| Sharkwater |
| May 30, 2010 |
Rob Stewart Reveals What Lies Beneath Driven by a life-long fascination with sharks, Rob Stewart, embarks on an underwater journey to make the movie Sharkwater. But what starts as a beautiful shark film, eventually reveals the exploitation and corruption surrounding the shark population in the marine reserves in Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands. Stewart’s adventure tells the story of the “last dragons” and how they’ve gone from predator to prey because of human greed. The mission to save the sharks from extinction turns into a fight for his own life. Vivienne Tang speaks to Rob Stewart about the award winning movie, his fascination with sharks and the power of one.
How did it all start? When did you decide to make the movie Sharkwater? I was 22. I was a wildlife photographer, and I realized that sharks were getting killed. I tried to get the word out by doing magazine articles, but it didn’t work. I realized that I had to hit people in a harder way that had an emotional connection with sharks. So I figured I should do a movie. I set out with no film experience. I went to all my photo editors to ask for money to shoot my next photo assignment on digital still cameras, and I rented an HD movie camera instead. And I stepped on Sea Shepherd’s boat, because it was going to take me to the most shark rich waters in the world. And three weeks into shooting we were filming ourselves, trying to keep ourselves out of prison. We figured out that this issue is much deeper and much bigger than we thought. And the movie sort of changed dramatically from a pretty underwater film into Sharkwater. What has happened since the movie came out in 2007? It changed government policy in about four countries. It gave people a way to get involved and excited about saving the planet via saving sharks and saving species. We had one 15 year-old girl in Canada that did a fundraiser for sharks and had Toronto raising tens of thousands of dollars for shark conservation. There are 58,000 people who have pledged to save sharks and have basically signed a petition that we’re presenting at the United Nations conferences and at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to get greater protection for sharks. What has been the movement in China? Yao Ming, the basketball player, did a TV commercial for Sharkwater, saying, “Watch Sharkwater and learn about the ocean conservation.” We’ve partnered with a conservation group called WildAid. They’ve got quite a big presence in Asia, they do a lot of work with the governments.
What has been the feedback from the Chinese community? The feedback has been fantastic. It’s sort of like when Michael Moore movies came out in North America, telling Americans that some of the things that are going on are a little strange. In China everyone who has seen WildAid’s messages has been affected by these big campaigns. And 85% of these people who have seen the messages said that they would eat less or not consume shark fin soup. In China the word for shark fin soup is fish wing soup in Mandarin. So there’s a huge consumer awareness issue. 75% of the people don’t know that shark fin soup has shark in it. Why has it taken this long to bring Sharkwater over to Hong Kong? It’s taken this long, because Sharkwater became a monster. It started out from such humble beginnings, me trying to make a pretty shark movie. And it sort of exploded and became a really expensive movie. It took me two years to promote it, and I travelled all over the world. Only after I finished with all that I could start focusing on what we can do with this film from a conservation standpoint. In Hong Kong we’re working with Ecovision, and to release the film in China (later this year) I’ve raised a $100,000 to give to WildAid, so that they can get PR initiatives going, make sure they can throw a big event, get celebrities on board, that kind of thing. To get the film into China, it has needed 35 international awards from the biggest film festivals. And the fact that it has gained such mass recognition, success and acclaim, has eased the transition into China and made it a lot more acceptable, because the rest of the world loves it.
What is the main message of the movie? The most important message is that we’re destroying the eco system that we depend on for survival. And we don’t know that we’re doing it. If we did know that were doing it, we would take drastic action. It’s simply an awareness issue. When people figured out that whales were being hunted to the brink of extinction, they fought for it and change happened. People just have no idea what’s going on with sharks in the ocean. The oceans are a big, vast unknown. They give us 70% of the oxygen. And they regulate climate, and they’re a source of life on the planet. But we’re so unfamiliar with them that we’re blind to the fact that they’re being wiped out. The message of Sharkwater is that we’re destroying the oldest, longest and most important treasure the planet has, and we don’t know we’re doing it. And if we know that we’re doing it, we can make better decisions. Is there a specific message you have for our Chinese readers? Yeah absolutely, Chinese people have the absolute power to change the world. It’s in their hands. It’s their decision. As soon as the awareness is there, the power literally rests in their hands. Do they put their dollars towards destructive and exploited resources, such as shark fins that are wasteful? Every year humans waste 54 billion pounds of fish, that are pulled out of the ocean, killed by bycatch. If people knew that, say by 2048 there will be one fish left in the ocean, then I think the world would look very different, and people would take matters into their own hands.
What would you say is your mission on this planet? My mission is to raise awareness. I hope to help make people aware of our relationship with the natural world, so that people can survive on the planet in a healthy and happy environment. The way we’re working right now is built upon destruction. All of our economy and all of our industry derives upon destroying the world that we depend on for survival. We’ve got to turn that around. The writing is on the wall. So I think the greatest thing I could do is to make movies, because with a movie, millions of people see it, millions of dollars are spent to market it. It shows up on television shows, it becomes a monster with a life of its own. And me telling stories can suck people into something and spit them out on the other side with a new understanding. Hopefully that new understanding of compassion for future generations and for species can help turn this around. How has Sharkwater changed your life? What sort of impact did it have? The movie changed my life in almost every way. One, it took five years basically to make it and two years to promote it. And it’s still going now. I’ve never done anything for seven years. I haven’t dated somebody for seven years, lived somewhere for seven years, gone to school for seven years. It’s become pretty all-encompassing. What it did most importantly was to show me the power we have as an individual to make a difference. I was just a 22-year-old kid that set out to make a difference. And years later it’s made a difference, and it’s done some good and created awareness. And that’s fuelled me so much that everything I’m doing from now on is sort of based on the success and the formula I’ve stumbled upon with Sharkwater. When was the first time you ever swam with a shark? How old were you? I was nine. I was looking for fish, snorkelling. Before I was 13, the only way I could go down and hang out with fish, was breath-hold diving. So I was always holding my breath swimming down, trying to check out what was there. And I saw a five foot reef shark. And it looked at me and swam away as fast as it could. And that totally changed my perspective on things. If the shark is afraid of me, then everything everyone told me about sharks might not be true. And I don’t have to be afraid of the oceans anymore.
What would you say is the worst and the best experience that you’ve had in connection with Sharkwater? I wouldn’t say there’s anything bad about it. Everything that seemed to be a negative at the time, me almost losing my leg, Dengue Fever, TB and even struggling to get turned down by every distributor, turned out to be a beautiful positive, because it brought me back to basics. One of the best things it taught me was that there is never a negative. Something that appears to me as a negative now, will turn out to be a beautiful positive. I just have to wait for it. It also taught me that there’s nothing you can’t do, because if you set your mind to something, there’s no reason on earth why you couldn’t achieve it. You just have to give it everything you got. What is your main fascination with sharks? When I was a kid I loved dragons and dinosaurs. And sharks are sort of the last dragons and dinosaurs that we’ve got. They’re the biggest, the fastest, the strongest with the biggest teeth. They have sort of a mythical place in my heart. When you see a shark for the first time, you’re just overwhelmed by how beautiful it is. If I would say that there’s one animal that’s perfect, it would be the shark, because there’s no other animal that has endured on this planet for this long, and proven its perfection and its sort of reign. In a way they’re relics from the past, but in another way they’re sort of a guide to the future. Maybe we should look towards animals that have lived in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years. We’ve been here for a few hundred thousand years. We’ve got a lot to learn from other species, especially animals like sharks. Have you ever had an experience where a shark attacked you? No, we’ve spent so much time underwater with sharks, and we’ve never had a problem. And you swam with a Great White? Yup, everything.
What is the biggest myth about sharks? That sharks eat people. If sharks ate people, the oceans would be terrifying. You couldn’t go swimming, you couldn’t go scuba diving, you couldn’t go surfing. Every year there are over seven billion swimmers, and 50-90 people will get bitten by sharks. And they’re not even eaten. They get bitten. The shark realizes they got something they don’t want, and they let go. And people usually end up back on shore. Is there anything we haven’t discussed but people should definitely know? Yes, I think the most important thing everyone should know is that they need to get involved. Conservation isn’t just an issue. It is THE issue. It is the survival of humanity that we’re talking about. And based on science, the future of humans looks like it could be pretty grim, unless we take drastic action. In the past we evolved, we changed, we had revolutions, we turned around situations for culture, gender and equality. We ended holes in the ozone layers. We can turn this around, but it has to be led by the public. People will have to get involved, because the government and the corporations have a different mandate. They don’t often look out for long-term survival. So people all around the world have taken matters into their own hands, and they’re fighting for eco systems and species. And that is the most important thing. People can make a huge difference, and they absolutely have to. What are you working on now? We’re making a film about how humans are going to survive the next hundred years. Now that I have all this information and know what I know, I have to make a movie about it. It’s environment, it’s degradation, it’s sort of everything there is about being human and what we can do to turn it around. In the story we follow a bunch of people that are working for a conservation. It should be released late 2010.
What are the five things you do (or one should do) to make this world a better place? - You should reduce your impact, and reducing your consumption, your emissions. - The other thing is, you have to be conscious of your choices. Every day you go with your dollars and you direct the economy towards sustainability or towards death and destruction? - Be conscious of your food. A lot of the seafood you eat is incredibly wasteful. 85% that is brought to the surface is bycatch and destroys the oceans. - And you should work for good. If people started working in an environmental capacity for green initiatives…those industries are booming, and they have to boom. - Also educate people. Once you have a repertoire and information, and you know what’s going on, you can make better decisions. And you should also tell everyone you know, so they can make those decisions too. A lot of our decisions are made out of ignorance. Your duty is to get educated and to educate everyone else.
Rob Stewart will attend The World Ocean Day panel lunch discussion on June 7. The Sharkwater Blue Carpet Gala Premiere will take place at the UA Cinema iMAX theatre on June 7.
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