Freediver/Shark Expert/Photographer
www.nektos.net
Since childhood Fred has been in contact with the sea, spending several months per year on the family’s sailboat. At the age of 10 he started freediving, and swam with his first shark at age 13. He started teaching freediving in 1991.
Fred set his first freediving world record in 1995, and between 1997 and 2000 he achieved three more. In 1999, he passed the 100m deep’s mythical barrier on one breath of air—only the eighth person to do so.
In 2002 Fred started underwater photography to show the beauties of the underwater world. All his pictures are taken while freediving, using only available light, to minimize the impact on the ecosystem.
Besides underwater imaging, Fred helps scientists with tasks such as shark tagging for telemetry studies or sampling for DNA studies. So far he successfully tagged scalloped hammerheads, great hammerheads, Galapagos sharks, lemon sharks and great white sharks.
Freediver/Conservationist/Photographer/Storyteller
www.williamwinram.com
Born and raised in the Canadian Pacific Northwest, William is a former world champion in the sport of breath-hold diving or freediving. In June 2007 he set a world record by diving the Arch in the Blue Hole of Dahab, Egypt, without fins.
In 2008, to help safely develop the sport in Canada, with François Leduc, William founded AIDA Canada, the Canadian freediving governing body. An instructor-trainer for several diving systems, he teaches breath-hold diving classes around the world and coaches several international athletes.
Considered an expert in shark behavior, William uses his unique breath-hold diving skills and knowledge of sharks, together with friend and colleague Fred Buyle, to provide direct environmental work by tagging, photographing, filming and taking tissue samples of various species of sharks.
As a natural evolution, in 2012, he founded The Watermen Project and recently, William was asked to become an Ocean Ambassador for the Marine and Polar Programme of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the oldest and largest environmental NGO in the world.
Freediver/Great White Shark Expert
www.sharkdivingunlimited.com
Michael Rutzen is well known as one of the few people in the world who freedives with great white sharks. He took up working as a cage diving operator in 1994, after a career as a local fisherman. He started freediving with white sharks in 1998.
Michael has been a member of the White Shark Cage Diving Foundation since its inception. During this time he was at the forefront of developing and pioneering techniques that are now the backbone of the industry.
With Shark Diving Unlimited, he guided several world-renowned still photographers and film crews and started a series of internationally-acclaimed documentaries.
Currently Michael gives field support to all the authorized research projects on population dynamics studies, DNA and isotopes sampling programs, studies through the Marine and Coastal Management of South Africa, and was involved in satellite tagging and recent acoustic tagging.
www.csulb.edu/labs/sharklab/index.shtml
Chris grew up on Martha’s Vineyard, where he spent a vast majority of his youth fishing and diving the waters around Cape Cod. With degrees in Marine Biology and Zoology, he serves as a Professor of Marine Biology at California State University Long Beach where he runs the CSULB Shark Lab, originally founded by Dr. Donald R. Nelson, an innovator in the use and development of acoustic telemetry. Maintaining the CSULB Shark Lab history in innovation, Chris and his students continue the development and use of acoustic and satellite telemetry techniques to study the movement, behavior and physiology of sharks, rays and game fish. Chris and his students have been studying the baby white sharks of southern California for nine years and have greatly contributed to the field of knowledge for this enigmatic species. Some of his recent research has focused on the development of robots for autonomously tracking sharks. Lowe received the University’s Outstanding Professor Award in 2009 and Impact in Research Award in 2012.
Dr Lowe was also a script editor/consultant on the movie.
www.tiburonblanco.org
Beginning his career as a shark nursery ground and reproductive biology expert, Mauricio has always had a passion for shark conservation and has dedicated his professional life to the behaviour of sharks. Currently, his work is focused on researching behavior of 10 species of sharks in areas all across Mexico including Guadalupe Island, Revillagigedo Archipelago, Clipperton Atoll and the Mexican Caribbean. Mauricio has remained active in shark conservation outreach and education, giving talks to groups as young as elementary school children as well as high school and university students. His goal is to change the misconception of sharks in the human mind. He helped found a group of biologists who have dedicated their work to the conservation of sharks and rays in Mexican waters through research and public outreach in education. He is also a collaborating scientist on the boards of many different shark conservation foundations.
Suzy Quasnichka, a marine biologist, has worked with whale sharks in Australia, Djibouti, India, Honduras, South Africa and Tanzania. While working for SRI in Australia, she compiled a video catalogue of whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef spanning 5 years, led field expeditions on board the Kairos to the northern Mozambique Channel, and contributed images of more than 150 whale sharks to the Ecocean catalogue. A underwater filmmaker, she recently worked in South Africa filming great white sharks, tiger sharks and bull sharks. Today she runs Africa Diver promoting shark conservation and education tours with world-class dive operators.
Great White Shark is pleased to have award- winning stage and screen actor Bill Nighy as its narrator.
Nighy received a BAFTA Award, a London Film Critics Circle Award and an Evening Standard British Film Award for his performance as an aging rock star in Richard Curtis’s 2003 ensemble comedy hit Love Actually. He also won a Los Angeles Film Critics Award for his collective work in that film, as well as AKA, I Capture the Castle and Lawless Heart.
His long list of film credits also includes Wild Target, with Rupert Grint and Emily Blunt; Pirate Radio, which reunited him with Richard Curtis; Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, with Tom Cruise; Richard Eyre’s Notes on a Scandal, for which he earned a London Film Critics Circle Award nomination; Underworld and Underworld: Evolution; Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener, garnering a British Independent Film Award (BIFA) nomination; Lawless Heart, which brought him a BIFA nomination; and Still Crazy, for which he won an Evening Standard British Film Award.
Born in England, Nighy began his career on the British stage and has since earned acclaim for his work in numerous plays including David Hare’s The Vertical Hour, Pravda and A Map of the World. He has also performed in plays by other leading dramatists including Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Brian Friel, Anton Chekhov and Peter Gill. He received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor for his
performance in Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange. On Broadway he starred in the 2006 premiere of David Hare’s The Vertical Hour, directed by Sam Mendes.
DIRECTORS: Luke Cresswell & Steve McNicholas
PRODUCERS: Luke Cresswell Steve McNicholas D.J. Roller David Marks Don Kempf
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: D.J. Roller
MUSIC COMPOSER: Luke Cresswell & Steve McNicholas
EDITORS: Luke Cresswell & Steve McNicholas
POST PRODUCTION PRODUCER: Rick Gordon
NARRATION: Bill Nighy
TEXT: Luke Cresswell & Steve McNicholas
SCRIPT EDITOR/CONSULTANTS: Suzy Quasnichka & Dr. Chris Lowe
PRINCIPALS Frederic Buyle, William Winram, Mike Rutzen, Dr Chris Lowe & Dr Mauricio Hoyos Padilla
PRODUCERS: Yes/No Productions Liquid Pictures Giant Screen Films
SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS: Oceana (www.oceana.org) WildAid (www.wildaid.org) Bite-Back (www.bite-back.com)
DISTRIBUTORS: Giant Screen Films
POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISION: RPG Productions
FILM LABORATORY: Fotokem
DIGITAL POST-PRODUCTION & COLOR TIMING: Fotokem
65-MM RECORDING: Fotokem
VOICEOVER RECORDING: Art4Noise
FILM NEGATIVE: Eastman Kodak Film
3D 5K DIGITAL CAMERA SYSTEM AND UNDERWATER HOUSING CONCEPT DESIGNED BY: D.J. Roller
CAMERA SYSTEM PROVIDED BY: Liquid Pictures & Yes/No Productions
MUSIC MIXING: Mike Roberts
RECORDING STUDIO: The Old Market, Hove
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Monterey Bay Aquarium, California State University Long Beach, Universal Studios
Derek Threinen
+ 1 847-475-9140 x107
dthreinen@gsfilms.com
Domingo Escutia Muñoz
+34 646 854 714
descutia@gsfilms.com
Andy Wood
+1 847-475-9140 x105
awood@gsfilms.com
Deborah Raksany
+1 847-475-9140 x108
draksany@gsfilms.com
Tom Rooney
+1 847-475-9140 x112
trooney@gsfilms.com