Wednesday Dec. 26th, 2007

I’ve tried to get to the blog before now but we have been so busy with the sharks, shooting both day and night, that I just couldn’t manage it. Ok, disclaimer over with.
It was a fantastic time in Nassau. We went to the same dive shop that pretty much most, if not all, of the Shark Week shows have been shot over the last bunch of years. The reason? It’s simply fantastic shark diving there. The owner, Stuart Cove (that’s his real name, which is fortunate when you consider the fact that his place is on the ocean in a little cove and therefore dubbed Stuart’s Cove), has been interacting with these reef sharks and developing a tourism- and Hollywood-based business here for twenty years. The photos on his wall of fame will attest to this. It is actually a place that was built specifically for the filming of the T.V series Flipper. We were there to conduct a series of tests and get certain shots, and we got ‘em all — usually with up to forty or more sharks from four to eight feet long on hand to help out. At one point we put a large (five hundred pound) ball of frozen chum (dead fish) into the water and Stuart and I went down to observe the frantic action of the sharks going crazy trying to eat the ‘chumsickle.’ Then we went down and did it again in the black of night to see what would happen. What an eerie feeling, waiting at the bottom of the ocean (forty feet down) in scuba gear, in darkness waiting for sharks to appear. And for some strange reason, when they did come, in they were fascinated by me! Not the camera crew, not Stuart….just me! I kept my flashlight off until I could just see the outline of a shark coming towards me and then turned it on to ward them off. It was quite an experience.
The climax to our shooting came when we shot what would become the opening scene for the show. I was in a tiny life raft, provided for the stunt by Revere Supply out of Miami, surrounded by thirty to forty sharks, saying my lines. Then I plunged a knife into the raft and sank down, into the pack of sharks. I will say that there were definitely more than a few panicked moments while I tried to stay afloat in the mayhem, even though there were safety divers somewhere below. The divers’ only instruction had been to let it all happen to me unless my head goes under the water, then move in. And yes, I did have on the safety chain mesh shark suit, but it only covers arms and legs, not the genitals! It will prevent them from biting through my leg but not from ripping my arm out of its socket.
All in all a fantastic show has been shot and produced by Gurney Productions and I’m sure it will blow you away — even more than Feeding Frenzy, last year’s most successful show and one we did together as well.

Now it’s the day after Christmas and I will hope and trust that you all have had a wonderful holiday and wish you the best for 2008!

Les