Above is a framegrab from a movie that premieres in Capetown, South Africa exactly one month from today. I am the Co Director, Editor and script writer of said movie…The Last Shark.

I am in that liminal period of my work on this particular timeline, just like this photo…on the in between horizon.

I have been actively working on this movie since receiving the hard drive from South Africa in June of 2023. And now, given the premiere deadline of November 7th…I am most definitely in that underwater/abovewater phase. Sometimes I see the sky and the end of editing the most complicated and important story I have ever been a part of. Sometimes I am back down under the waves of revisions, wondering if it will ever be completed at all. And then in the next moment considering, once I am done, what the actual fuck will I do with my life afterwards?

In this framegrab the lens of the camera person was positioned just on the waterline. So in the actual footage the water deliciously sloshes about, dipping the camera view above and below in fits and starts. Then the title of the next chapter of the movie suddenly appears in that space, right on the horizon.

My co-director, bless her amazing heart, says I shouldn’t swear in social media postings…but I am 52 and so, you know…on my blog I get to paint with all the fucking colors. At my age, and with the things I have been through in my life I find myself in that pleasant phase of life where you truly cease to care what people think. Or if you do care, you notice that you care, but you decidedly stop changing your behavior due to that.

In a world packed with people seemingly hell bent on destroying the world that they live in…do I really care about offending some people with bright language here and there? As an old friend of mine always said, “consider the source”. I am here to be me. We all really need to be. If you think something is right and it follows basic principles like doing no further harm and respecting other’s rights then for real…when has their been a more important time than now to do something?

That is what has driven me to give up everything for this project. It’s an odd situation. And it’s also something I have wholly lost perspective on. When I ponder life after I hit that final upload button and what happens after Frankie downloads it for screenings in South Africa…it’s also then that I ponder where I have been in life that led me to this project.

I find myself asking a lot of questions about the value of work and how we, as a society at large, seem to have linked the value of work with financial compensation. These things, in reality, have nothing to do with one another. If none of us were paid for what we did, we would have a completely different society, ordered upon wildly different values. If every single thing wasn’t commoditized, including us, including animals, what would it be like to live in a world like that? That’s really what I am trying to say with my movies. I am working towards a world where everything isn’t for sale. I believe in that world because I inherently believe that until we make that a reality, we will continue to dessicate the place we call home.

If any of you readers are technical folks…we are nearly at picture lock. Besides a few footage outliers, which can all be dropped on top of interview footage as B roll…the length of the film is locked in at one hour and 19 minutes. Narration lock happened yesterday. Composers are working on the original sound track. There is still plenty to do but if you liken this process to building a house…we are the painting phase. It’s 98% percent move in ready.

It’s staggering though. Every other movie I have made was honestly so simplistic compared to this one in scope. I have never made a movie about a species that is going extinct. I have made movies about saving tracts of land from deforestation. I have made generalized movies with a strong conservation message. But the situation that exists in South Africa with the shark nets and the fear driven killing of so many sharks hits so hard for me on every level. It defines the human vs nature conflict so precisely. We are such a fearful and unintelligent species. And the most dangerous thing about is that we think we are so damn smart. We don’t recognize that so many of our fact based decisions are actually based on fears disguised as facts. How do we ever learn if we are so busy being blind? Who will read the writing on the wall?

That’s why I make movies. That’s why I make podcasts. That’s why I do conservation work for free for 6 months while living out of my car. I feel like it’s worth the effort to craft a narrative that just might shake someone new out of the old ways of thinking.

What will I do once the timeline is saved for that final revision and I export this movie? In less than a month I will be in alone in a cabin in the wintery woods of northern Vermont for 6 weeks. What will it be like to find my creative output grind to a specific halt? Will the movie take on a life of its own? Will I be contacted by someone I haven’t even met yet and offered my next project? Oh…and where the F will I live after those 6 weeks?

It’s a mystery. It all is.