About us:
We, Barbara and Russ van Aardt are based in Cape Town, South Africa and have spent the last 15 years filming Natural history subject matter in underwater and topside environments. Our primary focus is to make our Film Stock Library, short edits and productions available to the industry for licensing. Out latest production and first 112 minute feature “The Next Chapter”, 5 true stories linked by a single horrific event in time, is currently on the Film Festival circuit. The Trailer is viewable here.
Barbara van Aardt Russ van Aardt
We are ardent travelers and divers and although our training and background is in medical microbiology and building construction/property development, we have spent the past 15 years, working full time at building a comprehensive 6K and 4K Natural History Film Stock Library. We are however also acutely aware of the need for environmental education and conservation, both above and underwater. We have completed a number of short productions, designed to promote conservation work being done by NGO/NPO's.
Stock in hand:
We currently have over 18 000+ clip of 6K and 4K stock in our library, ranging from 10 to 120 seconds and a total run time of 116+ hours. The general percentage split between 6K and 4K stock is 60/40 and the Topside to Underwater split is 30/70. We are continuing to add new stock at an average rate of 2500 clips per year. We are also happy to accept requests relating to target subject matter for each upcoming destination. All our Stock is logged on an comprehensive spreadsheet with 36 columns of data per clip, including extensive key-wording.
We have been most fortunate to be able to travel to many exotic destinations and our film stock library consists of footage shot in South Africa, Maldives, Indonesia, Thailand, Mauritius, Seychelles, Madagascar, Palau, Mozambique, Botswana, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, USA, Equador, Costa Rica, Dominica, Truk Lagoon(Chuuk), Red Sea, Ireland and more.
All our Stock is processed through DaVinci Resolve Studio and was shipped in 6K or 4K, ProRes 4:2:2 originally and more recently in DNxHR HQX 12-bit in a Quicktime format. The RAW files are also available on request. We can accommodate any format request. We have High Speed Fiber internet and are able to upload to any portal of your choice, or our pCloud account for your download.
Our library, was put to the test in 2021, when we used a small selection of footage from it, to produced a 30 minute documentary about Nudibranchs. The production, called “Naked Gills”, was submitted to a limited number of film festivals and walked away with 9 accolades:
Best Feature Film Cinematography - New York Cinematography Awards 2021
Best Underwater Cinematography - New York Cinematography Awards 2021
Best Nature/Travel Film - European Cinematography Awards 2021
Best Underwater Cinematography - European Cinematography Awards 2021
Best Aerial Cinematography - European Cinematography Awards 2021
Best Documentary Cinematography – LACA Los Angeles Cinematography Awards 2021
Semi-Finalist - Dumbo Film Festival 2021
Official Selection - Green Screen 2024
Official Selection - Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival 2023
Upcoming trips that have been locked down are, Raja Amapat, Bali, Komodo National Park and Lembeh Strait in Indonesia and naturally, South Africa.
The best way to understand the quality, diversity and type of product that we produce, is to take a look at the following links for:
Our Blog, our YouTube Channel, or this website
Our Topside Gear:
Our filming arsenal currently consists of the following:
Red Dragon 6K with a Tilta rig, all stock shot in REDCODE RAW (12bit)
Blackmagic Production Cinema Camera 4K with a Tilta rig, all stock shot in DNG RAW (12bit)
DJI Inspire v2 with Zenmuse X5R camera, all stock shot in DNG RAW (12bit)
DJI Mavic 2 Pro, all stock shot in Dlog-M (10bit)
GoPro Hero 8's, all stock shot in Protune with no in camera tweaking.
We shoot with Canon L lenses raging from fish eye 8mm, to 400mm and Sigma Art and Sport lenses raging from 18mm to 840mm.
and our always reliable DSC Labs Chromadisk for setting White Balance, even underwater.
Power comes from Stacked PAG battery systems
We would love to include the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12K, if we can convince Nauticam to build one of their amazing dive housing for it.
All Post Production work is performed using a Workstation Windows 10 Pro based PC, in DaVinci Resolve Studio
Our Underwater Gear:
The RED and Blackmagic cameras go underwater in robust and industry leading Nauticam dive housings
We than light the subject, day or night, with two pairs of indestructible Keldan lights that have now completed over 700 dives with us
To Sea a little better, we have a pair of 7” Dive and See monitors, that make it so easy to to focus, compose and get that perfect shot
We also use a number of Nauticam wet optic ports and lenses.
Lastly, our Technical Lighting arms and a bunch of spares and tools, all weighing in at around 150kg, which results in plenty of overweight payments at the airport.
