Black Diamond, Alta. family of 4 fishing for success in upcoming television show

It's lights, camera and casting a line in hope of catching the big one while the cameras are rolling near Black Diamond, Alta.

The Dunning family is producing a show called Wild Angles that premiers July 1 on the Sportsman Channel in Canada and the World Fishing Network in the United States.

Aeden Dunning is the host and his family all have a hand in producing the series.

They run a television production company called Dunning Imagery Productions out of their home south of Calgary and have been collecting footage from many fishing trips over the years with the intent of turning it into a series of shows.

"We started just filming every time we got out fishing and making sure that we had a full roster of footage," said Aeden. "It made it really fun to turn fishing into something that I could potentially make a living off of eventually."

Andrew Dunning is the company CEO. His wife Debbie is a photographer and edits video. Oldest son Liam is the director of photography and editor while youngest son Aeden is a fishing guide.

"On some of the fishing (footage) I am in front of the camera, just to have an interaction with Aeden, kind of a father-son thing, just for an emotional connection to our audience," said Andrew.

"Aeden learned how to fish because I love fishing so I wanted to be fishing too."

Liam is tasked with getting all the right angles for the show by using drone footage from above and GoPro cameras underwater, along with his handheld camera.

"You want to keep that camera rolling a lot of the time to make sure you're getting the shots that you need so something doesn't happen when you have the camera put away," he said.

"It adds a little bit of time in the editing process but it's worth it because then you know that you have those good shots and you didn't miss anything."

Debbie has to go through all the footage from each outing and edit the best shots together. It helps that she also shot a lot of the footage for the production.

"I love working with family," she said. "It's unique I think to have all four of us be able to do this project together."

Andrew says the show goes wherever there are fish — budget permitting. Some segments will feature waterways close to home while others are filmed at some exotic destinations where they hire local guides to help out.

"I had to get down to Costa Rica," said Andrew. "We didn't take Aeden but I really wanted to catch a rooster fish so I went down there, we (hired) Dream On Sport Fishing and fished with them and sure enough, I hooked into a 40 pound rooster fish and landed it. It's a bucket list fish and so we had that opportunity."

At the beginning of the pandemic the production company had no work so Andrew and Liam produced a cooking show called Quarantine Cooking to keep up on their camera and editing skills, and to pass the time. It was hosted by Andrew.

"The cooking show actually really helped us," said Andrew. "TELUS contacted us, they picked up all six episodes for its community channel and everywhere I go, you know, people say, 'I saw you on YouTube, I saw you on CTV (Calgary)' and it went national, which we didn't expect."

Aedan says many existing fishing shows feature older, well known hosts. He's hoping that his youth and experience will capture viewers along with the show's educational component that teaches people tips to help them catch more fish.

"We're projected to get over I think it was two million views per month in the in the United States on WFN so you know, just the name of the channel that we're on World Fishing Network, that's a very well known channel and to be in the United States with that there's a lot of viewers and then in Canada, the Sportsman's Channel, we're gonna be getting a ton of viewers."

The first episode airs on Canada Day and Debbie and the rest of the family can't wait.

"It's 99 per cent finished and we're really happy with it," she said. "Really happy."

Learn more about Wild Angles online.