Underwater Filming

Here is how this works in practice. We set up underwater filming for shoots across Austria, supplying certified freshwater dive teams, cinema-grade housings, underwater lighting and the safety crew that each submerged shoot needs. Austria is landlocked. But its lakes and rivers are an asset rather than a limits: filming below the surface here means working in freshwater, often with great clarity, in environments that range from open lake to controlled studio tank.

Here is the short of it. Our dive shooters are filmmakers first and divers second — they know composition and storytelling beneath the water — and they are supported by safety divers, dive supervisors and through-water communication that lets a director shape a shot in real time. We handle the logistics from Vienna, Salzburg and the Carinthian lakes region, and we scale the operation from a small documentary unit to a full underwater crew.

Here is the breakdown. Austria's freshwater locations each behave in new ways for a camera. The Salzkammergut lakes — the Hallstätter See, the Wolfgangsee and the Attersee, often cited as Europe's clearest — give outstanding visibility for naturalistic sequences. The Wörthersee in Carinthia warms enough in summer for extended actor work. The Grüner See in Styria is a celebrated dive site. And the Danube corridor gives river sequences.

Here is what that looks like on the ground. Vienna studio tanks at facilities such as the Rosenhügel Filmstudios give controlled, temperature-managed conditions when an open lake cannot. Alpine and spring-fed water stays cold year-round, so our teams plan drysuits, thermal protection and rapid-rewarming protocols, specific for non-diving actors. Lake and reservoir filming needs site-level permits set up with local and Bundesland authorities.

Underwater unit days qualify under the 30% ÖFI+ and FISA+ rebates — and we advise on structuring the shoot to match.