Francois Odendaal
(B Sc (Hons), Ph D):
South African born Francois has directed and produced several documentary series for numerous television networks, including one episode for National Geographic Explorer’s Voyager series and two episodes for the BBC’s Classic Adventure series. He has produced and directed Aspects of Life, The Last Edens, Secrets of Nature series for SABC3 prime time. Recently he has produced and directed four pilot documentaries of the series A Last Glimpse. He also has produced environmental education films for organizations such as WWF, CARE INTERNATIONAL, IUCN and the BCLME Programme. Francois is also and ecologist and environmental consultant and director of EcoAfrica in South Africa. He has written several books including a bestseller that covers his expeditions down the Amazon River.

Nadine Pickering:
Nadine Pickering is a projects and business manager for FOP and additionally fullfils the role of Executive Assistant to the CEO, Francois Odendaal. Consequently she is involved in developing new projects as well as in the production and management aspects of current projects. She has wealth of working experiences in the financial sphere and holds a qualification in Financial Management from UNISA. She has a keen interest in natural resource management, tourism development and film projects aimed at empowering local communities – in addition to youth development activities.

Cassy Hsu
Cassy was born in Taiwan, but has studied and lived in Cape Town for more than 10 years. She received her BA degree in Film and Media from University of Cape Town and worked in the film industry in Taipei after study. She have been focusing mostly on post-productions where she edited commercial films and television programmes using FCP. She also has a great interest in documentaries and consequently joined FOP team in film production and project management. Cassy is environmentally orientated and hoping that through documentaries, projects that protect environment, and empower the people that attempt to do so, can be recognized and supported.

Claudio Velásquez Rojas
(B Sc, M Sc, Ph D):
Chilean born Claudio is a marine biologist, producer, director and a photographer. In close association with Francois Odendaal he has film and directed several documentaries series for television such as The Last Edens, Secrets of Nature and A Last Glimpse. His photography has been published in several magazines including National Geographic, BBC and Africa Geographic. He has done photography for several books including The Last Edens of Africa, Aspects of Life, and Currents of Contrasts. He also has done the photography and graphic design of several web sites.

Charles Maxwell
Charles Maxwell was born in the United Kingdom but has been living in Cape Town most of his life as a South African citizen. Charles has been diving for 35 years and, as a result, has an excellent knowledge of the South African marine environment as well as contacts in marine scientific and documentary circles. Charles become a filmmaker in 1987 when he lead a team of divers to explore and survey Dragons Breath cave, the largest underground lake in the world, situated in the north of Namibia. Besides running an extensive video library, specialising in (but not confined to) shark and marine mammal footage, Charles is a professional underwater cinematographer who has worked with many major TV producers worldwide, including the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Charles was a 2002 Primetime Emmy Award winner for his filming of the Natal Sardine Run for The Blue Planet: Seas of Life, produced by the BBC.

Kyle O'Donoghue
(B Journ):
Kyle is a filmmaker with a passion for the outdoors. He has produced, shot and directed a number of documentaries including Changing Lands, a documentary on farm evictions in the Eastern Cape, and Maranon Dreams, a story of a first descent of the Rio Maranon in Peru. He has been a cameraman on various expeditions including a Coelocanth Research Expedition in East Africa(2003), The South African Maranon Expedition(2004), an Antarctic clean-up expedition(2005) as well as a trip with FOP to Zanzibar in search of the lost city of Quanbalu(2005). His aims are to take his filmmaking in a direction that will promote awareness about sustainable livelihoods as well as issues around climate change and biodiversity loss. Whenever he is not out shooting he enjoys rock climbing around South Africa and also produced the climbing documentary High Society.

Jan Post (M.Sc.):
Jan Post received his masters degree in biology from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. For his thesis he spent one and a half year in the Caribbean studying the effects of spearfishing and aquariumfish collecting on the reeffsh fauna and laid the ground work for the establishment of the Bonaire Marine Park. He started his professional career as assistant manager of a wildlife reintroduction program in Israel. He then worked for 10 years as an ecologist for a large Dutch overseas consulting firm after which he was invited to join the World Bank where he worked as a senior ecologist. An avid diver and under water filmer and photographer since 1965, Jan has dived and filmed all over the world working free lancing for a German picture agency and various magazines. he has had a long association with FOP including filming in the Western Indian Ocean.

Peet Joubert:
South African born Peet is an underwater cameraperson. He has filmed extensively in several oceans, rivers and ground caves. Peet is a NAUI dive instructor as well as a scientific dive instructor. He is currently the park manager at Knysna National Lake Area in South Africa. Peet is and expert in wreck diving along the coast of South Africa and he also is involved in environmental education and natural resource management for many years.

Roger Dugmore:
Roger is a professional guide with 14 years of experience in the Okavango Delta and the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. Roger is also a photographer and a film maker. He has assisted many filming crews filming wildlife in Botswana. His photography has been exhibited in many national museums. Roger has an extensive experience in the African bush, with deep understanding of animal behaviour and ecological processes in the Okavango. He is the director of EcoAfrica Botswana an exclusive low-impact safari company.

Rean van der Merwe (M.Sc.):
Rean has worked in South Africa, the United Kingdom and France as web developer, technical consultant and interactive project manager. His clients have ranged from local NGOs to multinationals such as IBM and internet bank EGG. He has hands-on experience in the technologies behind website development, desktop application development, CD-rom production and online video delivery. He further has substantial experience at interactive marketing. Rean is passionate about the power of new media to bridge the world information divide and to transform the ways in which we share information. As living proof, he does much of his work from a base on the far southern Cape Peninsula where guinea fowl, baboons and porcupine make up a healthy compliment of his neighbours.