Kenneth Corben
Filmmaker, Seaflix
The first year out of UCSD with a degree I was faced with an acceptance letter to law school or a film loader position in the camera department on Renegade with Stu Segall Productions starring Lorenzo Lamas. I figured I could always go to law school. So, after working my way up from film loader to second unit director of photography on Silk Stalkings, I set out to explore the world through the lens of a camera.
Since making that choice I have survived two plane crashes (the cameras were lost but I saved the film), the worst storm at sea in recorded history with 50 foot swells and 100 knot winds in the Bering Sea in January (some of the best television I ever shot), several close calls with sharks including one great white the size of a city bus that lifted me and my camera completely out of the water (probably should have used a cage), a malfunctioning experimental rebreather that left me blind and narced out of my mind in 500 feet of water off Palau (the manufacturer said it was good to 500 feet), on a pay phone in Florida explaining to Sony executives just exactly how their only working prototype of the high definition camera caught fire (all production models now have new and improved cooling fans), and explaining at gunpoint to a Zapatista Rebel Commander deep in the Chiapas Jungle that, "NO I didn't work for the CIA and NO my camera was not linked to the Pentagon by satellite," (renegotiated my day rate on that one before turning over the negative).
It's true, directing and shooting film and television projects on location from Alaska to Zimbabwe is as exciting as it sounds-sometimes for different reasons. The best part for me is incorporating my passion for flying, diving and exploring the oceans with new production technology to push the envelope in image making and storytelling. I must admit though, during some of the more challenging times I often remind myself that it' s not to late for law school.