Living Mirrors: A Corral Reef Adventure

Rating:
Summary: Great accompaniment to the movie
Review: The book is very much a diary about the reef filming expedition with a strong environmental slant. Although I don't always like the author's writing style, the book gave me fascinating insight into underwater filming. It details the problems involved in filming with a heavy, huge IMAX camera whose noisy motor and strong lights rather chase away than attract animals. It shows how much time goes into a short footage at 300 feet depth, namely 15 minutes stay, 3 hours decompression, and days of filming with a camera that allows no more than 3 minutes of film at a time before the divers have to surface and reload. The book does not elaborate on the problems but nicely illuminates the filming process for the layperson.

Text and photographs go beyond the reefs and include people involved, for example the people of Fiji, their life and traditions and how Jean-Michel Cousteau helps them understand and protect their reefs.

Special one- or two-page sections explain a variety of related topics: the history of scuba, symbiosis between reefs and mangroves, the Reef Check Organization, taxonomy and others.

In the main text, the author sometimes wanders off the subject into Darwin's philosophy and geological history before he returns to details of the expedition. So, at times, the book seems a bit unfocused, but the overall information is great. That's why I gave the book 5 stars.

Anyone interested in the filming process and the environmental problems that reefs face, will enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating...I'd Love to Have Been There!
Review: This lovely book is a companion to the IMAX film Coral Reef Adventure. It chronicles the filming of the movie and provides a lot of info on coral reefs and their current dire state. It makes me, an aquaphobe, want to learn to dive. I gotta see the movie now. Anyone interested in reefs will wwant this book.