When Choy Aming’s 31-minute documentary, ‘My Backyard’, premieres at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute’s Tradewinds auditorium this evening, it will mark the culmination of one year’s work from concept to reality. It is the Bermudian’s first film, and he is pleased not only that it is completed but also that the feedback from friends and family has been positive. Soon he will find out what the Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) judges think.Meanwhile, he is eager to see his film on the big screen.

The title, ‘My Backyard’, typically evokes land-based images, but for this débutant filmmaker his backyard is the seas around Bermuda, where he spends most of his life, both as an enthusiastic scuba diver and also as a tour boat captain.

So rather than animals, poultry and humans and even junk, his “cast” is a host of marine dwellers, including sharks, whales, reef animals, and even rare species “most people have no idea are even out there”.

In making the film, Mr. Aming served as cameraman, scriptwriter, narrator, editor and producer. That was not the original plan, but when it came to the crunch friends who had originally offered to assist didn’t follow through, so he decided to go it alone.

Despite having a degree in marine biology, and being a self-described “fish guy”, as a keen underwater still photographer Mr. Aming had seen so many amazing things in our waters over time that he felt compelled to record them for others to see.

There was also another reason: as an environmentally conscious young Bermudian, he wanted to remind his fellow citizens of what we have here.

“As Bermuda gets more and more corporate, people forget about the amazing environment that is around us,” he said.

So Mr. Aming purchased a Sony broadcast-quality video camera and got to work. Despite having no previous experience as a filmmaker, he said the speed with which today’s technology is moving forward made it easy for him to be self-taught — “if you have the right personality”.

While he did not write a script, the finished film has both narration and music.

“Basically, with any wildlife documentary you have ideas, but the animals do what they are going to do, so your ideas don’t necessarily coincide with how they feel about you on a particular day. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to say going in, then I started filming all summer, and in the fall I started going through the footage trying to put a movie together. I shot about 20 hours of tape, of which I put about ten hours’ worth into the computer — and then the film ended up being 31 minutes long.”

As part of the year-long production, Mr. Aming also spent countless hours studying, as opposed to simply watching, wildlife programmes on television and cable, as well as documentaries, for inspiration, editing and other techniques, and then incorporating elements he particularly liked into his own work.Today, the neophyte Bermudian filmmaker is eagerly looking forward to sharing his efforts with the public, and while he doesn’t want to give too much away, he says viewers can expect to see whales, sharks, a variety of reef and offshore animals, shipwrecks, plus some real surprises. “One really good sequence was shot under my friend’s boat at the dock, while another was shot 25 miles at sea and 150 feet down,” he hints. “I think people will be surprised by the creatures we have here.” Participation in the Bermuda International Film Festival was a two-step process. First, Mr. Aming submitted a rough cut of his film, and after it was accepted he went about producing the final version.

“I was really happy to have been accepted because BIFF is such a great vehicle and really popular,” he said.

“People have a lot of support for local films, so it is very nice when you get in. Bermudians are very supportive when another Bermudian does something that is a little bit different, and only a handful of Bermudian films have been made, so they still have quite a novelty factor to them. I am very happy with the way things are going. It’s a great start.” Certainly, Mr. Aming is taking his filmmaking debut one step at a time, and is well aware that ‘My Backyard’ is competing against work produced by aspiring professional filmmakers. “I’m a fish guy who happened to find a film as a useful vehicle for sharing Nature with the world,” he said.In fact, his film comes with an environmental message for viewers “because the ocean is in far worse shape than most of us realise — because of us.”

As for the future, Mr. Aming hopes to enter ‘My Backyard’ in wildlife film festivals. While he sees the BIFF as “a great testing ground”, he also knows that the court of public opinion is important, and tonight’s first screening will help to tell the tale.

‘My Backyard’ will screen tonight at 6.30 p.m. at BUEI Auditorium and Friday at 9.15 p.m. at Little Theatre.