Last Day in Bahamas …

From Michael Sellers

Just a quick informal update on Saturday’s activities–our final day in the Bahamas. We were up at 7 and at UNEXSO Dolphin experience 7:30 for more filming around the pens and an 8:30 open water trip — this time with dolphins Exuma and Andros and world class underwater cinematographer Paul Mockler, who happens to live in not just Grand Bahama Island, but actually in Smith Point, our little town which we depict in EOD. (More about Paul later.) We got some excellent material around the facility and were ready to leave for the open water when something happened that had never previously happened on any of our water days for the film — we got hit by a nasty rainstorm that forced us to wait for a couple of hours. We spent the time huddled in one of the buildings at UNEXSO drinking coffee and listening to Paul tell some pretty amazing stories about his experiences around the world. Then the weather cleared and we were able to go out for the swim and it went extremely well. Paul’s camerawork was wonderful and the dolphins were great. Click on this link to see a clip of the swim, which will be incorporated into the DVD extras. When you watch the clip — also listen to the sounds. We had an underwater microphone and you can hear the constant chatter from the dolphins throughout the swim.

Regarding Paul Mockler — we had wanted to use him for EOD but he was off filming an IMAX film (he is their number 1 underwater director of photography) and so it didn’t work out. We will definitely be working with him going forward …. one of the things he talked about during our “rain delay” was his experience as the first cinematographer to journey down to the Titanic, which he ended up doing a number of times back in the 1980’s when the Titanic was first located and explored. If any of you have seen the documentaries that IMAX did on this, you may recall that the sub seemed to be big enough for the three people inside to move around a bit, and in fact at one point one of the occupants plays a guitar. Paul told us that all of the “inside the sub” work was re-enactment and the producers for whatever reason decided to make the interior 3 or 4 times bigger than it actually was. In actuality it was much mor elike being inside an Apollo capsule…three people, no one able to move at all – -just strapped into their seats.

Anyway … after the dive we did a few more interviews, then back to the hotel for a quick shower and check-out, then lunch hosted by the Bahamas Film Commission. Our group, UNEXSO’s senior managers, the film commission senior personnel, and a few other political types were all there and it was a good opportunity to solidify relationships on several levels. (More about the substance of what we think we accomplished with UNEXSO and the Film Commission in the wrapup report which will come later.)

Finally off to the airport …. and 9 hour of economy class travel later (22 hours after waking up)…we were back home in Los Angeles. (And by the way — Carly and her mom are total team players…never a peep about having to fly economy even though they usually get to fly first class on any business trips.)

Substantive wrapup report to follow.