Basic HTML Version
42
summer
|
fal l
M
ontecito-based filmmaker-cinematographer Mike deGruy
graduated from North Carolina State and took three years
of grad school at the University of Hawaii studying marine
biology – invertebrates and cephalopods primarily – before dropping out
and becoming a filmmaker. “I never saw that one coming,” he laughs, as
we settle upon the Biltmore wall to examine the ocean in front of us.
Mike spent his early years as a cinematographer making ocean-related
documentaries for the BBC (“The Living Planet,” “Trials Of Life,” “Life
In The Freezer,” for which he spent a number of months in Antarctica).
Other titles Mike is known for include “Incredible Suckers” and “The
Octopus Show,” for a PBS series called “Nature,” “The Blue Planet,” and
the movie, “Deep Blue.”
Mike is perhaps most famous for the footage he shot (along with Paul
Atkins) for “Trials of Life” of killer whales taking sea lions off the beach
in Patagonia’s Punta Norte Peninsula. “In those days,” he explains, “you
could get in the water, but the Argentine government won’t let you in the
water any more.”
Mike has a longstanding relationship with natural-history
filmmaker David Attenborough that goes back 35 years from his days
with the BBC. Mike created the David Attenborough Award in a subset
of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival called “Reel Nature,”
which Mike also runs.
Although he didn’t work on the movie, Mike worked
with director-producer James Cameron on a ‘Titanic’
project and subsequently did eight dives with
Cameron in Russian mini-subs, called
Mirs (peace in Russian) to the sunken
wreck 12,500 feet down. “Jim was in one sub,” Mike recounts, “and
I was in the other, along with, of course, the pilot.” The pair hosted a
live broadcast for the Discovery Channel called “Last Mysteries of the
Titanic” by landing on the deck of the Titanic and directing ROVs
(Remotely Operated Vehicles) – tiny robots – to examine the inners of
the ship, including the staterooms.
Mike just returned from a week in the Galapagos Islands, serving as
one of 20 speakers for 80 guests onboard a 340-foot ship arranged by the
TED (Technology Entertainment Design) organization.
“The mission was to celebrate Sylvia Earle’s wish to take serious action
to preserve various places in the ocean,” Mike says. The effort, he adds,
raised “
way
over ten million dollars, just from the passengers.”
Mike is currently working with actor Tim Matheson (also a
Montecito resident), on a feature film adaptation of Steven Callahan’s
journey that Callahan wrote about in a book called “Adrift.”
“Basically,” deGruy says, “it’s the story of Steven doing a solo sail
from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. Three days into it, something
breached his hull and the boat sank. For
seventy-six days
,” Mike continues,
“he drifted across the Atlantic in a little rubber life raft... and survived!
We’re pushing really hard right now to get a studio behind that and get
some funding.”
Mike ponders the Montecito Coast.
“From this wall,” he begins, “most people just see a bluish-green
surface with white caps and the occasional dolphin will go by; if they’re
lucky they’ll see a gray whale. But, that’s pretty much it: a flat surface. The
reality is, however, that is just the ‘skin’ of the three-dimensional world
underneath. I don’t know if you know this,” Mike proffers, “but ninety-
seven percent of the living space on our planet is under water.”
Beneath it All
observat ions