Beneat the sea 2004 News
BRET GILLIAM TO MC BENEATH THE SEA'S SATURDAY EVENING FILM FESTIVAL
LEONARDO BLANCO TO APPEAR AT SATURDAY NIGHT FILM FESTIVAL
Beneath the Sea takes pleasure in announcing that BRET GILLIAM,
Publisher of "Fathoms" magazine, president and CEO of
TDI/SDI, DiveSafe Insurance, and Ocean Tech, raconteur, author,
underwater photographer, and well-known personality in the dive
industry for his insight into and wit about the tides and fortunes
of scuba diving, will come to Beneath the Sea, March 26th, 27th,
and 28th 2004 at the Meadowlands Convention Center in Secaucus
New Jersey to host their
SATURDAY FILM FESTIVAL EVENING.
Bret Gilliam is as enthusiastic about scuba diving today, with over 15,000 logged dives, as he was back in 1958 when he began. Back then Bret made a commitment to dive exploration and photography that involved bringing back the story from wherever the story was. Twelve books and over six hundred articles later, today he is noted for his technical expertise and his trademark sense of humor.
Across the almost fifty years that Bret has been a part of the dive industry, he has been successfully involved in every fact of the dive industry including resort and liveaboard operation, training agencies, publishing and manufacturing. In December 1998 Bret retired as President and CEO of UWATEC and sold Deep Tech and Scuba Times magazines to Petersen Publishing to concentrate on growth within TDI and SDI.
He has also worked on film documentaries including National Geographic Explorer, and feature films such as "The Deep," "The Island of Dr. Moreau," and other underwater action films.
A pioneer in technical diving, Bret began diving with a U.S. Navy team in 1971 filming nuclear submarines and led early experimentation with accelerated decompression tables and nitrox. He still holds the world record for deep diving on compressed air at 490 feet.
After twenty-two years of running diving and ship operations in the Caribbean, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans, Bret now lives on an island in Maine, satisfying his passion for the four seasons. Today, in his critical fifties, he is determined to never again have a career path that requires him to wear long pants or shoes on a regular basis.
At BENEATH THE SEA, in addition to his role as Master of Ceremonies, Bret will present his film "MALPELO AND THE COCOS ISLANDS: AN OCEAN OASIS."
Join us for the wit and witchcraft of Bret Gilliam at Beneath the Sea's Saturday Night Film Festival, Saturday, March 27th, 2004, in Secaucus, New Jersey.
To my friends in Beneath The Sea: "In my experience there have never been any underwater images, with the messages, that have ever exceeded the imagination and beauty of those of LEONARDO BLANCO. I am proud to introduce his work to Beneath The Sea, to the United States. Finally." - Zig
Our 28th Annual exposition will be the best ... Ever.
Meet LEONARDO BLANCO, at BENEATH THE SEA's 28th annual Undersea
Exposition and Dive Travel Show at New Jersey's Meadowlands Exposition
Center and the Embassy Suites Hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey March
26,
and 27 and 28, 2004.
Born in Spain, Leonardo moves to New York City by the time he is five. By fourteen a musical group he has formed has won first prize in at a music festival in the New York World's Fair and has a number one hit on the charts, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." He gets his pilot's license by the age of nineteen, converts his love of flying into a commercial pilot's license, and today captains an Airbus 340 for an international airline.
Balancing his love of music with his love of flying, Leonardo arrives at the 1980s - as does a new idea that captures his heart, music videos. Now it is the fast moving images and the tempo of the music that cause him to learn video technique. By 1990 he had won some international prizes with short documentaries, and that is the year he first took him camera underwater.
Encouraged and excited, Leonardo Blanco is not a man who does things halfway, so now all his free time is caught up in the video and the underwater worlds and bringing the two together. The prizes continue to come in, and that's all the encouragement he needs to produce still more videos.
Teaming with Michael Aw, another outstanding underwater photographer, the two produce "24 Hours Beneath a Rainbowed Sea" for the National Geographic Channel, and soon to air worldwide.
In 2002, and for the first time in the history of the renowned Antibes Festival, the judges grant him a special prize for three outstanding videos: "Ocean Chronicles," "Shame on You," and "Wit the Flow."
See for yourself this magic from the video camera when it is in the hands of Leonardo Blanco, at Beneath the Sea's Saturday Night Film Festival, Saturday, March 27th, 2004 at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in Secaucus, New Jersey.
You may be able to meet him at our MEET THE FISH N FAMOUS
RECEPTION,
Friday, March 26th.
About BENEATH THE SEA
Host of the Largest Consumer Scuba & Dive Travel Show in
America
March 26, 27, 28 - 2004
at the Meadowlands Exposition Center, Secaucus, NJ
Welcome to all who are interested in scuba diving and related
environmental issues!
BTS is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to increasing awareness of the earth's oceans and the sport of scuba diving.
As an award-winning organization, BTS helps promote environmental conservation and the protection of marine wildlife through grants to other nonprofit groups. Through its international poster contest for children, called Ocean Pals, BTS helps educate children on the wonder and delicate nature of our oceans.
Beneath The Sea's 28th annual exposition in March 2004 will feature seminars and workshops, lots of great door prizes, a film festival showcasing the work of world-renowned underwater videographers, great parties, and exhibits and demonstrations by hundreds of manufacturers, dive clubs, dive shops, resorts, and much more!
Stay tuned for the upcoming events that await us at the Beneath The Sea 2004 show!
