Diving for Rays - live on wild commons
We recently launched a new YouTube channel with our friends over at Impact Media Lab to help solve a huge problem that many independent filmmakers are experiencing - a lack of distribution options! Many amazing nature, environmental and science documentaries have successful festival runs, then just sit on a hard drive never to be seen again. The industry has changed, and we needed to find a solution that supports creators and allows them to continue their craft.
So, we co-founded Wild Commons - a YouTube channel which, through a shared platform with shared marketing efforts, gives these films a home and a way for creators to get paid. So, if you want to watch amazing films and support the people who made them, head to our YouTube channel and click subscribe! We release a new film each month, and short films between. If you don’t want to miss a thing, subscribe to our newsletter here.
Anyway, onto the films…
Diving for Rays
You can't be what you can't see. So she decided to become it.
Nicole Woodbyrne grew up in San Diego with the ocean as both playground and refuge. Drawn to rays gliding beneath the surface, she carried a dream of marine science from childhood into adulthood. But the deeper she looked into that world, the more she noticed who was missing from it. LGBTQ+ voices were largely absent from marine conservation, and that absence had weight. It made the path forward feel uncertain. It made the dream feel like it belonged to someone else.
Diving for Rays, created by Nova West and Angel Morris, follows Nicole as she takes a decisive step: getting scuba certified and entering the underwater world not just as an admirer, but as an emerging scientist and storyteller. What unfolds is both personal and structural. The film explores how gaps in representation shape who feels welcome in environmental fields, and what it means when someone chooses to step into that gap anyway. Through immersive underwater footage and honest reflection, it also reconnects us to the beauty of marine ecosystems and the question of who gets to protect them.
The film soft-premiered aboard the E/V Nautilus alongside oceanographer Robert Ballard and National Geographic Society leadership, and has since screened at international festivals including the San Diego Environmental Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award, as well as the Thunder Bay International Film Festival, World Water Film Festival, and FilmOut San Diego.
Why This Film Matters
Representation in science is not a side issue. It is foundational. When entire communities are absent from conservation, we lose perspectives and potential that cannot be recovered. Diving for Rays shows how identity shapes access, and how access shapes the future of environmental work. By centering a queer voice in marine science, the film expands the conversation about who belongs in this field, and makes the case that the future of conservation depends on getting that answer right.