A Ray of Light Gets Its TV Broadcast Premiere Tonight!!

Filming the underwater sequences in Mallorca

A quick heads up for all you people lucky enough to live in sunny Spain. Tonight, at 7pm, on Canal 4, Mallorca Today, "A Ray of Light" gets its TV broadcast premiere.

That means that tonight, it will be seen by thousands of people across the whole Spanish mainland and the Balearic Islands, so a project which was initially an idea for a grassroots conservation project Brad discussed with me on Skype a couple of years ago is about to take another huge leap forward and we did this all on our own! Brad, Bea, Gabriel Morey, Stefan Lawrence, Erica Lay, Joves Navegants, myself and some very enthusiastic volunteers are continuing to show that great things can be achieved in the conservation sphere without the help of the big conservation groups. That's not to say we wouldn't welcome the support, of course we would, especially Brad, it's just not been offered.

So what does this mean? First and foremost, Spain is now talking about marine conservation, a nation with a major impact on the declining health of our oceans, is starting to look at the concept of local marine conservation projects. The media are interested in finding out more, the numbers of people volunteering to take part has gone through the roof and some really great things are in the pipeline in regards to new projects and involvement of yet more influential people in Mallorca.

At the risk of repeating myself as well...I shot this film on my own as a one man crew for 750 quid of my own money and so far it has;

• Been seen by roughly 15,000 people, a figure which will increase enormously tonight
• Raised over £35,000 in donations for the project, that's more than 45x what it cost to make
• Been requested for inclusion in two film festivals
• Resulted in a television feature, two radio features and press articles about the project

That's all from social media and word of mouth only.

Just imagine what I could do with some financial backing, especially if, say, I had a rather amazing idea for "A Ray of Light II"...

Anyway, 7pm, Canal4 tonight, the perfect aperitif to the main course of United beating Madrid at the Bernabeau ;)

Of Shark and Man - Thank you!

Another day in paradise

It's been about a week and a half since the trailer was released and the feedback and response has been pretty overwhelming, taking into account Vimeo views, external links and embeds, it's edging towards the 6000 mark...That's six thousand  views of something released with very little fan fair and promoted only on social media and through word of mouth.

It has been featured on Shark Diver, The Best Shark Dive in the World, The Dorsal Fin and Shark Defenders alongside some other pages I'd never even heard of and yesterday alone, somewhere obviously picked it up (no idea where though) and it had no fewer than 918 unique views on Vimeo alone!

This shows there is clearly interest out there and the feedback has been especially satisfying, on the way it's shot, edited, coloured and the feel and people really seem to like the "it's a love story" line at the end. Even before I had fully established the storyline of the piece I had a tag line of "A love story...with teeth!" and it seems to resonate. It's always been important to me that everyone can feel a connection to the story and it seems that, at least with this teaser, most people do.

I've been contacted by quite a few people on a variety of subjects, some simply to offer encouragement, others looking for advice and also people asking how they can get involved in shark conservation. Not only do people like what they've seen, the message is working, pretty incredible considering the word "shark" isn't uttered once, let alone "shark conservation."

Please keep sharing, let's keep the momentum going and let's do what we can to get even more people on board and excited about "Of Shark and Man." I want to offer a huge message of thanks to the Street Team for their help pushing the trailer, it has been invaluable and also, just so you know, Tip Jar has been activated so if you like it and you have a few quid/dollars/baht/shekels/euros burning a hole in your pocket, please feel free to pop them in the electronic jar if you think the quality is deserving. Every little bit helps believe me.

Once again, thank you one and all and if you haven't seen it yet, watch it, comment and share with everyone you know!