Well, it's too late to post the free training event which happened yesterday, near San Francisco.

Northern California Underwater Photographic Society was presenting the seminar, "Turn your best underwater footage and passion into a film."

You might be able to contact NCUPS and see when they'll do another training class, which they did on Friday, at 7:30PM at the New Vision United Methodist Church, located ten minutes from the San Francisco Airport. For first time visitors, it's free.

What the class was supposed to offer was on how can you turn your jaw dropping footage into the next documentary everyone will talk about? What would it take to make your best footage into a documentary that gets on television? What equipment do you need? What skills do you lack? Where do you start?

I think the best way to approach any project is to get out there and endeavour to get your production off the ground from your own efforts. True, some people need the initial pointers with shooting and editing but I would imagine anyone with 'jaw dropping footage' should have a pretty good idea of what is required for project completion. Part of the 'magic' of underwater, and equally topside, filming is the interpretation and communication of that environment by the filmmaker to his/her intended audience.

Whilst seminars and conventions are a good thing to attend the majority of the information will be pretty similar from event to event. Personal preferences of those presnting at such gatherings may also be an influence to the information they share. This is not a detrimental posting in anyway but in my own experience the only person who can truly decide as to whether or not the final product is worthy of public diffusion is the filmmaker themselves.

Sure you can get tips from others on your planned production but it's only you who truly knows how you want to portray the particular story. Learn your camera well, the operators maual is the best source of information available and its free with your camera. Same goes for the capabilities of your editing suite. The rest is down to you. A few pointers may go down well at the end of the day but this whole 'way of life' is one that continually offers those ensnared by its mesmerizing qualities the opportunity to continually learn new approaches and applications for film production.

Good luck in all your endeavours.

Mark Thorpe.
Underwater Cameraman,
Palau,
Western Pacific.