This is a transcript of Mad Mariner's MadCast, the podcast that covers all aspects of boats and boating. In this edition, our guests are Matt O'Connor and Paul DiNatale of Rootftop Pictures, independent filmmakers who have directed, produced, and edited a film called "A View From Below." It's a story of Karl Stanley, a New Jersey native who sets off on an exceptional, and even controversial, quest to explore the ocean in a submarine he built himself. It should be noted that he had no formal training in designing, building, or operating submarines. Matt and Paul join us to share their insights with Mad Mariner Contributing Editor Diane Byrne.

You each have a lot of experience in TV, and film too, in writing, editing, and producing, everything from sports programs to reality programs. So how did you decide to do a film about Karl?

DiNatale: Well it's funny, Matt actually stumbled upon Karl while he was on vacation with his wife. They went to Roatan, Honduras for just a basic diving vacation. Roatan's known as a great diving destination, one of the top five rated, year in, year out. And so he went down there with his wife Dana and she did some research and said "˜wow, some guy's doing a submarine tour.'

O'Connor: Yeah, she came across him on the Internet when we were doing a little bit of research before we went down to the island, and when we got there we went to go see for ourselves if this homemade submarine was a reality. And of course it was. We met Karl and we decided to purchase a dive and we went on one of his tourist dives with him.

DiNatale: That's when Matt came back to me and said I think we have our subject for our first film. And that's how we decided to make the film on Karl.

In the film, Karl readily admits that the words "homemade" and "submarine" aren't exactly words that the general public wants to hear together. And Matt, the fact that you and your wife actually went on the dive is pretty interesting. During the film did you ever come across people who kind of went "˜what do you mean it's a homemade submarine?'

O'Connor: Oh absolutely. But we decided that we had faith in Karl and we thought the risk was worth the reward. I would equate it to skydiving when people put their trust in the pilot of the plane and the sky dive instructor to get them to the ground safely. I basically put that trust into Karl.

There's one point in the film, early on, there's a visit that he makes to an analysis lab in New Jersey, and even though they give him some pretty positive feedback about the engineering and the durability of his submarine, he doesn't really seem too happy. It seems like he thinks that their praise maybe wasn't enough or that they were trying to kind of cover themselves with their response, you know. Why don't you talk about that?

DiNatale: The analysis was finite elemental analysis, essentially what that does is it takes the readings of the submarine and puts it through a computational formula and essentially predicts the weakest point of the submarine. Essentially the submarine is only as strong as its weakest point. That gives them a gauge of how deep the submarine can go before it actually becomes damaged or how many dives you can do throughout the year. Karl wasn't so happy about what the results were, but I think he was very happy that they said that his submarine is sound. The goal was that he wanted to find out how sound it was and he found out that. You know, they have to be very conservative in their approach. So they can't say "˜yes, you can go no doubt to this depth.' I mean they have to watch their own butt to a certain extent. And I think Karl pointed that out as well.

I think he even says at that point that he wants to do upwards of 200 dives a year for 30 years in this submarine. The planning that he's already done, when you consider that he doesn't have the formal training that most people would have, he really does have this very well thought out.

O'Connor: Oh yeah, I mean it's not like he's in his back yard tinkering with something to see if it works. This is not his first submarine. It's his second submarine. And, you know, he kind of had the insight on ways to do things and ways not to do things from experiences with his first submarine. And he brought them into building his second submarine, which, you know, is the submarine that we dive in in the film. And he also got help from submarine contractors and well-known engineers with his planning and construction process for his submarine.

DiNatale: Karl wants to do 200 dives because he has a business, and his business in Roatan is to take tourists down on a once-in-a-lifetime experience to the deep sea. Now keep in mind he is the only person on the planet that has a deep-diving submarine that people in the general public can pay money to go down in. And his prices are way more than any other expedition, which would cost you around $10,000 to $20,000. His is like 10 percent of that. So he has a business and his goal is to continue to take passengers on deep sea dives and to show them something that less than 1 percent of the world's population's has ever seen.

You mentioned the first submarine that he had in the film. You reveal that he built it when he was 15-years-old. And you have the great interviews with his parents and the still photos of him welding in the backyard. His parents say he was very driven, stubborn even, but he knew what he wanted to do and he was focused on it. And once they realized that he was actually achieving it, they were 100 percent behind him.

DiNatale: Yeah, that's true. The first sub, he called it Sea Bug, and he started building it when he was 15-years-old. It took him "˜til he was about 22-years-old to complete the job. But yeah, I mean the concept and the idea of a 15-year-old dropping a ten foot pipe in the backyard and saying I'm going to build a submarine is just outstanding. I think the common theme with Karl is he's got a lot of gall. You may think homemade submarine, okay, some guy's just like building a homemade airplane or something like that, but he did his research. The inspiration came at nine, and at 12-years-old he taught himself how to how to weld.

When you traveled to Oklahoma at one point in the film to interview the people he worked alongside and who watched him assemble his current submarine. The fact that it was Oklahoma is probably gonna knock a bunch of people off their chairs, but he really did think it through that there was a lake there that has the perfect conditions for what he wanted to do. Why don't you describe that.

O'Connor: Well the real reason he wound up in Oklahoma is that he met the gentlemen by the name of Buck Hill that was vacationing in Roatan when he had his first submarine. And Buck creates solid tires for giant tractors and backhoes, and so he does machining and forging of steel and all that stuff in his factory. And when Buck was down there he had mentioned to Karl "˜hey, you know, I think you need a bigger submarine,' you know, "˜cause Buck's a big guy and Buck couldn't fit in it. And he said if you ever want to build a second submarine here's my card. We have the means to build it in Oklahoma. So two years later Karl took him up on that, took a trip to Oklahoma, and decided that was the perfect place for him to build a submarine, economically and also with all the craftsmen that were there as well.

The interviews with the craftsmen were very interesting. They were sitting together flipping through the photos of the whole process and talked about how he just knew exactly what he wanted to do.

DiNatale: Obviously in Oklahoma you don't get to see a submarine being built ever. And they got to watch him. He lived in the airplane hangar throughout the winter. He built it on his own. He used resources from the community and they got to watch it with front row seats.

There are actually some people who are not entirely thrilled with what he's doing. I'm thinking about the Vice President of Operations for U.S. Submarines, you interview in the film. He seems pretty critical from two main standpoints. He's not happy that the submarine is not class 2 ABS since ABS does oversee the design and engineering and construction of most submarines, and he's upset that there isn't an insurance certificate or some other documentation behind it. And Karl has a pretty interesting counter argument to all that too so why don't you describe that.

O'Connor: Karl's counter argument is basically: I built this sub, I'm going down with you, and we're coming back up. And I'm very up front with you that this is a homemade submarine and it's your decision as a passenger if you want to get in or you don't. And that's personally how I went in. I didn't really know much about the whole ABS certification until we started researching and doing the film. So I would say probably a lot of people don't know about it, not that they shouldn't know about it, but I do understand Patrick Leahy, who is with U.S. Submarines. I do understand his point about how you have to have regulations and rules on the other side so you don't have a bunch of people throwing together tin boxes and taking people down.

DiNatale: Karl's point also, and I think it kind of translates to a lot of other things in creating and engineering, is that when you're thinking inside the box it stifles creativity, and I think Karl built that submarine with amazing creativity that required him to not be in the system.

Patrick is pretty firm in his stance. And the film seems to take the opinion of well, you know, he's entitled to his opinion and, you know, he's basing it in logic, and here's Karl's argument, and Karl's basing it in his own logic and his own experience. So, you know, the viewer gets to decide whether he feels comfortable with this or not.

O'Connor: That's why it's a documentary film. It's not our job to present our opinion. It's to present the story and everybody's opinion so the viewer can, in the end, make their own decision.

Now when you went to film him on some of his dives there are some really amazing scenes of the sea creatures. What were the logistics of setting up those shoots? It seemed like sometimes you were obviously within the submarine itself but other times you were outside of the sub.

DiNatale: The submarine is a three passenger submarine, including Karl the captain. So you have two people that sit in the viewing bubble and then Karl stands behind them. So obviously if we're gonna shoot a passenger, only Matt or I could go in the submarine at a time. So it's one shooter at a time. So it is super cramped. So that was a logistical process that we had to go through -- not only get the shot of the passenger, get the shot of the creatures, but also the sound. I mean it's very echoey in there.

That was one thing, and then what we did was we camera mounted a camera in the captain's quarters so that we can see Karl. We rigged a bunch of $1 LED lights so that you can light the submarine internally to see Karl's face and stuff like that. These things we did by trial and error. There was no book that we could look in to say "˜okay, this is how someone shot in a small submarine 2000 feet below with no access to power and light.'

I'm thinking about some of the sea creatures, but particularly that six-gilled shark. That is a rare sight.

DiNatale: There's a couple of scenes where our voices come in because it's so outstanding. A six-gilled shark is the second rarest shark form on the planet. So just to see one in photos is downright rare, and you're at three feet away from it and you're looking at an 18-foot shark that lives arguably at 5000 feet and comes up to 1500 feet to eat. You are a part of the elite at that point and you're just trying to contain yourself from going "˜holy moly, look at this!'

O'Connor: We did numerous dives for six gills and Paul got quite lucky where the shark, I think, showed up within 90 minutes, where on another dive I went down to try to find him and we sat there for 5 ½ hours and didn't get any shots. We saw one but it didn't come in, didn't take the bait. And it's cold and it's a little eerie sitting down there , 2000 feet in the ocean, for 5 ½ hours.

DiNatale: The submarine is not heated so the submarine absorbs the cold from the water. So you leave, it's high noon and 85 degrees, beautiful Roatan, Honduras weather in the Western Caribbean, and the next thing you know, you're 1500 feet, 1800 feet down in complete blackness. The water's about 40 degrees and you feel it. You actually have to take clothes.

O'Connor: What does Karl wear Paul? He wears a snowmobiling suit.

DiNatale: Yeah, he does. He wears a snowmobiling suit.. And then he plays Bob Marley the whole time, which is pretty awesome.

O'Connor: Probably the only guy in Honduras that has a snowmobiler's suit.

DiNatale: Yeah, no doubt about it, and a submarine.

At another point in the film, there's a situation where he's out with two tourists and one of his engines failed. And Paul, I think you're actually on camera when you all start discussing "˜okay, we gotta go out and rescue him.'

O'Connor: Luckily we had some quick thinking on the part of one of our crew members there who just happened to pick a camera up and started documenting Paul and I trying to figure out what we were gonna do.

DiNatale: Karl did explain to us he was going out with one motor. 'Listen, if anything goes wrong, here's what you need to do.' So we were shocked when we got the call because literally the call came in and we both looked at each other like he's an hour and a half into a dive, that's impossible. And he had his cell phone and he called us from surfacing and he's like "˜yeah, I need to be rescued.' And there we were rescuing him. Ultimately what that illustrates is that he is a one-man operation. He's got a homemade submarine and things go wrong. And when things go wrong I hope that it illustrated that you're in good hands. It was a catastrophic motor malfunction but it wasn't a catastrophic event where his submarine went down and he dealt with it and he learned his lesson and there you go, you know, part of the homemade process isn't it?

So besides people going to Roatan, how can they learn more about him and how can people see your film? Are there film festivals coming up where they could see it or other opportunities?

DiNatale: I'll direct everybody to www.aviewfrombelow.com. That is our website for the film. 2009 is gonna be our film festival circuit. In a couple of months we'll have a better idea of the film festivals that we're going to be going to and so this is gonna be the breakout year for the film. Go to the website, there's a mailing list there. They should just jump on the mailing list so that we can keep them posted when the film is at the film festivals, which film festivals, and when it is available for purchase.

Would you ever consider doing a follow up with him, a follow up documentary, or do you want to just let "A View From Below" stay as it is?

DiNatale: We would like to follow something up with him. I think he's too much of an interesting character and he's got a lot of stories to tell. He's 33"”32-years old, so he's a man who built his own submarine and dives to 2000 feet and beyond, you think of him as an old salty dog and he's at the end of his career and his life and that's his final achievement. Karl does not want to stop at this submarine. He wants to build a deeper submarine. He wants to continue. So, you know, we have a good relationship with him and we want to document him for quite a long time. There's much more for Karl--- much more to see about Karl Stanley.

O'Connor: That's one of the interesting things about him -- he's so young and he's done so much with exploring the undersea world. When my wife told me there was a man with a submarine in Honduras I thought, just like Paul said, he'd be an old salty dog, seafaring kind of man. And when I walked onto his dock and I met him, I was completely shocked that he was a 30-something white guy from New Jersey in Honduras.

But that's the great thing about him -- he's full of surprises everywhere. I think the film makes that pretty clear.

DiNatale: I also want to say that www.StanleySubmarines.com is Karl's website. That's a good place to find out more about Karl. That's his direct website. He posts photos and he blogs a little bit every now and then. And so that's another way for people to learn more about Karl, what he's doing.