use a custom fitted high scale case. Whatever your level of filming/riding might be I hope this post was helpful to decide which case to go with.