Pro Moviemaker Autumn 2018

CASE STUDY MARK SHARMAN

“The experience in the Philippines was purely diving,” he says, “because I knew it was necessary to become completely comfortable with that side of things so that, just as you might drive a car almost automatically, I didn’t even really have to think about it anymore. It can take you that amount of time and several hundred dives to master neutral buoyancy, which is crucial, while at the same time I was also learning how to identify the various fish and invertebrate species that I was encountering. “By the time I arrived in Egypt I felt that I could now concentrate totally on the filmmaking side of things without having to worry about my scuba gear. The equipment I had with me was pretty basic to say the least. I was filming with a Sony PD150 camcorder that was encased in a Sea & Sea housing, but it all worked fine and I was able to get some really decent underwater footage with that set-up.” Back in the UK Mark started to look for work, determined to focus on positions related to wildlife. His degree helped him to land temporary positions at places such as the BBC where, to his delight, he undertook a three-month role as a researcher on The Really Wild Show , one of the programmes that had inspired him to become interested in nature in the first place. “It was great to get that experience,” he says, “but I had already realised by

ABOVE Mark Sharman filming bajau fishermen in Indonesia for the BBC/Netflix film, Jago: A Life Underwater.

put together a sequence for a programme such as Blue Planet II . Sometimes you get nothing for the first two weeks and everything happens on the last day: there have been a few of those. Developing patience and remaining upbeat and positive when the chips are down are key skills to master.” Regularly working on high-profile productions for some of the world’s leading wildlife filmmakers, Mark’s CV is testament to the international regard with which he’s held. Credits include filming bajau fishermen in Indonesia for Jago: A Life Underwater (BBC 4 and Netflix) and One Strange Rock for National Geographic, filming humpback whale behaviour off the cost of Colombia for Blue Ant Media/ Love Nature, tagging cameras on to mobula rays for Animals with Cameras , being part of the BBC team filming back stories for Wild Alaska Live , undertaking landmark underwater shoots for Blue Planet II , filming underwater rescue dogs for the Discovery Channel’s Dogs: The Untold Story and contributing wildlife sequences for the Davina McCall: Life at the Extreme series. Continual learning Also on the agenda if you want to remain on the radar of the commissioners is the ongoing acquisition of new skills, some of them complementary but others less so. “I’m continually having to develop my craft and push new boundaries to keep up my skills as an all-round cameraman,” says Mark, “both on land and underwater. Becoming a rebreather diver was an important step, as it is allows you to spend a lot more time underwater and to get closer to certain marine life. That was like learning diving from scratch, and it

this point that, to make a career in the field I wanted to be in, I had to set up as a freelancer and to take jobs on as and when they came through. That’s very much still the way I operate these days, and it’s a mixture of networking, building up contacts, putting together proposals and being ready to head off all over the world at short notice. I’m travelling for between 120 and 150 days a year and it can take between two and three weeks to

“Developing patience and remaining positive and upbeat when the chips are down are key skills”

ABOVE Although he specialises in underwater footage, Mark Sharman also regularly films wildlife scenes topside.

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PRO MOVIEMAKER AUTUMN 2018

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