As the world prepares to celebrate World Ocean Day, National Geographic is making waves with the premiere of Ocean with David Attenborough—a feature documentary debuting June 7th on National Geographic and streaming globally the next day on Disney+ and Hulu.
With stunning underwater footage and a powerful message, the film shows us just how fragile—and yet resilient—our oceans really are. It reveals that restoring our oceans isn’t just a dream; it’s already happening.
We sat down with Director Toby Nowlan, known for his award-winning storytelling about the world’s rarest creatures, and Dr. Enric Sala, a National Geographic Explorer whose research helped shape this film. Together, they give us a behind-the-scenes peek at Ocean with David Attenborough—and why this might be the most important ocean story we’ve ever heard.
Innovation & Tech Today: The film says that we’re only just starting to understand what the ocean really needs. It shows those deep-sea mountains and the giant kelp forests that people don’t really know about. What do these discoveries mean for ocean science and how we protect it?
Enric Sala: Well, every year we are discovering 2,000 new species in the ocean, right? We’re discovering things. Last year, we discovered that these polymetallic nodules on the deep sea in the Clarion Clipperton Zone—where deep-sea mining is becoming so contentious—these metallic rocks are producing oxygen in the deep sea like trees on land. I mean, who would’ve thought this? Nobody. So we are making discoveries every single year, and like the film says, we are in the greatest age of ocean discovery.
But we know enough to know what the problem is—to know that we are abusing the ocean, that we are taking it to the breaking point, where it will not be able to provide any more benefits to humanity if we continue degrading it. And we know enough, as the film shows, that if we protect the right 30%, the ocean will bounce back to life, help replenish the rest of the ocean, and give us many, many more benefits. So these are the main messages of the film.
I&T Today: While I was watching the film, it almost seemed too pristine, and the cinematography was so good that it looked unreal. Toby, how did you and the team achieve such clarity and immersion?
Toby Nowlan: Well, we are working with the absolute best teams in the world, which really helps—the very best cinematographers. Doug Anderson below the waves, Toby Strong above the waves. We are working at the very highest of our game here. The David Attenborough brand always comes with a caliber of natural history filmmaking that is the absolute best of the best.
To achieve that, we use the very best technology, and we construct our own technology as well. We make our own technological innovations. One of the rigs we built was a tow cam, a giant torpedo-shaped camera with small cameras built into the back of the housing. That was really special. It took a lot of development, but it allowed us to get this really immersive photography of these open-ocean voyagers—these animals that spend their lives traveling the big blue, the big open blue—and that feeling of traveling with them.
The spotted dolphins who absolutely loved that rig. They would follow behind and head straight for the lens. We have these incredible, quite fun shots—people are just amazed by them—of dolphins traveling across the open ocean, same with the killer whales and blue sharks.
We tried to take a different approach to every habitat we worked in. This film’s a cinematic event—it’s a big-screen number. It’s not just another episode of TV. That really inspired every filming choice. From the colorful reefs of Indonesia—which we filmed in a new way using super shallow depths of field to tap into David’s magical early memories of diving on coral reefs—to filming in the albatross colony in the middle of the Pacific, where we used cinematic lenses typically used for feature dramas, not natural history. That gave it a really magical, dreamy look. So every decision was informed by trying to push the magic.
I&T Today: In addition to cameras, were there any other tech innovations you used, like scuba gear, drones, or submersibles?
Nowlan: Absolutely. Drones are very, very important to lots of topside filming now.
Again, in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, in the middle of the Pacific, we had the first permission to film the largest albatross colony in the world with drones. Once you get up there, you get this incredible bird’s-eye view of the scale of recovery. It’s absolutely spectacular. So drones were very, very important.
In terms of diving equipment, scuba was used throughout. Rebreather apparatus has come on leaps and bounds—it’s transformed our ability to stay underwater for much longer periods.
I&T Today: Enric, one of the things that really struck me while watching was the phytoplankton—how they remove carbon emissions. Do you think this is underappreciated in global climate policy discussions?
Sala: Absolutely. And I’m glad you liked the plankton, because I loved it too. The images were so good—what they did technically to get those images! You’re right there at the level of the comb jellies and the lobster larvae. For the first time, I felt what it is to be a plankton organism in there.
I was on a call about the climate COP happening in the fall in Brazil. Even though the ocean is such an important carbon sink, there’s only going to be one dialogue about the link between the ocean and climate, which is absolutely ridiculous. The entire ocean is out of sight, and because of that, it’s out of mind—and out of most policy discussions. Imagine: plankton is microscopic, we can’t see it. So our hope is that by showing people the plankton—and everything else in the film, like bottom trawling—people will be able to understand what those creatures are. If they can see it, we hope they will listen.
That’s the first act of the film: to show that everything in the ocean is connected—and connected to us. We are all interdependent, from the smallest plankton to the largest whales.
I&T Today: You mentioned bottom trawling, which makes me think of industrial fishing, and how billions of dollars are spent on that every year. From a scientific standpoint, what shifts need to happen for management to redirect this toward sustainable practices?
Sala: We need leadership. We know about the economics of fishing. We know that protecting a third of the ocean, which every country in the world has agreed to, would cost about $20 billion per year. That’s the same amount of money that governments currently use to subsidize overfishing. So, redirecting harmful subsidies to support sustainable fishing would be enough for a just transition to regenerative ocean use, including protected areas that replenish collapsing fisheries.
I&T Today: Toby, what were the moments during filming, like the mass coral bleaching, that were emotionally extreme or unexpected?
Nowlan: Great question. The coral bleaching is a really great example. That unfolded during filming—it was the worst, biggest global mass bleaching event in recorded history.
I’d never seen coral bleaching filmed in a truly cinematic, epic way before. I’ve never seen whole reefs transformed, one after the other. That was our mission with that sequence. It was difficult to cover—we only had a short window before the entire reef would be covered in algae. So we worked quickly with crews in Mexico, the Maldives, Florida, and the Great Barrier Reef, stitching together matching forward-tracking cinematic shots to create the feeling of traveling around the world with this devastating heat wave.
That was very shocking. We expected bottom trawling to feel violent and difficult to watch, but nothing prepares you for the real thing. When those images came in, the shock and horror were very real.
On the other hand, I also felt unexpected elation at the hopeful stories. For instance, when we covered Papahānaumokuākea, the imagery was so uplifting and extraordinary. That sense of recovery at every scale—the tiny lobster larvae in the kelp forest, too—shows how powerful ocean recovery can be.
I&T Today: Speaking of the stories of hope, I know that every country has pledged to protect 30% of the ocean by 2030. Enric, from a scientific standpoint, based on your research, how optimistic are you that this goal will be met?
Sala: I believe it’s possible, because some countries have already protected 30% or more of their waters. We’ve been working with these governments—Seychelles, Gabon, Palau, Colombia, Chile, Niue, and others. The UK’s overseas territories are also well-protected.
If countries in the Global South can protect 30% before 2030, there’s no reason why rich countries can’t. As former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, whom we worked with to create three massive marine parks totaling a million square kilometers, said: “You don’t need to be rich to protect your ocean. You just need to be smart.”
I&T Today: Toby, on the hopeful messages—how did you approach sharing that optimism as a director?
Nowlan: I think that’s the greatest takeaway from this whole journey. I didn’t fully understand the story of ocean recovery until I started making this film, and it really excited me.
The recovery process in water is very different from on land. It’s much quicker, more dramatic—it really works. Life fills up protected areas and starts to spill over into surrounding areas. Once you get that, you’re like, “So if we protect a few areas, the rest fills with life again?” That gives us a more breathable atmosphere, a more stable climate, more fish for the 3 billion people who rely on it, and better livelihoods for fishing economies.
That sense of hope had to be the biggest takeaway. We’ve had so much doom and gloom, and people can only take so much bad news before disengaging. So as a filmmaker, I wanted to keep people engaged—and what better way than with a real, hopeful story that’s already happening, right now?
I&T Today: Enric, I know the film says coral reefs could disappear in 30 years if we don’t act. What can we do right now to help save them?
Sala: Fully protect them from fishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. What we’ve seen is that reefs that are fully protected are abundant and animals can perform their ecological roles, and are more likely to recover.
The best story is our work in the Southern Line Islands in Kiribati. In 2009, we found pristine coral reefs—80 to 90% live coral cover. In 2016, a marine heatwave from El Niño killed half the corals. But five years later, we returned and—surprisingly—they had fully recovered. Why? Because the area was fully protected. Fish abundance was off the charts. The ecosystem was complete and more resilient. So fully protected areas buy us time while we hopefully reduce our carbon emissions and slow ocean warming.
I&T Today: The film highlighted the UN’s Decade of Ocean Science. Was that always the plan, or did it come together during filming?
Sala: The film was always designed to be released at this precise moment, right before the world’s biggest ocean conference in history. With global leaders gathering, there’s no better opportunity to push momentum for 30% protection by 2030. So yes, the film was made with this timescale and intention in mind—to create a moment in time that could change the course of history.
I&T Today: What do you hope every viewer takes away from this film?
Nowlan: For me, it’s the clear takeaway of hope. Whatever emotional rollercoaster viewers experience, I hope they leave with an overwhelming sense that this opportunity to save our ocean and our world is real, and already happening in many places.
This is not an anti-fishing film. It’s a pro-fishing film. Pro-fisheries, pro-abundance, pro-ocean, pro-life—a thriving planet for everyone on Earth.
Sala: Same for me. Every leader should leave the theater knowing there’s no excuse not to protect 30% or more of our waters. Protecting the ocean benefits everybody. The smart thing to do is to protect a third of the ocean. There’s no rational argument against it.
