We speak to Kai Coombes, co-founder and Managing Director of TankSpace, an Ollerton-based underwater studio that enables film directors and photographers to achieve shots that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else…
How would you say TankSpace differentiates itself from other commercial businesses?
Our goal is to try and stay on the cutting edge of technology, in terms of the equipment we build, and assure we're ahead of everyone else. When you want to do underwater shots, there aren’t many options - it’s freediving, Hollywood studios, or us - and because of that we’ve managed to accelerate the studio’s reputation.
Now that TankSpace reaches higher-profile clientele in the industry, how do you balance showcasing all creatives versus just the biggest names?
Our main goal is to maintain a level of accessibility for everyone. We work with breakout artists, people all the way up the ladder. I like to pick creatives who have really great qualities and ideas. We’re planning on eventually expanding out to London, but we always want to keep this studio in Notts, with this price point - because it’s really important to support those without a big name behind them that have fantastic ideas.
It’s interesting you mention London… With this being such a niche studio, I was wondering if being Notts-based had any sort of intrinsic tie to TankSpace?
I’ve lived in the Midlands for almost all of my life. Nottingham is, culturally, quite a big part of my upbringing. It’s the birthplace of TankSpace and, even as we expand, I always want to keep it that way. I have found that because Nottingham is not necessarily a filmmaking city, the people in it care a lot more - and you get to work a lot more closely with fewer people, rather than in an overly-saturated market.
We get everything from Bollywood films to Scottish history. We even did a lost football cup feature for Channel 4. It’s always interesting
What inspired you to set up the studio?
The backstory behind TankSpace is much more random than just us opening up a commercial business. When my partner and I met, she was working as a performer, and one of the things she did was a mermaid performance. I thought this was so different and it made us realise how there isn't anything like that in the UK. So it started out like that.
But during the pandemic, festivals and events obviously all shut down - so we had to focus more on the film aspect of the business, and it really just exploded from there. We started off just doing mermaid stuff, and it evolved into what it is now. We’ve had people dialling in from Dubai, America, Europe. We’ve built this really nice community; it’s like getting old friends back in when they visit.
What is the most ambitious project you’ve worked on?
We once shot a scene where a girl falls out of a window into an alleyway, which then floods with water, for a big Bollywood production. We had to build this elaborate set in the studio. Figuring out the lighting, the machinery, the safety measures, was a crazy task - and probably the biggest set we’ve built so far.
What has been the most fun project you’ve worked on?
One of my favourites is one of our most recent. We did a documentary about the Loch Ness Monster and its hunters, and there was a guy who was quite an infamous Loch Ness Monster hunter. He was pretty abrasive and the locals absolutely hated him, so they pushed his caravan into the loch. We had to build a scale model of a whole caravan to submerge it into water.
We get everything from Bollywood films to Scottish history. We even did a lost football cup feature for Channel 4. It’s always interesting, and in terms of the really fun technical side of things, the most recent bit of tech we’re trying to work with is solving the problem of camera gears getting wet in close-up, personal shoots.
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