(crashing waves) Narrator:  We are an island culture surrounded by the endless  expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

For those that live   here, the ocean's influence is pervasive and part  of nearly every aspect of our lives.

We would   be hard pressed to think of a single day when  you did not see or think or touch or interact   in some way with the ocean.

It is integral to our  economy.

It is where we go for recreation and for   solace and meditation.

Perhaps it's the power that  attracts us, or the tranquility or the mystery,   whatever the reason, the ocean strikes a deep and  ancient chord in all of us.

It is inherent to our   identity, and it has been an inspiration  to artists since the beginning of time.

Next on Spectrum Hawaii, the  inspiring sea.

The ocean's   influence on the art and lives  of four prominent ocean artists.

(instrumental music) Narrator: The work is immediately recognizable as   is the name Wyland.

It is synonymous with whales  and fanciful depictions of life under the ocean.

(instrumental music) Narrator: Wyland's vision, of largely   unseen world of ocean mammals have touched the  popular consciousness of ocean lovers everywhere.

(instrumental music) Narrator: He gets his inspiration   from the source, diving, observing first hand and  in close encounters with his favorite subjects.

Wyland: I just try to paint nature as it   is and how it affects me.

And I feel blessed  like I've had these incredible experiences,   and I feel like it's my responsibility  now to share those moments through art.

Well, it really started for me with the  idea of, hey, you know, I'm painting whales,   I need larger canvases.

So, I started looking  around the cities at blank walls.

There was no   real planning in this.

It just kind of happened.

Things happened in my life and I believe the   whales made it happen.

And it was that simple.

And  to be honest with you, after I painted the first   mural depicting the California gray whale, I  knew that what I was doing was having an impact.

Narrator: His whaling evolved   from an improvised, homegrown idea into  well-orchestrated, multi city world tours.

Yeah, leave it a little roll.

Narrator: The painting of   the murals are part art exhibition, environmental  consciousness raising and public relations.

Wyland   is a master at generating enthusiasm and public  interest in his art and his environmental causes.

Wyland: Is anybody scared of heights like I am?

Yeah,   I'm not your normal artist that sits in the studio  quietly painting.

I'd rather I do that.

I can do   that well.

But the other side of me wants to  go out in the street and grab people and say,   come on, we're going to paint this wall.

I want  you to, you know, experience this and, and,   I can sure get people fired up.

Because I want you  guys to experience what I experience when I paint   a wall, which is mainly fear.

It's definitely  high enough.

It's about 16 and a half stories   high.

I wish it was a little wider.

But with each  wall, they have their own character.

You know,   their own shape and and I try to visualize how to  incorporate the shape of the wall into the design,   but I really don't have a finished  image of what it's going to look like.

I know that it will be humpback whales,  because this is Hawaiʻi.

The humpbacks   are the state marine mammal.

I just am  not sure how the whales will be until   I paint the environment.

First, I  paint the ocean and the environment,   and then the marine line.

The marine life, the  whales will swim up onto the wall after that.

Narrator: The tools Wyland uses to create   his murals range from fine brushes to those of  a commercial house painter.

Industrial strength,   scaffolding, high quality exterior latex paint  and airless spray guns are among his usual tools.

Here in time lapse photography, we see his process  more clearly.

First the background is painted,   then the foreground, and finally,  the stars of the show are added,   life sized portraits of whales  and other ocean mammals.

The   process happens quickly.

Wyland frequently  completes a mural within one week's time.

(natural sound) Narrator: The background is nearly completed,   and by day five, Wyland is ready to add  the final touches to his latest creation.

Wyland: Okay,   here we go.

Let's work on the eye a  little bit.

Really, the eye, for me,   is the focal point of my work.

And with the  whales, the eye is the most significant part.

And   the whales have this beautiful spirit, and  it all kind of comes together in these eyes.

Narrator:  Wyland intends to create 100 of these murals in  his lifetime, a goal he will undoubtedly achieve.

Wyland: All done.

67 only 33 more to go,   right, guys, all right.

With the success  that I'm having now that has allowed me   to travel more around the world and do a lot more  murals, and I feel really good about that.

Again,   the key word there is balance.

You know, I've had  the success, now I want to try to give something   back.

And the thing that I can give back to people  is these beautiful public murals.

They create so   much awareness.

And to me, it's just important,  and it makes me feel good.

I feel good when I see   the way that these murals are impacting people.

And in my opinion, the murals inspire people   almost as well as the whales themselves do.

And  how many people are actually going to get out in   the ocean and dive or see whales?

But if they're  driving down the street and they happen to see   one of these whales depicted life size on a wall,  I believe they'll become inspired to learn more.

I mean, this is a starting point, and art is a  tremendous vehicle for raising any consciousness.

You know, every every person can find a way to  make a contribution, whether you're a writer,   an actor, you know, whether you're just  cleaning up your own neighborhood or your   backyard or a park.

You know, everybody  can find a way to make a contribution   and be, you know, somebody that's helping  instead of hurting the environment.

Kirk Murakami:  My name is Kirk Murakami, and I'm an  aquarium a biologist at the Waikīkī Aquarium.

I design, fabricate, maintain our live  exhibits and also do collecting for them.

Well,   the current trend in aquariums is to design  exhibits which are as close to replicating a   natural environment as possible.

Most aquariums  are really trying to get into an exhibit that   when you look at it, you think, oh, this is  a slice right out of nature.

And to do that,   I try to disguise the shape  of the tank as much as I can.

Narrator: Murakami begins by constructing a   scale model of the proposed tank.

Kirk Murakami:  I want to get a better idea of what  the exhibit would look like with the   lighting it's going to be on the  tank.

So, if I put this mask here,   get a better idea of what the  actual exhibit will look like.

Narrator: The rock formations used in   this exhibit are made of fiberglass fashion  for models Murakami has taken in the field.

Kirk Murakami: By using artificial rock,   you can really disguise the shape of a tank  and create a more natural looking exhibit.

After I have a model built, I  know what kind of shapes I want,   and I can go out into the field and look  for the rocks that have a similar shape.

Probably the best thing about my job is that  at least part of the time I get to be outdoors   in the ocean or near the ocean, and when  I'm out doing molds or planning an exhibit,   I can be out in places like this.

It's really  beautiful.

It's just great to be out here.

Well, pretty much all my free time, and a lot of  my work time is spent in and around the ocean,   all the activities which I really enjoy  doing, surfing, fishing, diving, they're all   done in the ocean.

And I just feel real fortunate   to be able to work someplace where I  can be around the ocean all the time.

(instrumental music) Narrator:  If it has anything to do with  water or action and adventure,   Yuri Farrant has probably filmed it.

For over  25 years, Yuri's innovative and breathtaking   cinematography have captured nearly every water  sport under the sun and thrilled audiences with   scenes like these in the tube, at the right  spot at the decisive moment.

(natural sound) Yuri Farrant: Ah, this is my main camera that I use.

It's   a 35-millimeter camera that I spent about three  years building.

I built the housing, and also,   well, actually the camera itself.

And what it is  is a it's a double pin registered movement, so it   makes a very good, steady picture.

But then what  I did is I married it so that it takes Aeroflex   magazines, these sort of magazines here, so it's  real easy for loading and unloading, much more   efficient to use in a production sense.

It would  be a lot easier if I didn't make it to such close   tolerances and fall back on the thing of that  everything I do is you try to make it as small   and as light as possible.

Then it all, it adds up  in the end, hopefully to a nice, tight package.

Well, when you surf and you see the really nice  days and the good waves there, there is something   I hate to sound cliche, but magical  about a breaking wave, the action,   the way the water moves, the color of the  water, when you're diving through the waves,   and you coming out the back and the water drops  and everything.

It's it's a very magical thing.

It's something that you're definitely not exposed  to on land and all day long.

When I go out,   I maybe go up with 200 feet of film.

And that's  that'll last that screen time is two minutes,   but it's actually a shot at high speed.

It's only  30 seconds of real time shooting.

So, you get,   you know, most waves only last maybe five  seconds at the most.

So, you're getting six,   maybe 10, 10, shots bursts in there.

But  it may take me two hours to shoot that one   roll of film.

Being picky and trying to get  in the right position.

And then, you know,   if you have an idea of what's going to look good  and what's not already, ahead of time, you kind   of wait for, you know, rather than wasting  the material, you wait for the right moment.

Well, I used to just go out with housing and,   you know, just trying to get  different different shots.

And now,   I guess I've become more experienced, and when  I look at the waves and the conditions that day,   I'll try and orient it towards something that's  that's useful, and it'll look good, you know,   in picking the lens or which way I'm going to  shoot it, I'll the conditions will more indicate   kind of what I'm going to try to get.

The most  important thing is to respect the ocean.

You may   think that you have a lot of control when you're  out there, but you don't there's so much water   there and so much movement and energy there, you  don't have control of that all the time, and so   you really have to respect the situation that  you're in.

Shooting on land with other cameras,   you can set up a shot.

I like this.

I like that.

And in the ocean, you don't get to do that.

Ocean cinematography is much, much harder, because  you have a lot more elements to consider.

You have   currents and you have tides and color and the  direction of the waves.

You have to see and judge   something, and you have to see it coming, and you  have a limited amount of film, so you have to make   a decision, and you get into choices.

And so, you  learn to judge a lot in the water, because you're   out there in a situation where you have virtually  no control over what's happening.

You're sitting   there, and you by your knowledge, you put yourself  in the best position you can.

Many times you only   have one shot at it.

I feel very lucky in the  life that I've gotten to lead here, because   there have been so many good times.

I mean, it's  not always the easiest thing, but I'm getting to   enjoy what I do and get out and, I guess, be  in nature and do the things that I like to do.

(instrumental music) Narrator: His watercolors are   incredibly rich and detailed in both technique and  subject matter.

The images are decidedly local,   yet the level of his artistry elevates them into  universal themes of home and spirit and heart.

The works are photorealistic and frequently  large and multi panel, yet his choice of subject   matter and peculiar sense of design make Doug  Young's work remarkably intimate and personal.

Doug Young: The basis of my work   is the local imagery.

It comes from the heart.

It's something that that you're in and you you   know the subject matter well.

And that's the  way I paint.

It's always paint from the gut,   and you're leading with your heart.

And if  you do that, everything will come out okay.

If the gut feeling isn't there, there's this  integrity that you know, don't use it, don't   show it, because the thing about painting is that  it's out there and people can scrutinize it.

And   if you didn't, it's hard to change, you know, it's  hard to go back and say, I don't.

I didn't want   this here, or this, I didn't like this passage, or  whatever.

Once you put it down, it's down.

There's   a lot of people that you know, once they put their  paint down, their statement is there, you know,   they could, they could do a passage with one  stroke of the brush and say, well, this is that.

But I don't have that talent where I can just  do that with one passage here.

I probably go   back to it so many times during the day, or else,  so many times during the month that, you know, it   takes me a long time to just interpret this image  as where I see it.

So, when you think you finish,   you're not really, it pushes you to a point  where you're just going beyond what you think   you can do.

Because photorealistic paintings  is basically you're just sitting with this   painting and you just working it and working it  and shaping it, reshaping it, test your patience.

Well, actually, my my concept of looking at things  and producing things is in large scale.

I've   always loved scale.

And of course, scale is is  fine to do it, but time and, you know, materials   and stuff is also kind of a hindrance, too.

In  my kind of painting, the watercolors aren't just   a light wash, you're going over these areas  maybe 15, 20, 25 times.

You're really soaking   that paper with this pigment.

So, it's not  when you look at it, it's not watercolor.

It   looks like another medium.

I haven't had any  formal training, so it's kind of looking at   watercolors and see how it is, and throwing that  away and and throwing it into a different space,   trying to push it as far as it'll go.

So, it  looks like something completely different.

Narrator: For all of his   formidable technique and skill, subject matter is  still the driving force behind Young's artistry,   as in this piece of an ancient  healing pond on the Waiʻanae Coast.

Doug Young: This part is called anianikū.

And in the old   days, the aliʻi used to come down and bring their  newborn babies down and bathe them in the water to   give them breath.

So, it was noted for having, for  being a healing pond.

I think besides going to a   place and just seeing it and getting a gut feeling  about I think if you can do it on an art view,   just totally that's great, and if you do it  purely, then all the other views would kind of   come together.

If you paint and you paint  it how you feel it is, it'll all come out,   you know, so you do your best.

That's that's  the best you can do.

You just try to as best as   you can.

And the response so far has been really  positive, which makes the whole circle complete.

(instrumental music) Doug Young: It doesn't really have   to be paintings.

It could be going to kanikapila,  and seeing Gabby.

You know, remember in old UH,   Gabby and Olomana at that time.

I mean, going to  something that, and just being just blown away   by something like that.

It's that magicness  that you always want to deal with.

It doesn't   come very often.

But whether you go, go out  surfing or going to a great concert or seeing   something visually that just blows you over,  those are things that you kind of cherish.

And   as an artist, you want to do something that is  connected with Hawaiʻi, that people would identify   with and when you do it and when they see it,  they go yeah, or just get overwhelmed.

You know?

(singing in Bulgarian)