A mermaid washed up ashore on the coast of Sri Lanka, on World Ocean Day, to the shock of many viewers. We reached out to the geniuses who captured this extraordinary sight on camera, the folks from Trip Pisso.
Speaking to Udaya Hewagama of Trip Pisso here’s what we found out;
Q: Tell us about this incident.
A: Following the ‘Xpress Pearl’ ship wreck, ocean and marine life became a rather discussed topic among the people. So, we staged this performance of a mermaid being washed ashore by using everyone’s beloved mythical creature, a mermaid.
Q: Tell us about your team?
A: The Trip Pisso team includes Asela Madushan, Hashan Madushanka and myself. We are all part of this. I was the director of this video, Gayathri Jayamanna was our model and Buwaneka Ranawaka took part as the makeup artist.
Q: Why did you do this?
A: To teach the general public about the importance of the ocean and the wonders of nature. About 70 percent of the oxygen is produced by the ocean and we as a brand, love nature and do everything in our power to protect it. so, in simple terms that was our goal, to show how our adverse actions can impact the environment which sustains us.
Q: Why a mermaid?
A: We took this mermaid concept because people like mermaids a lot but we wanted to make it a very demystifying experience, which is why we made her look scary.
Q: How did you get about doing it?
A: We used model Gayathri Jayamanne as the mermaid and wrapped her body in rubber and did makeup to make her look like a mythical creature. The talented Buweneka Ranawaka did the makeup. We shot the video at night because we did it on a very low budget and we didn’t want our flaws to be visible.
Q: How was the response to the video?
A: The response was amazing. It went viral and most people found out that it was a performance art piece and spoke to us and reported our story and why we did what we did.
Q: What is Trip Pisso all about?
A: We are using our Youtube platform to promote travel content. Initially, it was supposed to be just for us to remember our travels and then we realized travel content helps people relax so we did it to help our viewers relax and reduce their stress. And the appreciation we got is pretty impressive, it made us so happy. We have been able to support tourism in Sri Lanka.