MHK
Guest
Spectre,
I wasn't sure if you wanted me to disclose private communication so I erred on the side of caution.
Now that being said let me try to see if I can put into proper perspective the totality of my involvement, and put to rest some of the misconceptions, but in the interest of brievty I may leave some details out so if you need more clarification please let me know.
My involvement in this show was a result of Jarrod Joblonski recommending me for the on air personality. A & E was looking for someone who had a good command of the subject matter, who keep speak knowledgably and cogently about the issues, and someone who could tell a story. JJ originally was in consideration as the camera man, as was Wes Skiles. For budgetary reasons A & E initially went with JJ, and the executives at A & E chose me atfer a series of screen tests, and after interviewing many, many candidates. In the end it came down to me and another girl from Florida and for whatever reason I was chosen. I actually thought for demographics they were going to pick the woman. But nonethless JJ then devolped the story line that would track a diver from a open water recreational diver, to a cavern diver, then a cave diver and then the extreme position of exploring cave that had never been explored. In any event after the events of 9/11 Wes found that he had a hole in schedule since some of his projects were put on hold so he submitted a revised bid to A & E, with a condition that Buddy Quaddlebaum could have shared footage. A & E liked the fact that Wes had a high Def camera and that he had worked previously on the Imax so in mid-stream they switched gears. In fact, I was scheduled to leave on Monday and on Friday I was told of the switch..
My immediate reaction was to pull out of the project, after discussions with JJ, George Irvine, Andrew Georgitis and the producer's I agreed to continue my involvement UNDER THE WRITTEN CONDITION THAT I WOULD USE MY GEAR.. I was so adament that I reduced it to writing before I agreed to get on the plane.
The producer's of the show were not knowledgable about cave diving at all so upon our arrival in Mexico it appeared to me that there was a fair amount of behind the scenes manuvering going on..
As to side mount configuration, bear in mind there is a DIR way to do it, which I'll discuss later, but the important idea to recognize is that side mounting adds an added complexity to the dive, which is only to be done when necessary. That is the penultimate issue, only when necessary. So here I was with the locals saying that you NEEDED to side mount, and the producer's knowing no better. As an ancillary point, it's important to note that Dive Rite sponsors a fair amount of projects that Wes does, so as loyal as I was to Halcyon Wes et. al was equally loyal to DiveRite.. Accordingly, had I been told we would absolutely have to side mount before I left home I would have packed a different rig. But I felt duped upon arrival because once we got into the filming I was told for the first time, even after many, many conversations that Buddy's team never received word that we wouldn't side mount, and that they had already trecked the single tanks into the jungle.. You can make your own decision on whether that was a coincidence or not.. I have my thoughts but I'll leave them private..
Upon meeting Buddy, and after understanding my reservations about side mounting, they told me that as luck would have it that they brought down a brand new DiveRite side mount for me to use.. I declined for a variety of reasons.. Bear in mind, that I think warrants repeating Buddy's business subscribes to a side mount style, and he was getting the rights to use this footage for his promotional purposes so he had a vested interest in suggesting side mount.
Furthermore, we shot 88 hours of footage and no where in ANY of the caves that we dove did I think we needed to side mount.
Let's talk a little about side mounting. I think you misunderstand what side mounting does. From what I read that you wrote, it appears that you are under the impression that by having tanks mounting beneath you as opposed to back mounted that you are more streamlinned, and are thus able to fit through tighter spaces. That isn't true.
The idea behind a side mount rig is so that if you get to a restriction you can easily unclip the bottom end of the stage bottle and slide it through the restriction, juxtaposed against back mounting which would otherwise require you to take off your harness.
Overall, I was significantly LESS streamlinned throughout all of my diving because I had 4 tanks hanging below me and the slipstream, plus a 30 lb Cinne light.. And even with all that extra drag and the increase in the co-efficent of drag never once did we even come close to a restriction that mandated that I use the *benefits* associated with side mounting..
Had I known ahead of time about the negotiated shared footage and the fact that we would side mounted I would have backed out because I did feel slightly blindsided when I got to Mexico, but by then A & E had already shot about 20 hours of footage, they had there whole crew flown in, Wes' whole crew flown in so I tried to make the best..
I still will add, even after all the side shows that were created, I did get to dive some of the most incredible dives in the whole world, and frankly when I saw the final cut, several months before it aired, I argued furiously to omit the controversy about gear, and just focus on the dives, of which we had nearly 50 hours of underwater footage. But at the end of the day I had no say over the edits and the producers kept reminding me that this is a series designed for ratings, and controversy sells, so they left it in.. In the show it takes up a fair amount of attention, but in the grand scheme of the 2 weeks we shot the show it really was a minor portion..
Hope that clears it up..
Later
