MACNA 2011 Presenter Profile: David Hannan
Cinematographer and Producer, David Hannan has won international acclaim for his tropical and temperate marine images. His now classic underwater music video Coral Sea Dreaming released in 1992 has screened in over 60 countries and remains the best-selling Natural History program ever produced and marketed from Australia.
Since then, David has produced, co-produced and filmed many other TV Documentaries and Musical Videos, amassed one of the worlds' largest independent tropical marine footage libraries and also an extensive archive of Antarctica on HD.
David and his company Plankton Productions have been extensively involved in shooting and/or supplying images for many of the worlds best known programs and series over the last two decades including the BBC's "The Blue Planet" National Geographics' "The Shape of Life" and "Great Migrations" series and David Suzuki's "The Nature of Things".
In 1999 David won an Emmy Award for his Cinematography on "Palau - Paradise of the Pacific", part of the highly acclaimed US Living Edens Series. He was again nominated for an Emmy Award in 2008 for "Reef of Riches".
In 2007 David Co-Produced and Co-filmed the Feature Documentary "Sharkwater" www.sharkwater.com with Rob Stewart which has since won more than 34 International Awards.
The 6-part TV series entitled "Underwater Edens" for Smithsonian Channel was completed with Co-Producer Nate Scripture during 2009 which won the award for 'Best Series' at the International Wildlife Film Festival in 2010.
See story title Undersea Edens wins 'Best Series' award at IWFF.
He is proud of his role in instigating and co-producing an innovative new range of Marine Educational Modules and Keynote speeches that focus on Marine Issues and Marine Ecology that will be available online to over 10,000 schools in the Australian and New Zealand region and are also intended for worldwide Distribution in 2010.
David is currently releasing his latest HD project Coral Sea Dreaming - Awaken, exploring exciting new ways of seeing his imagery as 'Virtual Decor' and planning several new projects.
Topic Presentation: A Filmmakers Journey into the Age of Aquariums
Hall C - Saturday, September 10 7:30 PM
I will give an overview the 50 year love affair I have had with the Ocean realm and also discuss my personal and professional journey and “awakening” into a shocking understanding about the major issues and negative changes confronting the marine world, with a focus on how I see the decades ahead.
I will discuss how virtual artists like myself and the aquarium industry can work together to preserve and conserve marine species facing extinction in the wild. We now have the ability and technology to help radically change the way humans think and relate to marine creatures.
There is now a growing awareness that both Virtual Marine Imagery and Living Aquariums can be successfully used in a wide range of professional and private medical and therapeutic applications. Looking ahead this offers some extraordinary opportunities to Virtual Artists like myself, the whole Aquarium Industry and in fact, the whole marine world.
If we are to save sea creatures from the extinction they face in the wild, the worldwide Aquarium industry will need to expand exponentially and also become a lot more sophisticated over the next decade. For the Aquariums of the modern world are destined to soon become, collectively, a modern equivalent to Noah’s Ark. Collection, preservation and the reproduction of as many endangered species as possible in Aquaria is critically important.
Sea Levels and Surface Water Temperatures are rising and Ocean Chemistry is radically changing through Ocean Acidification. Time is running out to save marine creatures. Food chains are collapsing. Undersea ecosystems are under severe environmental pressures and going through negative changes at a rate not seen since the last Great Mass Extinction Event over 60 million years ago.
Coral Reefs as we know them face extinction by mid century. We have already lost half of them. Every other day and Reef dies and they are currently disappearing twice as fast as rainforests. Reef ecosystems directly and indirectly support millions of other species of plants and animals.
By the end of the century we may finally have the technology to start to repair the damage done to the Oceans and to start to restore Ocean Chemistry to sustainable levels for marine life. But the only marine life left to re-introduce back into to our Oceans may well be what we have managed to save in Aquariums.