A.L Archives
Can you believe it’s been 8 months since Attacking Life was released into the world? It’s still crazy to think about for me! I’ve spent a lot of time ruminating and reflecting on the whole process, and some parts I’ve spoken about on the Journal but there’s been a lot that’s left aside for the original idea we had of creating a photo book which includes the perspectives of everyone who was a part of the project.
As things happen and you move further away from the project, it’s easy to lose motivation to follow through on making something as large and significant as a book. However, I still had some of my writing for this book sitting on my computer somewhere that I always thought would be worth sharing.
And that’s where we’ve arrived now. So I’ll periodically share the pieces I’ve written which is a nice way to reflect for me both on the experience itself, as well as how my writing has changed and evolved since the start of 2023 when this was all put together.
This first piece outlines why and how Attacking Life was born. It’s been a wild ride since then so I hope you enjoy!
BTW if you haven’t watched the film already for some reason, it’s still available on STAN in Australia.
Section 1: An Introduction To The Project
Embarking on a project like this is one hell of an experience. When I take a moment to reflect on the entire process as a whole I’m led to think of two points of view that appeal to a level of blissful ignorance that I felt was required to make something like this. The first is the ‘why’ and the second is understandably the ‘how’.
The ‘why’ is the significant portion of this thought that I lean heavily upon not only in the process of making Attacking Life but in a lot of other aspects of my work. The brutal and basic nature of being a shark attack victim is something that creates conversation everywhere I go. Not only is it something that engages people on an evolutionary level of intrigue, but the notes of novelty, luck and survival are all things that make it a story that people find themselves engrossed in regardless of whether they surf, swim, sit on a beach or live in a landlocked country. The ability of my story to engage is not lost on me but there’s always been a feeling that it can lead to a devaluation of the other parts of my experience, including my recovery and everything that’s come after the attack that if not told correctly could be lost somewhere along the way.
This thought is something I was quite cognisant of very early on when I had a flow of offers from certain television shows and networks who were interested in telling my story. Moments like this can be incredibly overwhelming and lead to an internal battle that impacts the ultimate decision. At the time of these offers my future was uncertain, I had no knowledge of what life had in store for me as far as my health and work prospects were concerned. Looking at this opportunity objectively, I could sell my story to a suitable party, cash in on the feature and relieve any pressure I felt in the way of making a living. Luckily, through having an incredible group of people around me who allowed me to put my financial worries to one side I was able to see the reality of what it would mean to sign my story away.
I knew that selling my story would relinquish any ability to share it in a way that I felt was appropriate to how I viewed the entire experience and it would be no surprise that the narrative would take a negative view towards the ‘bad guys of the ocean’. There are numerous issues I had with these proposals that I think were important to address at the time and have forged a strong purpose for creating the film today. I’ve always made my feelings towards sharks clear. I believe they are one of the most misunderstood creatures on this planet and the respect I have for them is one of the reasons I wanted to be able to paint them in a positive light. Whilst this may not be the attitude ‘traditional media’ would take towards a story like this, I wanted to remain authentic. The timing of these conversations also had a role to play in my decision. As it stood, the story would be told about the attack and the attack only, I was still in a hospital bed when I first contemplated what it would be like to share my story so I wondered how that would speak to the recovery ahead or where my life would lead from that point forward? I felt like my story was only just beginning and I had so much more to experience and learn before I could have something of true value to share with the world.
“I’m proud to have held strong in a time of ultimate vulnerability and the mindset I held towards sharing my story began to be motivated by having control over it being told the way I wanted people to hear it, at a time that felt right to me.”
This is a beautiful moment of reflection for me as the process of coming to this decision highlights the importance of the overall message of the film in that it’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you respond. And that’s a message that I live by and put out into the world with every opportunity I get.
Now we have a purpose, I want to use my story and my experience with the ultimate goal of trying to help others, but this is where you run into the more complicated problem of ‘how’. I’ve been told right from the moment I woke up in the hospital that my story would become an amazing book one day. I spent a long time thinking that the written word was going to be the vehicle of how my story would be told so the fact that it’s become a feature-length film was something that took me by surprise. I have relative confidence in my ability to write and recount my story and although I’ve always held an interest in video, I didn’t know the first thing about creating a film.
The pathway from book to film is an interesting one. Attacking Life began its existence as a 5-minute preview that I planned to play before I presented a keynote with the purpose of giving context to my story. I reached out to Sam Tolhurst, who was a good friend of mine and someone I’d worked with on various surf shorts and branded content for DP Surfboards where I was working at the time and we began to work on this 5 minute introduction video. We hadn’t yet completed the video when Sam decided to show it to a few people whose opinions he valued and the overwhelming response was that we couldn’t do the story justice in 5 minutes. We sat down, evaluated and decided to extend it to 20 minutes, 60 minutes and eventually landed on doing a complete feature-length documentary on the entire story, leaving no stone left unturned.
Our increased ambition for the project was met with several challenges. We acknowledged that this was no longer a two-person job and would need to enlist more people to be involved if we were to reach a level of quality that matched our lofty goals for the film. There was a lot that was unknown about what it would take to be able to complete such a project, we had no experience doing this so to the outside world I’m sure it looked like we were in way over our heads but we had a vision that we wanted to execute and we were going to do everything we could to make it happen. A few months later I quit my job, we started Honest Boys Productions and set sail into the waters of documentary filmmaking.