So why exactly did I make a shark film?
It started with the location. I have a house on the coast of Ecuador where I visit every year. It’s in a small fishing village of Playas. So it’s not your typical beach town. I always liked the way the town felt. It’s not really touristy. There’s people visiting from other parts of Ecuador but there aren’t many international tourists. So the idea for this film started because I wanted to film something in our little town of Playas. Over the years I did various small camera tests there but never a full story. I started writing a script about a couple that goes on vacation to Playas but they are bored, not really sure what to do. Of course then I needed something to go wrong. If nothing goes wrong then there is no story. If you think about it every film or book or any other type of story essentially has the same basic element. Something goes wrong. That’s what makes your characters go on a journey trying to overcome or fix whatever went wrong.
While walking around Playas, I always noticed the fishing boats and the fisherman that go out daily for their catch. So naturally I thought, what if my characters go out on a boat and get stuck there. They need a rescue. Then I thought of several reasons why that is and in the end I decided to add a shark to make the film more suspenseful. So in a way you can say my film is about people that get stuck on a boat in the middle of the ocean and there happens to be a shark around. The shark is not the main reason behind the story and it’s not the main character.
Personally I’ve swam in many places where there are a lot of sharks and I know they’re not some evil creatures like most shark films make them out to be. They are just animals living by their compulsions. They don’t go around thinking who they can kill today. In fact most shark encounters that people have are friendly. But if you happen to come across a shark that is hungry and you are bleeding or have something shiny on you, especially during dusk or dawn then your chance of getting attacked by a shark increases. That’s because most shark attacks are because they mistake a human being for a fish they would rather eat. Also in most cases after a single bite, sharks leave people alone since apparently we don’t taste good to them. Go figure!
In short, that’s how I came up with the story for my shark film. The title of my film is “Shark Bait”. Hope you guys want to see the whole film and also how I made it. Filming it was fun, at times hilarious but also scary. In my next video about the making of “Shark Bait”, I will share with you guys exactly how I shot this film and how you guys can do something similar, even if you got little or no money. So definitely subscribe to my newsletter and keep on checking back here for future videos.
