He spent 21 minutes in the 8degC waters of Lake Dunstan this week, diving down 11m to film the old Cromwell bridge.
Wearing a small camera on his wrist, he captured footage to be used in a documentary about the impact of the Clyde dam on Cromwell.
The documentary, titled Bridge Under the Water, is being produced by Auckland film-maker Gemma Duncan. The production crew has spent the past nine days filming in and around the town, and plan to return again for a fortnight in October.
Mr Futter, who works as a real estate agent, has been diving for 12 years and said the Lake Dunstan dip was his coldest.
"It was pretty eerie down at the bridge - quiet and graveyard-like."
There was about 2m of visibility under the water. The metal bridge structure had masses of silt on it, he said. It had no planks and there was nothing else on it.
Miss Duncan was pleased with the footage.
"We had our fingers crossed, because the first day we'd planned to film it, the water was too cloudy, and then it rained the day before the dive, so we were hoping it would be OK. The footage is beautiful, so I'm really pleased, because the bridge is such a pivotal part of the documentary."
The bridge was submerged when Lake Dunstan was filled, after the construction of the Clyde dam.
All safety precautions were taken for the dive, with a St John ambulance officer on board the boat with the production crew.
"It's been an interesting week and we've got some good stuff on film, although it hasn't all been what I expected. I was warned about that before I started - that real life doesn't follow the script, so it's evolved as we've gone along," Miss Duncan said.
A tour of the Clyde dam, a boat trip to Cromwell and a tour of the Cromwell Gorge were all filmed this week, along with interviews with residents of the town, which made the crew "very welcome".
"Once we get back to Auckland and go through the footage and start putting it all together - the nuts and bolts of the the film - we'll see what else we need."
The documentary will be entered in a film festival here and overseas and Miss Duncan said she hoped to arrange a special screening in Cromwell.
