There is possibly no nicer place on earth to spend 3 months learning one of the most wonderful skills that diving has to offer. Here on Koh Tao, in the Gulf of Thailand, you have the chance to learn from a team of professionals, passionate about their careers in underwater film making, and at the top of the game worldwide when it comes to their dedication to quality and broadcast documentary making.

As the title here may suggest we are currently only offering internships in video and film making, not photography. We are however willing to discuss the possibility of extended photography courses in both a recreational and a technical capacity to those who wish to stay in amongst our well established creative environment for an extended period.

Our internships exist in two forms, one is free for those who we consider to show promise, and may have the prospect of a career with us in the future; the second is for those who do not have the time to dedicate and can therefore pay for the privilege of continuing to work alongside some of  the finest underwater cameramen and women in the world!

The above film, The Social Seas of Thailand, was conceptualised by Sam Lewis, an ACE Marine Images intern and later, crew member. This is a good example of what we expect from our trainees and staff right from the get go.

Every case is different, depending on the amount of time and effort each student intern is willing to dedicate to the learning process and to ACE Marine Images. Free internships will only be offered to those carefully selected students to whom we are considering for employment. Should you be selected for an internship you will be expected to; firstly, have your own diving equipment, secondly, sign a contract stipulating, amongst other things, the time you will remain with us, and thirdly, you would be expected to follow the rules and regulations regarding safety and those that apply to our full time working staff...

...in fact you will be treated like a member of our working staff and will begin by following one of our pro's, without a camera for your first few dives, in order to learn how to present yourself while out on various different dive boats, being helpful and polite yet keeping out of the way as much as possible both above and below the water; these are important lessons to learn and part of our company policy! You will then rapidly progress to stage 2, where we entrust you with company cameras, and allow you to start making your own films. For the first month of your internship it is about mastering techniques and showing to us, why we might want to keep you with us!!!

During the second and third months of your internship you will be put to work, learning alongside the best and improving your editing skills so that you are capable of producing movies to the continuos high standards of film making, editing, behaviour and professionalism, which we set for all our camera operators. Once you reach the standard of a daily resort film maker you will be put to work, as if you were an employee, and we will provide you with some living expenses, this is where you can begin to pay your own way on the island!

After 3 months of internship we expect a certain amount of dedication to the craft at ACE Marine Images in order to repay the costs incurred to us by your internship. Qualified ACE Marine Images Interns are highly sort after by some of the amateur tourist video companies in the region so we expect loyalty from those we teach until we have been repaid. Should you reach our high standard of expertise we may then wish to offer you work as a daily videographer at ACE Marine Images. If you do not attain such heights at this time, fear not, as the many small amateur video companies that have tried to emulate us over the years will be very keen to employ you and we may help you with placement in those companies which we consider to operate professionally and with a high degree of safety.

We are trying to make it clear that we are only interested in training people to make high quality film with a high degree of safety. Spinning around in circles and waving the camera around as much as you can to disguise the fact that you have no talent or ability to control your shots is not what we are looking for; we leave the Mickey Mouse films to people whose aspirations differ from ours. That having been said, all our interns have a great time at ACE Marine Images, we operate as a small family business, and we are all here to help each other, both in the learning process, and with any issues you may encounter during your stay. Indeed, we have a huge network of ex-interns making up our extended family across the globe, many are working at the highest level on some fantastic productions. This is without a doubt one of the best opportunities worldwide to undertake underwater video training.