Insiders working on David Attenborough's latest nature documentary have revealed what it's really like to work with the living legend.
Ocean with David Attenborough is in cinemas from May 8. The film showcases spectacular marine life - from kelp forests and coral reefs to the open ocean - and draws on Attenborough’s near 100-year journey on Earth to tell a story that is as personal as it is universal.
Speaking to the Daily Express, director Toby Nowlan said: "It’s just the greatest privilege ever to be working and directing and producing on a film that David says is the most important thing he’s ever done and the most important message he’s ever told."
In an exclusive interview, Keith Scholey and Toby Nowlan - the filmmakers and co-directors (alongside Colin Butfield) behind the project - said working with David Attenborough meant very different things for each of them.
"I’ve been working with him for over 40 years," Scholey says. “When I first worked with David, I was only in my early 20s… he was already in his mid-50s and he’d sort of done his first career with the BBC. And what’s extraordinary is he doesn’t seem to get any older, but I do."
“If 40 years ago we’d sort of said, oh, you know, we’re going to be making a film about the ocean in 2025, we would have looked at each other and thought, nah, that’s not going to happen. But here we are. And it’s wonderful.”
Nowlan brings a fresh perspective. He says: "For me it was, you know, like many of us, I think we grew up on this staple of David Attenborough. To work with David Attenborough in that world, it doesn’t get more exciting than that.
"This is… the most important thing he’s ever done. And there were moments when we were on this beach together, you know, and he’s in frigid temperatures on this beach in southern England, telling this story about the ocean for everyone… If we save the sea, we save our world."
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Scholey calls Attenborough's new documentary "a mission-driven film, which is different for us.” He adds: “We absolutely decided to do it, to try to tell people about the wonders of marine protection.”
What sets Ocean with David Attenborough apart from other works on the topic is its clarity. As Nowlan puts it, "There’s been lots of doom and gloom stuff. There’s been lots of natural history stuff. There’s been conservation stuff. But to have this really clear story that says we know exactly how we can save life on Earth. Here it is. It’s right in front of us. And it’s really straightforward and effective. And it’s already happening."
He points to real-life examples of success already underway: “Look at these amazing case studies like the albatrosses in Hawaii, the tuna in the Pacific, the kelp in California.”
The fact that this story unfolded during Attenborough’s own lifetime gave it a poignancy that shaped the whole film. “You’ve seen that the story is the ocean in David’s life," Scholey says. "100 years on planet Earth, David’s lifetime, this story of change in the ocean."
The film is structured around three broad chapters. First, the wonder: “We’re discovering how the ocean is more vital for life on Earth than we’d ever imagined,” says Scholey. “You know how kelp and seagrass absorb so much more carbon dioxide than tropical rainforests on land, how the plankton give us half of the air we breathe, how we’re discovering 2000 marine species every year.”
The second chapter is about the damage: “The biggest problem with our sea and the greatest threats to our sea… is the most destructive forms of industrial fishing and doing that everywhere.”
For the first time on screen, the team captured and broadcast clear visuals of bottom trawling. "You can very clearly for the first time see the violence and the destruction of that process," Scholey says. "We had no idea it was that bad until we saw the assortment. That completely changed everything for us."
Nowlan recalls the impact of those images: "When those images came back… it was suddenly like, my God, this is absolutely horrific. I mean, people we showed it to were just moved to tears in the NGO world.”
The third act offers hope - and it’s backed by science and real-world recovery. "If you protect the ocean and just leave it alone in areas, it recovers in the most spectacular way imaginable," Scholey explains. "If we look after a third of the ocean, the rest of it will fill with life."
Even for seasoned conservationists like Scholey and Nowlan, working on Ocean changed their understanding: “I always knew that ocean protection was important” Scholey says, “but I don’t think I realised just how important it was and how doable it is.”
Compared to land conservation, he notes, ocean recovery can happen fast: “In the ocean, you can bring about very, very quick change. I didn’t realise quite how quickly the ocean bounces back.”
“Everyone was a winner,” Scholey says. “It’s not just the conservation winner, but the fishing industry is a winner if we do this. And the inhabitants of the earth are winners because we’ll control our climate.”
For Nowlan, this understanding brought a new sense of urgency and possibility: “This is not an ocean for conservationists. This is an ocean for fisheries, for conservationists as well. This is an ocean of more abundance for everyone on Earth.”
Ocean with David Attenborough makes the case that our relationship with the sea has been shaped by mystery and distance. As Scholey puts it: “I think that’s why it’s become so stupidly destroyed.” The damage, he says, has happened “in the dark,” benefitting those who prefer it that way.
“It’s been very convenient for certain industries to keep the world in the dark about what goes on in the ocean”, he adds. “It’s our job as journalists and filmmakers to tell the public and then the public can decide which way they want to go. If the populations of different nations know that very, very simple truth, they will then put pressure on our government leaders. The waters around the United Kingdom belong to all of the citizens of the United Kingdom. And we expect good governance of them by our governments.”
“The ocean is the greatest shared asset on Earth”, Nowlan says. “It does not belong to a handful of governments or companies or powerful individuals. It is for all of us, whether they’re hundreds of miles from the sea or not. If people can take away one thing [from the film], it’s that the ocean is for all of us… and we completely depend on the ocean.”
