Swandive.media

07/26/2023

With Gratitude we invite you to celebrate our 40th Annie-versary of Annieglass 🥳🥳 Come celebrate with us this Saturday, July 29th from 1:00-4:00pm at our Watsonville studio. We will have live music, demonstrations, raffles, drinks, food truck, viewing of the documentary Resilience from .media and more!

01/31/2022

Do you enjoy exotic fungi as much as we do? We’re big fans of the incredibly delicious mushroom varieties that are friends at produce. Types include yellow oyster, lion’s mane, shiitake, reishi, and many others! If you haven’t checked out their retail shop in Santa Cruz yet, go check them out at 224 Laurel Street. It’s an exotic mushroom gold mine.

01/10/2022

Check out off-grid solar lights, photographed aboard at Cowell’s Cove in Santa Cruz. This photo series originally appeared in

Photographers: &

07/21/2021

What do you do when a Malawian prison’s superintendent tells you, “I make the films now.” This official for the Nkhotaota prison-located near the rural banks of Lake Malawi, Africa-got a kick out of the DJI Ronin stabilizing system, enough to second guess his career choice... at least for a couple minutes. Photographed during a documentary film project in 2017, these are the moments we live for.

10/29/2020

2020 has served up a whole lot of curve balls, but despite the difficult times, Swan Dive Media has had some amazing opportunities to work on awesome film projects around the country. Check out a few of our favorite selects in the video - enjoy!

10/29/2020

11/13/2019

08/21/2019

If you haven’t already picked up a copy, check out the current issue of Santa Cruz Waves magazine—it’s our Five Year Anniversary issue and features highlights of some great work we’ve put into this publication over the past half decade.

Part of my inspiration to co-create Swandive.media - along with cinematographer Michael Daniel- was to help tell informative stories through creative film, many of which have a lot of cross over with the subjects I’ve written about for SCW magazine. What a trip to look back on five years of local journalism and see how far we’ve all come. Can’t wait to see what the future holds for all of us as writers, filmmakers and newsmakers!

08/14/2019

We're excited to be partnering with the City of Santa Cruz and several other organizations to help develop story content for Virtual Reality applications. The premise is to develop informative stories that people will experience through VR at public libraries in Santa Cruz County.

08/12/2019

Swan Dive Media has been on the move lately! We’re back in Santa Cruz after a nonstop week of filming in Alaska. We’ve had a variety of interesting production projects this summer and will be releasing a ton of new content soon!

Can’t wait to hear what you all think! Thanks for having us in Alaska ⛰ @ Scenic Seward Highway

07/25/2019

Last year we spent two weeks traveling with a Santa Cruz-based nonprofit called H20 (HIS to Offer- H2O Malawi) all over Malawi, Africa. We shot video and conducted interviews in prisons, orphanages, and community centers, where the nonprofit was providing aid: digging wells, installing solar, teaching farming techniques, and a whole lot more. Check out the trailer for our short doc "H20 Malawi."

Paddy Brady Charles Msukwa Tim Brady Ron Powers Peace Kapalo Vanessa Chisiano Thando Malangano Misheck Takondwa Malangano Michael Daniel Joel Hersch Tricia Morgan Pan African Film & Arts Festival Silicon Valley African Film Festival Africanfilmco Sundance Film Festival Sundance Now DOC LA. Los Angeles Documentary Film Festival
Central Coast Film Society ME Film Festival Santa Cruz Film Festival

03/07/2019

Check out our recent video story featuring Santa Cruz pro surfer Autumn Hays, the production is a collaboration between Surfline and Visit Santa Cruz that showcases the culture, style and beauty of our hometown! The second installment of VSCC's Welcome to Santa Cruz series, enjoy our piece "Welcome (back) to Santa Cruz."

Local Autumn Hays gives insider tour of her beloved hometown

11/04/2018

Check out Swan Dive Media's recent feature on the local Santa Cruz design firm Visual Endeavors. Their LED light art sculpture called "River Motion" spans the San Lorenzo River, where the sequence and color outputs of the lights correlate with data on the health of the river.
Video produced for City of Santa Cruz Economic Development Office

Also take a few minutes to read the companion article written by Swandive.media's Joel Hersch. Enjoy!

https://santacruzcityarts.com/blog/2018/illuminated-river

10/23/2018

Check out Swan Dive's video short on the annual Lake Malawi Surf Contest by H20. Full length documtnary on Patrick "Paddy" Brady's work in Africa will be released this December. Enjoy!

Patrick “Paddy” Brady grew up surfing in Santa Cruz, long before he formed the local, faith-based nonprofit H20 (HIS to Offer- H2O Malawi). H20 leads annual trips to the African nation of Malawi, where the organization facilitates setup for solar systems, helps to build medical clinics, and develop job training programs, and much more. But H20’s most obvious homage to Santa Cruz: the annual Lake Malawi Surf Contest. Watch the most recent installment of the Santa Cruz Waves Stories about H20’s ongoing work in Malawi and be sure to check out the In Depth article in the Oct/Nov issue of the magazine, “A Long Way to Lilongwe.”