MovieChat Forums > Sharkwater (2007) Discussion > How did Rob Stewart get the factory foot...

How did Rob Stewart get the factory footage?

posted 17 years ago by Cal_T5X
3 replies | jump to latest

I suspect that illegal shark fin processors don't offer factory tours. I was just curious how he got inside the Costa Rican factory in the first place. Does anybody have any ideas?

Breaking in, or even pretending to be a rich investor, would be pretty iffy considering how powerful and ruthless these crime bosses are. The most logical thing I can think of is that he could have bribed a factory worker to carry the camera instead of going in himself.

That said, I admire Rob Stewart's courage gathering this evidence that exposed the slaughter and corruption that he found. The resulting public outrage proves that there is hope for positive change.

"What fun is it being cool if you can't wear a sombrero?"

[–] mortnme 17 years ago

I was in the bathroom when they showed that part of the movie, but Rob Stewart came to talk to us at our school and he explained that there was a moving truck in front of the giant walls that protect the shark fin factories, and he climed on top of it to get footage of the shark fins drying on the roofs of the buildings. And then once the workers saw the camera, they climed on top of the buildings and started kicking the fins off the roof out of the camera's view.
I don't think there was any footage inside an actual factory, but I could be wrong.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] rstehli 17 years ago

I had the chance to meet Rob yesterday at a Q&A after his movie, and he answered that very question.

The crew was stuck in Costa Rica for something like one and a half months, and because they were still renting those very expensive digital video cameras, Rob wanted to put them to use.

Apparently Rob tried to get into the factories himself with no luck. In his words, no one would let a white guy into Taiwanese run poaching operations in Costa Rica. Eventually, a covert environmentalist with this sort of experience (who was actually Asian) was able to get in a record the footage with a spy cam.

As a follow up to the poaching:
The Taiwanese mafia was merely a middle man for the Chinese. Because of the footage taken and protests shown in the movie, the Chinese eliminated the Taiwanese involvement. So basically, instead of secret Taiwanese docks, there are now "secret" Chinese dock. Stewart didn't mention any exact change in procedure or output.