Swimming Among Sharks

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Doing this has been my dream for over twenty-five years and that dream is to make films about sharks which have never been made before. Aimed at inspiring a much wider audience than current shark related films reach, encouraging people, even from inner city areas of countries like the UK, to want to care about the plight of sharks worldwide.

I have always wanted to do this but to find a way into not just the film industry, but the shark industry is practically impossible without serious financial muscle, a famous surname, family ties to the industry and years and years of professional experience.

I have none of the above so from the outset it seemed to everybody but me an insurmountable task.

I had previously spent ten years as a professional musician in my own, highly regarded and critically acclaimed, band but when financial pressure caused that band to end, I was forced into getting a “proper” job and chose recruitment, purely for the money.

Although I was quite good at it, for someone like me, three years in a stifling office environment and an industry where you are regarded in the same way as used car salesmen and estate agents, it began to take its toll and I got to the point where I was dreading each morning,  I couldn’t even enjoy weekends because I knew that Monday was just around the corner. One Monday, I woke up and thought “sod this, this isn’t what I want my life to be”, and went in that morning and quit.

I had no money, no savings, no stability, no support, nothing lined up and absolutely zero security, the only thing I had was a great idea and equal amounts of passion and stubbornness.

I believe completely in the message I am putting out there and you only get one chance at life, why waste it doing something you hate out of a misplaced loyalty to society’s perceived ideas of what our responsibilities are? My creativity was being stifled and all my potential was being wasted doing something I didn’t enjoy, I saw no reason to continue and not go for the things I want.

I have never, not for one second believed I couldn’t achieve this. If I had then it would have been game over, I had only myself to rely on, only I could guarantee that each obstacle would be overcome and it wouldn’t have been fair to expect others to take on elements of my workload because they have their own resonsibilities and lives. This was my choice and it was down to me and me alone to make it happen.

I sometimes stand back and look at what it was I actually wanted to achieve, to go from nothing, absolute zero, to forcing my way into not one but two very exclusive and dare I say, incestuous, industries. Finding someone to stump up the cash for me to fly around the world, doing something most people would give their right arm for, with absolutely no track record or back catalogue to prove what I could do. It’s absolutely absurd!

I have sacrificed everything for this, money, stability, relationships, possessions and I am now, effectivley homeless, relying on people allowing me to stay with them rent free.

I knew this was the case when I made my decision, I knew at some point I would end up out of my flat without a penny to my name but you may be surprised that I felt a sense of freedom I have never felt before. When you need to, you do what you need to do to get by.

The biggest real world problem I have confronted has been money and the need for money to survive! Aside from the obvious, actually getting people to take me seriously and the attitudes of several people in the television industry, in that they liked the idea but didn’t like the idea of an “ordinary” person fronting it, one in particular said they would steal my idea if they wanted and there was nothing I could do about it. Her contempt for me during that conversation taught me a very valuable lesson and I decided from that point to go it alone, a much more difficult but far more rewarding task.

My biggest fear is failure. People would say to me “if you don’t succeed, at least you can say you had a go” but to me that’s even worse, I will have given it my all and failed. Being stuck doing something I hate until I retire and watching life pass me by is my ultimate fear, I was not willing to entertain that idea and it helped push me forward when times were at their most difficult.

Of course, that is not to say I don’t feel I have ever “failed”, haven’t we all? I failed in the band I was in because despite being very good, achieving worldwide acclaim and throwing everything I could at it, we never made it out of the “underground” to achieve the level of success we deserved. I also view the years doing things I didn’t want to as failure because I failed to grab life by the scruff of the neck and actually do what I wanted.

Failure isn’t always a bad thing because we learn more from things going wrong than we would if they went right all the time.

If I have learnt anything from all that, is don’t let it put you off your dreams and ambitions. Use it as experience instead of an excuse to give up, pick yourself up, puff out your chest keep your chin up and try again but learn from the mistakes. Those mistakes may not always be your own but make sure you don’t allow those mistakes to affect you again. Toughen up as well because you’re going to get an awful lot of negativity coming your way!

I try to keep a balance between this and my personal life, I don’t separate the two really which can be unfair and difficult on loved ones. This is my life twenty-four hours a day and if I said it didn’t affect pretty much everything I do, I’d be lying, however, the fact this is now my life is something I couldn’t be happier about!

I have gathered a huge amount of support, I haven’t really had any mentors in the “Mr Miyagi” sense of the word, I have had to rely on myself, my own knowledge, passion and self-belief. But at the same time, I have had a huge amount of help in many areas from some incredible people and organisations who have believed in me from day one and who had the balls to take a punt on a complete unknown because they loved the idea and the fact I put myself out there to be shot at.

I could not be here with out Mike Neumann, Canon, Tourism Fiji, Cameras Underwater, Fourth Element, Palma Aquarium, Lesley Rochat, Brad and Bea at Ondine Escape and Hugh Fairs all got stuck in to what I was doing and put their professional reputations on the line to champion my cause and I will never, ever forget that or take it for granted.

One of the major fixtures in this whole process as well has been my photgrapher and soundman on the Fiji film, Hamish Harper, who from day one has known I would get there in the end and who has always provided enthusiasm and energy when times were tough.

What I have learnt most about myself through this is I could achieve the things I believed I could, I always thought I was able to do the things I wanted to do if I committed to it and it’s unbelievably satisfying to see it take fruition. Having said that, I have at this stage only achieved about 1% of my end goal.

However, I am happier than I have ever been, I have made some great new friends and the friends I had already have been amazing. I have a new found faith and belief in people because contrary to what the media would have you believe, the vast majority of people are pretty damn cool!

It’s rare that I ever need to motivate myself, when I need to I remember the shark conservation message I want to spread, and what it used to feel like when the alarm went off on a Monday morning.

I’m still skint but I can eat and I have a bed and roof over my head so I am a hell of a lot more fortunate than a lot of people out there.

The world is full of dreamers and dreamers only become doers when they dare to take risks.

The top 5 tips for life from David Diley

1. Believe in yourself even if nobody else will.
2. Never, ever stop learning from people with more experience than you
3. Don’t take unneccesary risks with sharks, ever.
4. Strive to be different, carve your own niche.
5. Never believe you’ve “made it,” always aim to be better than you currently are.

David Diley, is 32 years of age and originally from Manchester in the UK. He is a film-maker making films about the human relationship with sharks in various parts of the world. Having just completed filming on his first short film based in Mallorca, will be flying out to Fiji in July, for a month, to film his first feature length production.