Museum documentary to HitTV

A partnership between Woodside Petroleum and the Museum of Western Australia has resulted in the museum producing a marine documentary which has been picked up by international distributor HitTV.

The survey of the Dampier Archipelago was commissioned by Woodside Petroleum to measure the biodiversity in the area.

Marine biologist and director Clay Bryce admitted he was surprised at the excellent state of the marine life so close to the massive natural gas and petroleum mining industry.

“From a 30-minute dry educational video we’ve made a 50-minute documentary that’s now got international distribution following the presentation of the rough cut to several distributors,” Mr Bryce said.

The success of the documentary on the marine life of the Dampier Archipelago has encouraged Mr Bryce to look at further docu-mentary projects and the WA Museum is considering a proposal for a media unit.

Mr Bryce sees these film projects as a fantastic way to get the museum’s message out to the general public, and for the people and businesses in the Dampier Archipelago region the docu-mentary has the potential to attract tourism to the area.

There is also proposed corporate funding for a 20-minute educ-ational video for schools.