Freediving Film Festival

BIG NEWS!!

I have been stewing over this one for a while and it is time to let the cat out the bag! Coatesman's is going to be holding a spearfishing competition ... kind of anyway.

The Coatesman's Spearfishing
Freediving Film Festival

This is not a totally new concept, but here free divers will be judged on their video footage and not the unnecessarily on the fish that they shoot. The Underwater Film Festival concept will use skills that spearo's have adapted to film spearfishing to as judging criteria. This combined with a typical spearfishing competition will create a very unique and exciting competition.

Here are some of the initial categories and descriptions:

• Best fish shot on film - Notice it did not say biggest although size will count. The quality of the footage combined with the size and species of fish will determine the points.
• Best free swimming fish - This is not necessarily the one that got away, maybe it is the one that go left alone. Again quality of the footage and size and species will be considered.
• Best marine life - This could be from sharks feeding to turtles shagging ....
  
• The Sitter - This is for the shot of a shot not being taken. There will have to be no doubt in the judges eyes that had the spearo taken the shot he would have got the fish. An absolute sitter! Again quality of the footage combined with the size and species of fish will determine the points. (not for the trigger happy)
• Best artistic piece - He we are looking for a great piece of filming, this can involve fish, a diver, or just sunlight and clean water.
• Lifestyle shot - This is not necessarily in the water, this is a piece that best describes who we are and what we do.
  
• Bloopers and Funny segments - if it makes us laugh ....
  

You will have to operate in teams, and the prizes will be to the individual behind the camera, and the person in the the section of footage. For example the Best fish shot on film will have a joint prize for the camera man and the spearo.
Each team will need to have their own laptop to 'edit' the section of film they want to submit and get it to the judges. At this stage we are looking at each team submitting 3-5 segments footage, for each category.

So when and where??
13-16 June 2008 the 16th is a public holiday and you will only need one days leave. The time of the year is also the most reliable in terms of weather, and with possible 3 days to get on the sea we should have great diving on at least on day. The prize giving will be on the Sunday nite with time to travel home on the Monday, thats unless the Monday becomes the dive day due to bad weather.

Sordwana is looking like the most viable option, as we are needing to have good clean water plus decent facilities to host the comp and power equipment. Sordwana also has loads of reef and marine life.
Southern Mozambique might also be an option, but Sordwana is looking more practical.

At the Comp.
We are hoping to do some work shops on filming by various guys who are in the know and hope that this will be a learning time as well as a great social event.

After The Comp.
At the end of the comp all the footage will be edited by professionals and each diver will receive a copy. This will also be broadcast on tv the purpose of this is mainly to attract decent sponsors and this will mean some great prizes. But a great spin off is that this is a 'green' or 'greener' view of the sport we love. And a great opportunity to educate people about how 'green' spearfishing really is. (Although this is not the purpose of the comp)

For Now:
We still have loads of admin to sort out, but it is all systems go!! I have posted this page on the Salt Diver site and your comments and thoughts are welcome.
Link to the forum Freediving Film Festival

Cheers

Coatesman