#005 - The making of our ocean film 'The Map to Paradise'
'My Saltwater Sanctuary' was our first ocean related film.
We travelled up and down the coast of New South Wales in Australia filming a documentary which showed how people from all walks of life are connected to the ocean and to our local marine sanctuaries - a special place zoned to protect wildlife and its habitat.
We wanted to show off the unique marine environments and feature stories about peoples' love of the ocean. The film aimed to grow support of marine parks following a roll back in protection of these special places.
The link to the film is above if your interested in learning more.
In the first leg of the trip, we headed to Byron Bay, stopping off to film at Port Stephens and Coffs Harbour on the way. In Byron Bay, we met with Ziggy Alberts, a local musician, who is a passionate advocate for the ocean.
Below are some of the behind-the-scenes images we took so that we could document the making of this film. The first two photos are from Jervis Bay, where we filmed a sequence with Sue Newson of Crest diving and some researchers from Macquarie University capturing Port Jackson sharks with their hands.
Danielle even got to release one of the sharks back into the water.
A little further south, we stopped off at Murramarang National Park near Batemans Bay in search of some Australian native wildlife. Luckily enough, we came across a mob of kangaroos just chilling out beside the beach and a couple of pretty little birds.
The next day we arrived at Batemans Bay, the final leg of our trip. We had planned to film the seals underwater out at Montague Island. Unfortunately, the swell was so large that the boat out to island was cancelled. So, we ventured down to the mouth of the river and stumbled across an Australian fur seal sleeping on the rocks.
Having only recently finished my marine science degree, it was a pretty exciting prospect to be out on the road shooting our first film about the ocean.
I hope you enjoy the film!
To be continued...
This is an amazing documentary highlighting the importance of marine sanctuaries in protecting biodiversity for the future of reef/ocean health. I love how you pulled together different people who are passionate about protecting ocean species and weaved it into kind of a community story at the end.
I see this is an old video (3 years), but the content is obviously still very relevant today. It's also clearly a high-quality production and I hope you did well out of it and achieved the goals you set.
As a side note, I hope you will consider posting any new content like this on steemit when it is fresh (same week it is posted elsewhere), and adding a link back to steemit, to increase steemit's search engine visibility. You will find you are much more likely to receive significant rewards in the forms of major upvotes from the bigger players here on steemit if you keep this in mind.
But well done, this was awesome. I hope a lot of people watch this and upvote it!
Thanks @choogirl, we are pleased that you enjoyed it! Great to see your so passionate about the ocean and are across the issues that we are facing in terms of marine protection. The older video is just to provide context as to why we are are now putting together a full length feature about the need for protection and how we have got to where we are today. Also thanks for the invite to Team Australia, will definitely join up when I get a moment!
Awesome post, thanks for sharing.
Have a great day.
We are glad you liked it @chireerocks!
👍
I have never explored the underwater. So I wish some day I can do that.
Definitely try it out if you ever get the opportunity, there is a whole other world that you are yet to see!
I am also inviting you to join Team Australia. We have a pretty strong community going here on steemit to support each other. If you'd like to be part of it, then please check out this link for the instructions on how to join https://steemit.com/teamaustralia/@choogirl/team-australia-new-recruits-update-04-11-17-and-lots-of-stuff-going-on
I am also one of the editors for @steemitworldmap’s daily #traveldigest, and I would love to see this post pop up on http://steemitworldmap.com. If you're interested, simply go to the website, click on code (down the bottom) and add a short description. It will then generate the code you need to copy and paste into your post (not the comments section) to have it show up on steemit worldmap. There’s also a FAQ section if you get a bit lost.
You can find out about the project here:
https://steemit.com/travel/@steemitworldmap/steemit-worldmap
Ok, that's the end of my spamming you! 😁
This is a pretty impressive post - I need to go back and read the previous installments now. I really liked the behind the scenes shots of handling sharks, and the markings on that ray are just so cool. It must have been a lot of fun working on an ocean documentary like this, thanks for documenting it for us so we can share in some of the fun as well!
Very happy to have found you tonight, followed! Looking forward to more!
Cheers - Carl
Hey @carlgnash, we are glad you enjoyed it! It was a great project to be a part of, as everyone in the documentary were so passionate about the ocean.
@carlgnash from the @humanbot Human Certified Original Works Initiative has manually determined this post to be the original and truly creative work of the post author.
Learn more:
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Thanks for being an original and creative content creator! You rock!
Resteemed your article. This article was resteemed because you are part of the New Steemians project. You can learn more about it here: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@gaman/new-steemians-project-launch
Thanks @gaman
I love your documentary, as a fellow marine life nut and an avid scuba diver I completely relate - The sea is my place to escape when you're under the sea you've got no phones ringing, no one talking to you. It's very very serene, you've got your own breath and the nature that's around you. / If I could grow gills and eat sushi I would just stay there, then swim to somewhere walmer - these words from your documentary are exactly how I feel when scuba diving, it is peace and tranquility in nature, unless it's a fierce drift dive over a reef with curious sharks all around which is a whole different kettle of fish 🐟 😉 Since I got my PADI in thailand over 10 years ago I have spent most of the time not diving thinking about diving lol
I don't usually promote my own blog in comments sections but I thought as our subjects are so close you guys may want to check me out. I have just posted my latest Scuba Scribe post about snorkelling with Whale Sharks in Mexico, this one includes a video 🎥 (please forgive me for how amateur it is). More importantly though, I have just created a community announcement post about a new channel I have started on steemit.chat - #scubadiving. This channel is my attempt to help build the diving community on steemit, a place to network, chat and promote posts about Scuba Diving/Snorkeling/Freediving/Marine Conservation and Marine life. The channel is relatively new which is why I am on a promotional journey right now. Seeking out all the Scuba buddies I can find to see if they want to check out the channel. Hope your travels are going well, keep up the great work and fantastic blogs 👍
P.S. I have resteemed and shared your amazing documentary :)
Thanks @raj808, much appreciated! It's great to see another extremely passionate underwater lover on Steemit and that you related to some of those words from the film! I'm still fairly new to Steemit so still working everything out, but will checkout your channel on the chat and have followed you also. Thanks for sharing!
I would have liked to be there
Oh my, this looks like paradise! Good thing @buttcoins suggested you as an interesting blogger to check out! And indeed! Thank you! :)
Thanks @lostinhappiness, great to hear your enjoying our blog! Glad you found us, your blog looks pretty cool, looking forward to seeing more of your pics!
You're so kind, thank you! And same here. Will keep an eye out for your updates! :)