HMS Poseidon Documentary Update
Posted: August 20th, 2012 | No Comments »This from Arthur Jones, the man making the documentary on HMS Poseidon, the British sub that sunk of China in the 1930s. I’ve posted about the forthcoming documentary and book before so you might be interested in seeing where they’ve got to and how you can potentially help them get finished.
We’ve had an exciting last month on the film. Here’s a couple of bits of news:
1) There have been big stories about the film (and Steven Schwankert’s book) in the press. Here are a couple you might want to check out if you haven’t seen them already:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news
http://www.businessweek.com/ap
We are expecting another major one in the next couple of days. I won’t spoil the surprise, but I will let you know once it’s online.
2) The website is looking better than ever, thanks to Stephen Wright, who has been building it from the start. Check out http://www.poseidonprojectfilm
3) We finally recorded a real cello part for the song that finishes the film, COME ALIVE. Thanks to David Haime, who plays cello with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, for his time and enthusiasm. He is a lovely man and a fantastic musician (and also happens to be my uncle).
Finally… we have now raised about $9,000 towards in our campaign to pay for the archive footage we want to use in the film. There’s just over $6,000 online at Indiegogo (where we have based the campaign), and we have another $3,000 in cash that hasn’t been put into the account yet. We now have just two weeks left to reach our target of $16,000 – which will allow us to play the 10 minutes or so of 1930s material in public screenings. So, we desperately need your help to raise $7,000 in the next 14 days!
Here is a link to the funding site:
http://igg.me/p/115713?a=65593
This one should work too:
http://www.indiegogo.com/thepo
Many of you have contributed already. But if you haven’t, please please please consider contributing even a small amount towards our campaign. The more funders we have (even if the amounts are very small), the higher our profile on Indiegogo – which means we have more chance of reaching a wider audience.
If you can think of anyone who might be interested in joining our mailing list, or contributing to the fund, please pass this message on to them.
As always, huge thanks for all your help and support. It has been quite a journey so far!
All the best,
Arthur Jones
Director
THE POSEIDON PROJECT
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Arthur Jones
Mobile: +86 18621569371
THE POSEIDON PROJECT
On June the 9th 1931, one of Britain’s most advanced submarines collided with a cargo ship off the coast of China. Half of the crew escaped in the first few seconds, but the rest of the men sank 40 metres down to the bottom of the sea, entombed in their boat. Three hours later, six sailors surfaced, barely conscious and bitterly cold, as their comrades watched on in amazement. They were the first men ever to escape alive from a sunken submarine using a proto-scuba device.
Beijing-based journalist and part-time scuba instructor Steven Schwankert was looking for interesting wrecks to dive in northern China when he found HMS Poseidon on a list of unexplored dive sites. His private obsession with bringing wreck diving to China became a public and personally high-risk mission to uncover a secret history of political intrigue that took him half way across the world in search of evidence.
Their story hit newspaper headlines worldwide and went on to inspire a feature film, released later that year. Their miraculous escape changed marine safety forever, leading to a revolution in submarine design and a big leap forward in our understanding of decompression sickness. But their names, and their submarine, gradually sank into obscurity.
Steven Schwankert’s six-year search for the submarine revealed a story that was far more complicated than he had first expected, challenging official accounts of the escape, and uncovering the truth behind the forgotten wreck.
http://www.poseidonprojectfilm
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