Gigantic Great White Shark in Mallorca

At Biel's house with a jaw taken from a Mallorquin Great White

Any reader of this blog should know by now I have a special passion for sharks in the Mediterranean, especially around the Balearic Islands and in particular Mallorca. For those that don't know, Mallorca actually has a fascinating history with the Great White Shark with twenty seven confirmed captures between the 1920's and 1976.

My good friend and Mallorquin Biologist, Gabriel Morey and I, will often talk about Great Whites around the island, not only does he share my passion for the stories but he also happens to be one of Europe's leading authorities on Great White Sharks in the Med and is the go to guy for everything related to sharks around the Balearics.

One of the main topics which always arises is that of the gigantic Great White captured in El Delta in 1969, a 6.2m specimen captured close to shore, the primary reason being that El Delta is where we handle our work with the Stingrays featured in both A Ray of Light and A Ray of Light II. It's amazing when I dive that area to think that such a huge White Shark was once swimming around there and to be honest, I get a kick out of it.

Today, Anton at Shark Alley (Anton's a cool guy, go like them on Facebook) posted this video:



I have already seen this footage a few years ago but it has now found it's way online and I originally thought this was one of two sharks given the date, a 5.5m specimen taken from Alcudia by Oscar Pinet or the first shark (5.35m) caught by Xisco Perez, who would later catch the second biggest Great White captured anywhere on the planet (1976) and the final confirmed Great White caught around the island.

However, after checking with Biel it turns out the date on the footage is wrong and that this is actually the specimen caught by Guillem Farragut in El Delta in 1969, coming in at a whopping 6.2m! I never knew this was in fact the shark we have talked so much about. There is video footage of a few of the White Sharks taken around Mallorca but much of it is unavailable online but I have been fortunate enough to see it all and one thing which stands out about these sharks is that they are huge!

Not only that, but they are very much still there, only recently there was proof of this but I'm afraid I'm sworn to secrecy on that...

Anyway, if you want to see the area where this shark was caught, check out A Ray of Light II!


A Ray of Light II from Scarlet View Media on Vimeo.

Behind Blue Glass Released To The World TODAY!

AVAILABLE HERE (ENGLISH WITH SPANISH SUBTITLES)

Spanish language article here!

"For years some of the largest Great White sharks ever landed, were caught off the coast of Mallorca, sometimes less than one hundred metres from popular tourist beaches. These captures abruptly stopped after the second largest White Shark ever caught was brought back to the dock by fisherman, Xisco Perez. The year was 1976, the year Steven Spielberg's JAWS was released in Spain.

The story has remained largely untold outside of Mallorca until now, David Diley explores why, along the way taking seven unwitting volunteers into the deep, to show how important sharks really are, how shark encounters are actually a positive thing and show the world what is truly at risk.

This was the first film I ever made and features content never before seen on TV, including eyewitness accounts from the people who were there. Behind Blue Glass premiered to a packed room in Portals, Mallorca, in May 2011, after its DVD release earlier that year."

Two years ago, whilst working towards getting "Of Shark and Man" funded, I figured, rather later than I should have in all honesty, that in order to help me get said funding, I should really actually go and try my hand at making a film!

I'd wanted to do a comprehensive piece about Mallorca's Great White Sharks for years, since my first visit to the island in my early teens and thanks to an email out of the blue from a certain Mr Brad Robertson, asking my advice on his Shark Diver course, after having stumbled across this blog, the wheels were set in motion for the start of a pretty amazing journey!

I'm not going to tell the whole story again, this blog post will tell you everything you need to know as a back story...

So, here's the big news...As of today, you, yes YOU, can now see Behind Blue Glass, in its entirety, in full HD, thanks to Vimeo's new "On Demand" feature which, to be frank, looks to be quite brilliant!

Behind Blue Glass was released on DVD only last year, available to buy direct from Palma Aquarium, but I'd been looking around for ages for a place where I could offer a digital download in return for a small fee but everywhere seemed to charge through the nose, take large cuts of sales and make it overly difficult to just get the thing out there.

I've been waiting for On Demand to be launched since I first heard of it last year. Available only to Vimeo Pro members, On Demand actually makes the whole process easy to do. You upload your film, give them your paypal account details and launch your film. They take 10% and that's it. It's so simple! All you need to do is visit the page click "Watch Now" put in your card details and you get to stream the film from Vimeo on any device, anywhere, for as long as I am a Vimeo Pro member so basically, years and years. You know that the majority of your money goes to the Film-Maker which is where the majority of your money should go but often doesn't in more traditional distribution agreements.

The film is very reasonably priced at $5.99 which is £3.95, or €4.58 at the current rate of exchange, in fact, it's under-priced to be honest, for 37 minutes of film, you're practically stealing it from me ;) After I have covered my own costs, a percentage of each sale will go towards Asociacion Ondine and the ongoing Mallorquin conservation projects we are running, currently at our own expense.

So, why should you pay your hard earned money to see this film? Firstly, it's almost certainly the most in-depth documentary about Mallorca's Great White Sharks ever made, certainly the most detailed English language film on the subject, on the planet.You also don't know this story, it's a brilliant story and you are absolutely guaranteed to learn something new.

Having watched the film again last night for the first time in a while, the amount of content and factual information is pretty staggering. There is a wealth of info packed into less than 40 minutes, probably more than you would find in other, shall we say, "bigger budget" and more "professional" productions and not just that, the whole thing comes from nothing more than just wanting to make something fun, a little bit different and to tell a great story. There's no cynical attempt to try and sell you things, it's just a guy who really loves sharks, making an interesting film to hopefully appeal to other people who really love sharks!

Behind Blue Glass will always be very special to me because it was an amazing experience to make it and because of everything that has followed it. This was my first ever attempt at making a film, not my first film after film school, not my first paid job, I'd bypassed all of that, this was the first time I had ever attempted to produce, direct, present and shoot a film...Ever. Only eight months prior, I was working as a Recruitment Consultant with my only experience being filming sharks on diving holidays and making videos of myself and my friends acting like idiots whilst drunk on New Year's Eve!

Of the four man crew (well, three men, one woman) only Liam had any experience, this was literally four mates, three of whom  had no idea what they were doing, trying to complete an enormously complex and ambitious project, in fact looking back, the goals I set were completely unreasonable, naive, way too ambitious and complex but somehow, we managed to pull it off through sheer bloody mindedness and determination.

We absolutely ran ourselves into the ground on this film, the average shoot day lasted 14 hours, one day on pre-production, Brad, Bea and I started at 3am and didn't finish until 1am the following day with no breaks. Also nobody really got paid, most of you reading this will be paid more today, sitting at your desk than the people involved in this film got for three weeks of solid grind. It was incredibly hard work but one of the happiest times of my life.

 

OK, let's be honest, it's far from perfect, it's rough and ready, there are things I would do very differently now, knowing what I know but you know what, who cares? I really don't think that matters because taking into account what we had to go through, I still look at this film as a pretty incredible achievement. That's not me blowing my own trumpet, that's testament to everybody who rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in to help us make it. Brad and Bea almost killed themselves to make this happen with their sheer effort and passion, Debora, Roman, Manon and the guys at Palma Aquarium were an amazing help. Jaime Ros, Soller Museum, Gabriel Morey, all the volunteers, Xisco Perez, the list of people who gave their time and effort, free of charge to help get this made is huge and without them, it wouldn't be what it is.

Huge thanks also to Richard Theiss and Lawrence Groth for the additional footage which again, they contributed for free.

So for the imperfections, the fact that the sound department was either Bea or local kids, Brad and Bea being handed cameras and expected to do a crash course in cinematography whilst actually shooting segments on the spot, the obligatory "things not working properly at the worst possible time," the fact I had to wear sunnies through most shots due to an eye problem and the often improvisational approach to film-making, I am incredibly fond of this film because not only is it way better than anyone's first film should be, it has a heart and soul at its core of people just wanting to do something good and start something.

And start something it did. Behind Blue Glass was the big first shove behind the marine conservation projects now being rolled out by Brad and Bea in Mallorca, Brad is now running a full time Conservation NGO, people suddenly started taking an interest in marine conservation, including the media, it directly led to "A Ray of Light," one of the headlining films in this year's Beneath The Waves Film Festival and also taught me more in three weeks on how to shoot films than any film school could, meaning it helped enormously in the making of "Of Shark and Man." It's fascinating to me to see the enormous progression and growth from film to film and Behind Blue Glass has a lot of the credit for that.

Anyway, that's enough from me, are you sold yet? If you're interested in sharks and that still doesn't encourage you to part with the cost of a packet of fags to see this film, then you're probably not actually that interested in sharks...

Buy Behind Blue Glass HERE

Edit: Muchas gracias Patric!

Behind Blue Glass Gets Its Official Premiere! (Finally...)

 

It's official, a little film made by four friends, three of whom didn't actually know what we were doing, just to see if we could actually do something, has become front page news (honestly, it was on the front page!) in the two biggest English speaking newspapers in Spain and Mallorca.

Finally, thirteen months to the day after production finished, after months of complications, logistical nightmares, the subtitled master being lost by the Spanish post office, technical disasters and hours and hours and hours upon hours of work, Behind Blue Glass was screened in public for the first time on Monday May 28th at Mood Beach Club in Portals, Mallorca, to a packed room of about seventy or so locals and ex-pats.

I'm not gonna lie, I spent the whole day convinced nobody would turn up and the whole night would be a total disaster, the fact that the night proved the total opposite, was not just a huge relief but also a pretty overwhelming experience. It was an amazing reaction not just to the film itself, but to the short presentations Brad and I made before and after the film. The room was made up of people from all backgrounds and of all ages, some of whom were experienced divers, people who had encountered sharks, and many more whose ocean going experience stretched no further than dipping a toe into the Med every Summer and the feedback from all was consistent in that everyone enjoyed it, at least they said they did anyway!

 

It was heartening to have so many people come up to both Brad and myself after the screening to say they were touched by the message in the film, that sharks really aren't evil killing machines, and that also, they were surprised to hear that Mallorca has something of a tradition with the Great White Shark. It's always a pleasure to meet new people and hear that you have influenced a positive opinion of sharks amongst people who may normally not be exposed to media which gives a more accurate representation of shark/human interaction. Although being overcome by embarrassment at the immediate reaction post-screening, I must also admit to being proud of what we achieved.

 

 

It was as much an achievement for Brad and Bea as it was for me though of course and it was great to see them getting the plaudits they deserve, even more so that the screening came in the midst of a project we are working on which is gaining real momentum, helped along even more by the screening.

What is this project? A short film about real conservationists doing real conservation and again, as is the way I like to do things, it focuses on the people behind the thankless, arduous and all too often self financed projects designed to help protect the marine environment. This is once again based in Mallorca and is again Elasmobranch based with plenty of underwater footage including some startling stuff of animals as big as cars, living close to shore in the Mediterranean.

It should be done in the next three weeks and will be free to view in the usual places. The first to see it will be a small selected group, followed by the people on my mailing list (join here) and then all of you lucky people. There will of course be a blog to give more details but the footage looks brilliant and the message will be delivered in our own inimitable style, anyone wanting to move away from techno-conservation to dirty hands, hard work conservation would be well advised to take heed of this film when it's out.

Finally, if you want to get your own copy of Behind Blue Glass, you can pick one up for €9.95 from Palma Aquarium and being totally aware that not all of you live in Mallorca, I am told they will be adding a "buy online" option shortly. Remember though, this is Mallorca, things don't get done quickly so if you, like I, think this would be a goo idea, feel free to tell them at info@palmaaquarium.com

I am also still looking in to the best host for an online digi-download, ideally one that doesn't expect me to empty my bank account to them for the privilege of them not actually doing anything so I will be doing that as soon as possible and you will of course be the first to know. I also can't recommend highly enough, emailing Palma Aquarium to tell them you don't live in Mallorca but that you want a copy of the DVD, the more they see the demand, the quicker the buy online option will materialise!

Thanks to Gonzo for the photos from a brilliant night and thanks to Vicki Mcleod, Brad, Bea, Nicky and everyone who cared enough to come to the screening, you gave us more strength to keep doing what we're doing.

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Behind Blue Glass, Ongoing projects and some cool stuff!

 

Hello!!

It's been far too long since I last did a blog to let you know what's going on in my world so here is a long overdue update...

Behind Blue Glass

Remember the film I shot in Mallorca about Great White Sharks and the flip side to shark/human interaction you normally see in the media? Things have been dragging a bit due to the "Of Shark and Man" shoot, post-production on that and some other projects that have come my way so as a way to refresh your memories, watch this ninety second trailer:

 

Full size version here

I know it says on the trailer it was due to be released in the summer but sometimes, things don't always go as quickly as you'd like. The good news however, is that this is almost ready for release, meaning you can buy a copy on DVD for yourself. I have pretty much confirmed a distributor and agreement, the film is being subtitled into Spanish and the behind the scenes bonus stuff, DVD packaging and authoring of menus is now being done. I am hoping it will be made available by the retailer online and when it is available, you will be the first to know!

Of Shark and Man

The editing of a film like "Of Shark and Man" is a pretty epic task, more so when you're doing it on your own, even more so when you're negotiating your way around various technical problems that are a product of putting something like this together in the way I have! However, if you saw the private teaser trailer then you will have a fair idea of how good this film is going to look and hopefully you will have also notice a refreshing change from the usual modern approach of treating an audience like idiots and titillating them with shark porn or boring them half to death, I'm trying to capture the excitement and adventure of the 70's and 80's heyday of shark film-making and to also tell a story that you don't already know. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, why? The only excuse you could have is that you don't have internet and if that's the case, you won't be reading this anyway. If you do want to see it and if you like sharks, you should, all you have to do is sign up to the mailing list here (scroll down), it takes about ten seconds and your details are secure and you will not be spammed. Because I'm nice, I'll be sending out the link and password in the next bit of news I send to subscribers and not just that, you might even be getting some more cool stuff to see before anyone else (more on that in "other projects"...)

If you don't already know, you don't just come back from a shoot and start putting everything in a timeline and voila, you have a film. What I have been doing since August is the very unglamourous but essential part of being a film-maker. Almost 3TB of footage needs to be painstakingly separated, catalogued, pre-edited, encoded/converted and logged so when it comes to the edit I have specific content and shots ready and easy to find so the best of the best is going into the film. To put it into perspective, there are folders like "Bull Sharks closeup swimming left to right," that means going through hours of footage to find scenes where Bull Sharks are closeup swimming left to right and for every left to right, there has to be a right to left, non-closeup, good viz, bad viz...You get the idea. In one five minute clip there could be shots that fit every criteria I need so that clip needs to be edited and catalogued over and over and over again. This takes a hell of a lot of time and effort but means when the edit starts it will be a much easier task.

I have also started shooting the UK scenes in my beloved Manchester in all its grey and overcrowded glory, the only things left now are storyboarded shots for the film's intro and a specific shot I want to open the film but I need to find somewhere which has what I need to film and will allow me access in private to do so.

I am really, really excited about this film and I hope you are too, I am confident it's going to be something pretty special!

 

Ongoing Projects

As well as everything to do with Behind Blue Glass and Of Shark and Man, I have been working on two other short videos in support of something I can't say anything about yet, but it's something about which I am very passionate. It's also not my story to tell but these two videos will help support the telling of this story and breaking of the news when hopefully, they (the amazing people in the thick of the action) are in a position to do so. The intention is that one will be used as an internet viral type PSA, the other for broadcast on national television.

It's early doors at the moment, nothing is 100% guaranteed but it's all positive so far, as usual, mailing list subscribers will be the first to know as, when and if I am able to break the news so go sign up because you don't want to miss this if it happens.

Cool Stuff

Finally, here's some cool stuff which I rather enjoyed, some shark related, some nothing to do with sharks but brilliant nonetheless, think of them as a bit of an apology for my enforced silence this last couple of weeks!

An epic and thoroughly justified rant

A dead cert for an OSCAR surely? Thanks to Mike for the heads up

(Click this link) - Great band, great tunes and all for free! Check it out

The 21st century prophet yet again, speaking the truth, very funny, very true (warning, some blue language!)

Enjoy the cool stuff and I'll be back soon hopefully with yet more good news and delightful goodness for you!

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Behind Blue Glass - Finished!

Great news about Behind Blue Glass, after a total of approximately one thousand man hours work, the film is now finished! A master DVD is ready and the full HD 1080p version is exporting as we speak, twenty hours in, only fourteen more hours to go!

From day one, this was a big task, not only was it my first ever attempt at making a film having no experience of doing so before, the opportunity also happened to arise at the sharp end of the major preparations for my first feature film in Fiji, production of which begins in only one week and six days. Behind Blue Glass was also made on what can be described as a "micro budget," a four man crew, three of whom had pretty much zero experience and has been edited solely by myself on a £500 laptop which has made some of the post production process a very slow, laborious experience.



With all that in mind however, I am more than confident in saying that the quality of the end result, far belies the limitations in regards to resources, it looks great!

As for the content, I am more than happy, the film features interviews with Xisco Perez and Sr. M Ferrer, two men with first hand experience of Mallorca's Great White Sharks, Gabriel Morey, Marine Biologist, Fisheries and Conservation Minister and member of the IUCN and Brad Robertson of Ondine Escape. Behind Blue Glass also stars some brilliant members of the pubic, from the ages of 16-62 who get confronted with the opportunity of a lifetime but how do they react? Of course, the film also features underwater footage of the other stars of the show, the sharks themselves!

 

The film clocks in at just over thirty eight minutes and in keeping with the highly independent "DIY" approach, the film's original music comes entirely from unsigned, underground artists and bands, including Lifescreen, Ten, Back Page First and the one and only Rock behemoth that is Nerve Engine.

The film was shot entirely on Canon 7D and 5Dmkii with a little help from a small palmcorder and the quality of footage is outstanding. The premiere will be held in Mallorca at Palma Aqauarium, most likely at the end of August and looks set to be a pretty fancy affair. After the premiere, you will of course, be able to see the film itself. I am looking into the best ways to do this and it looks like the most likely scenario would be to make it available on two formats, a DVD with additional extras like behind the scenes stuff, the trailer and production stills and also as a HD digital download. 

Keep your eyes peeled for updates, the best way to do that is of course, to go here, scroll to below the trailer and join the mailing list. In the event I can make special offers and discounts on this and future films, they will be for the mailing list members only, maybe something worth looking into?

Spread the word, it's a great little film if I do say so myself and some very dedicated people put a hell of a lot of effort into helping me make this, with no gain for themselves, purely because they believe in the message. Because I went over to Mallorca to shoot this film and because of the press coverage I got whilst there, the issue of shark conservation is now being discussed in the national media and in the coming weeks Palma Aquarium will be rolling out an anti-shark finning campaign across Mallorca and hopefully Spain as well. This wasn't achieved by an NGO or expensive marketing campaign, it was achieved by a small handful of people who believed enough that we could make it happen which just goes to show, it is possible for ordinary people to change things for the better.

Coming soon: News on what to expect whilst I am in Fiji!

www.officetoocean.com

"Behind Blue Glass" Post Production Update

 

The production of a film is hard work, very hard work. It's not just going somewhere, pointing a camera at some scenery then reading a script. A good film looks great, sounds great and has interesting, engaging content that people actually want to watch, but for all the blood, sweat and tears (thankfully we avoided the blood and tears) the real hard work comes in during post production.

Post production is like building a house, the footage, story and sound are your foundations and upon those foundations, you build your film using the tools at your disposal, building layer after layer to hopefully have the kind of end result your efforts and the content deserve.

Using the house building analogy, "Behind Blue Glass" is currently in the stages of having its interior done. The edit is done, voice overs done, primary colour correction done, lapel and external mic sound done and colour grading will be completed tonight. Left to complete is the final audio mix, subtitling, music, intro and and outro credits, the final, brutal axing of any superfluous footage which isn't totally necessary regardless of how good it looks and a lovely, delicious final master of the whole thing.

The trailer gives an idea of the quality of footage. The whole thing was shot in full HD 1080p and it looks great (honestly, I'm actually looking at it now on a 32" LG television...) and I must say I am very happy with it all. The overall "look" of the film is unlike anything you will have likely seen in regards to shark documentaries, far more cinematic and stylistic, also, shooting these films on the Canon 7D, with the inclusion on this film of the Canon 5D MKii, gives them a look of their own, naturally more cinematic than most HD video cameras and with a glorious, full depth of field. In the coming weeks, I will give a full introduction to the shooting rig I will be using for my films, all of which is affordable and easily accessible to the average consumer.

Speaking of the trailer, since being uploaded six days ago, it has been viewed over 3000 times and shared by over three hundred different people on Facebook alone! Not bad considering the only promotional links I have are social networking media.

I would like to think that the film will be completed in full, in the next two weeks, in fact, I would say that is highly likely, the sooner I can subtitle it and settle on the final music, the sooner it will be done.

Please keep sharing the trailer, I want as many people to see this film as possible, it tells a story you don't know and one which has a message to which most people could easily relate, plus it's not too shabby at all in my honest opinion ;)

Trailer - Youtube
Trailer - Vimeo

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Here it is..."Behind Blue Glass" Trailer!

Finally, here's the trailer for "Behind Blue Glass." It's in full HD 1080p and I fully recommend making sure HD is on and "full screening" it for optimum effect. Please share with likeminded souls and as always, your comments are welcome and gratefully received so don't be shy!

As for progress on the film, I am now onto the sound/music/colour correction stage with a bit of work still left to do but we're getting close now and I am really happy with it all so far!

Not long to wait now ;)

Behind Blue Glass - More Details!

With all the excitement and ever increasing workload of the upcoming production in Fiji, it might have been forgotten that I am actually doing post-production on my first ever film, "Behind Blue Glass," well you may have forgotten, I certainly haven't!

I've already mentioned what an incredibly enjoyable experience it was shooting this film but now is the time to fill you in on what to expect and hopefully you'll be chomping at the bit to spend approximately twenty minutes of your life, with a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, actually watching it! "Behind Blue Glass" is a short film, based in Mallorca and for which I came up with the idea in late February and to the credit of Brad and Bea at Ondine Escape and the guys at Palma Aquarium only took three weeks or so to get the required funding to actually go and make it.

The film is centred around two main aspects, telling the story of Mallorca's history with sharks, in particular, the Great White and also showing that sharks can have a life changing, positive effect on ordinary people.

The Mallorquin relationship with sharks and its story is one which is very much untold, particularly for a non-Spanish audience, google it and see how little there is online! Undeterred and with a decades old fascination with sharks in this part of the world, I was determined to go and delve deeper into it and did so with no shortage of success! For example, did you know where the second largest, recorded, Great White Shark ever caught was taken? Yep, Mallorca, less than one hundred metres from shore in a popular tourist resort. Surprising yes? I doubt you will have heard the story about this before so who better to tell it than the man who caught it, Xisco Perez? My thoughts exactly so look no further than this film as he was kind enough to let me talk to him about it on camera.

Xisco is a fantastic bloke and gave up over an hour of his time to spend with me talking about what happened, by the boat upon which the shark was caught and was ably translated by another fantastic Mallorquin and new friend, Jaime Ros.

The last surviving set of Great White jaws in Mallorca? Check, eyewitness reports from the people who were there and saw these huge sharks in the flesh? Check, input from the people who know more about Mallorquin Great Whites than anybody? Check, it's all in there for you!

Passionate, knowledgeable and incredibly helpful people were certainly not in short supply, another of these people, IUCN member and fisheries and conservation minister for the Balearics, Gabriel Morey, was kind enough to not only talk to me on camera about the state of Balearic and Mediterranean shark populations, he also took us diving at the El Toro marine reserve to get some footage of Mallorca under the waves.

Alongside the conservational and educational aspect of the film we have a little bit of inspiration as well in the form of a group of plucky volunteers, young and old and all shapes and sizes who agreed to participate in a "conservation project" but didn't know exactly what I had in store for them, they got a bit of a shock to say the least but their reactions are priceless and illustrate my point about people and sharks better than any words. Every one of them was fantastic and an inspiration to me and to see them now spreading a positive message about sharks is hugely rewarding.

So what was intended to be a ten minute piece about people meeting sharks, shot on a minuscule, shoestring budget has turned into something so much more, Liam aside, this was the first time any of the crew, myself included, had attempted to make a film, staying true to my word of involving talented, enthusiastic people in everything I do, we even got a couple of the volunteers involved in actually making the film itself getting the kind of hands on experience they may not normally get.

So what is the result? Most importantly, a film with heart, no pretension, just enthusiastic people with a love for and deep knowledge of sharks, combined with an everyman approach and an awful lot of smiles! Sound good? Keep an eye out, I am currently editing at the moment and some of the footage looks superb and I am very happy with the way things are going, hopefully it will all be completed by the end of this month with a premiere to come at Palma Aquarium and after which, you lot can get to have a look and make your own minds up.

This film is a celebration of sharks, of people and of Mallorca, one of my favourite places on earth and to who's people I owe huge gratitude. It's not a mini version of the film in Fiji as it differs in several areas, it is less "cinematic" with more of a "documentary" feel but it is no less, very "me." I'll leave it up to you guys to decide what you think of it but I'm confident you'll love it!

"Behind Blue Glass" - Coming soon!

First Film - In Production!

First of all, please forgive the short post! Internet access and time here are both at a minimum but I am delighted to tell you that I am nearing the end of production for my first film, "Behind Blue Glass."

The film is a short piece about sharks in the Mediterranean, in particular around the coast of Mallorca and in which, I take unsuspecting, non-divers to meet sharks for the first time to see how they react! The film also features the incidences of large Great White Sharks off the coast of the Balearics and features interviews with fishermen, government officials, museum curators and ordinary people.

It is my intention to stream this film for free, online for everybody to see however, it is also a possibility that it may also air on Spanish TV. The people here from Brad and Bea with whom I am making the film, to the guys at Palma Aquarium, Gabriel Morey, Juan Andreas Ruiz and pretty much everybody have been overwhelmingly supportive, enthusiastic and helpful in making this as easy, interesting and exciting as possible.

Filming Wraps on Tuesday 26th and I return to the UK on the 28th to start editing.

Keep your eyes peeled for further details as this could be something pretty awesome!