ASOC
This guest blog is written by Abraham Joffe, an award-winning filmmaker renowned for his dedication to telling wildlife and nature stories, often through the human lens. Over the past five years, he has been a key member of an international team of over 700 collaborators who brought the acclaimed Netflix series Our Oceans to life. Abraham served as the Producer/Director of the Southern Ocean episode, a film that showcases some of the remarkable life inhabiting our planet’s most remote ocean.
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I have been privileged to film in some of the world’s most extreme and rarely visited locations. Perhaps the most common question I hear is, “Where is your favorite place to shoot?” My answer invariably returns to “the poles”. To me, no other environment feels as otherworldly, and few places host creatures as resilient as those that manage to eke out an existence there. It wasn’t until quite late in my career, in 2015, that I had my first opportunity to visit Antarctica and South Georgia. Until then, like so many others, I had experienced these incredible places primarily through landmark nature series like Life in the Freezer and Frozen Planet. You can imagine my joy and honor when asked to join the team tasked with producing Our Oceans for Netflix.
As the series set out to tell the story of our planet’s five great oceans, this film would focus on the Southern Ocean itself: the most isolated, powerful, and least explored of them all. The ocean’s character (and influence) would be told through the journey of the circumpolar current. But to fully engage the audience, the story of this ocean would need to be told through the eyes of the animals that live there. Our challenge wasn’t necessarily to introduce new species to viewers (though we did highlight fascinating creatures like the Spotted Handfish!) but to showcase extraordinary behaviors that were rarely, if ever, documented.
A Southern Elephant Seal Pup’s Coming-of-Age
The remarkable island of South Georgia has been featured in numerous films, dating back to the days of Australian cameraman Frank Hurley. Most often, the beachfront battles of bull elephant seals take center stage. However, we set our sights on a different and often overlooked story: the ‘coming-of-age’ journey of a newborn southern elephant seal. Thanks to our close connection with BAS scientists and other Antarctic specialists, we quickly identified the prime location for this story – Gold Harbour – and the ideal time of year to capture the behavior. It’s worth emphasizing just how integral the support of the scientific community was to this series. There is simply no way we could have achieved our ambitious vision without their generous backing.
The shoot crew for this story included cinematographers Justin Maquire and myself, drone operator Ryan Tidman, and Assistant Producer Ruth Harries. After a few turbulent days across the dreaded Drake Passage aboard the 70-foot sailing yacht Santa Maria Australis, we arrived at the crescent moon-shaped Gold Harbour, framed by the Bertrab Glacier looming high at its southern end. Behind the beachfront lies an undulating expanse of green tussock grasses, sliced in two by a shallow glacial stream. The landscape then rises vertically, forming a jagged black mountain range still powder-coated with the last snowfalls of winter. This would be our home for the next three weeks.
Gold Harbour has to be one of the world’s most extraordinary wildlife hotspots. Arriving in late October, we found the beach so overcrowded with elephant seals that we worried we’d fail to find a gap safe enough to run up the zodiac. Hundreds of large females lay in huge groups with their suckling pups, dispersed evenly by enormous bulls. The males, weighing up to 4 tonnes, bore necks raked with battle scars. Each older, larger male controlled his own harem of females and defended them viciously from younger males attempting to sneak in for some action. While fighting bull males has been well documented, we sought to capture only a glimpse of their conflict to highlight the dangers facing our young pups. (Had fighting been our focus, we would have arrived in early October when competition and testosterone levels peaked.) Even so, we observed and recorded plenty of male battles, focusing instead on their chaotic impact on the young pups.
Our first day’s shooting was aimed at capturing the sheer spectacle and density of thousands of seals blanketing the shoreline. The biomass lining this small harbour is simply staggering. Almost every inch of sand is taken up by seal blubber, with the small spaces in between filled in by skuas and snowy sheathbills looking for anything they can scavenge on. We had hoped to record the moments just after the birth of our “hero” elephant seal pup but we never actually witnessed a birth. We later found out that the pupping had occurred at least a week early this year, most likely triggered by abnormally warm weather.
The first few days we focused on filming the youngest, 1 to 2 day old pups as they viewed the world for the first time. Rolling on their backs, their big round eyes soaking in the big busy world around them. These fresh pups are instantly recognised by their loose rolls of brown fur, primed and ready to be filled up by their mother’s rich milk. Some of them resemble the Chinese Shar-Pei breed of dog. The intention was to document the journey from birth, learning to survive the chaos of the colony, learning to swim and ultimately entering the ocean for the first time.
The Milk-Stealing Skua
An amazing moment unfolded when a nursing female elephant seal and her pup were interrupted by a south polar skua. Skuas are highly intelligent and opportunistic, and this one appeared determined to steal milk directly from the mother seal. I found myself lying flat on the sand at the perfect level to capture a wonderful behaviour. The skua, just out of frame, trotted toward the pup’s head. As the pup detached from the mother’s nipple, milk squirted freely down her side and soaked into the sand. The mother seemed visibly displeased. She reared up her head, and finally managed to shoo off the pesky intruder. While we had been on the lookout for snowy sheathbills, known for stealing milk, I was unaware until that moment that skuas also engage in this kleptoparasitic behavior.
The Feather Moment
Our research had also kept us on the lookout for elephant seal pups inquisitively reacting to any incongruous objects that appear in their world. Their expressive eyes can become cartoonish in their bewilderment and I had seen photographs taken in the past of a pup staring at a bright orange traffic cone. The first time we encountered this was during week one. A pup had come across a loose feather and was sniffing and prodding at it with its nose. Fortunately, Justin and I were both present to cross-shoot this special moment with two cameras. The playful curiosity the pup showed at the appearance of this strange object was delightful! For anyone with children it felt instantly relatable.
First Contact With Water
As our shoot rapidly marched towards its end date, I realised that one of our most important story beats had yet to present itself to us. We believed the moment in which our hero elephant seal pup first encounters water would be a seminal moment. Since its birth it has known nothing but firm land, and it is about to take its “one small step” leap into a new (marine) world. A special, transformative moment. But as the days passed, we hadn’t seen anything close to the “water epiphany” envisioned. With only two filming sessions left, I began to worry we might miss it entirely.
On the second to last session in the late afternoon, when the pups wake from their midday naps and start to head for the water, a pup emerged from the rise with a look of intent. I quickly rushed into position, dropped low and prayed that he continued shuffling forward. He didn’t disappoint and worked his way down to the shallow stream. After a moment of hesitation, he dipped his whiskers into the surface of the water. I leaped and repositioned and managed to focus in on the meniscus clinging to his nose. And then, like a gift from the heavens, his eyes widened in awe and he seemed to marvel at this strange new world below. He then slid forward and moved into the water completing the transition. I was ecstatic. What began as a creative thought, worked its way to the storyboard, and then somehow materialised in reality before the lens.
Antarctic B1 Killer Whales vs. Crabeater Seal
The most ambitious animal behavior sequence for the Southern Ocean film was to capture the extraordinary pagophilic hunting techniques of Antarctica’s B1 killer whales. These whales’ cooperative “wave washing” of seals from ice floes had been documented by film crews on rare occasions, but as renowned cinematographer Jamie McPherson pointed out to us, the story had never truly been told from the seal’s perspective.
We set out from Ushuaia, bound for Antarctica, just before New Year’s Eve 2022 aboard Ben Wallis’s R/V Australis. The ice charts of what lay ahead painted a grim picture. By this point in the season, sea ice should have blanketed much of the Antarctic Peninsula. However, satellite images revealed its extent was drastically reduced compared to historical norms. When we arrived on January 3rd, we saw firsthand what we already knew: it was a terrible ice year, the lowest extent since satellite records began in the 1970s.
Our chances of filming this exceptional behavior plummeted. However, the real tragedy was unfolding for all the life dependent on the sea ice and the annual feast of countless krill. Without the sea ice under which they feed, the krill seemed to have vanished from the waters around the Peninsula—or at least from what we could observe at the surface and through the perspectives of our dive team, Nuno Sa and Darryl Macdonald, below.
Leading our observations and helping chart our search was Antarctic B1 killer whale scientist Dr. Leigh Hickmott. Leigh has spent years documenting this small group of whales, which number only about 100, and has intimate knowledge of their known hunting grounds. He spent almost every waking hour atop the Australis scanning the horizon for signs.
B1s are known to prefer hunting Weddell seals. Weddells are slower-moving, carry a high percentage of body fat, and are more docile than leopard and crabeater seals. In good ice conditions, B1s often pass by other pinnipeds to target Weddell seals, knocking them from ice floes with their killer coordinated waves. Crabeaters, while targeted on occasion, are far more challenging prey for the risk-averse B1s.
After 12 days of exhaustive and fruitless searching around Marguerite Bay, Adelaide Island, and the Gullet, we finally encountered members of the famous pod Leigh had been tracking. We arrived at the perfect moment, as the whales spotted a Weddell and a crabeater seal sharing a lone piece of multiyear sea ice adrift in mostly ice-free waters.
What followed was breathtaking. The pod attacked with their signature wave-forming technique, repeatedly knocking the seals off the ice. The Weddell seal, slower-moving, struggled to regain its position at the center of the floe. The crabeater, by contrast, erupted from the water with agility, snarling back at its attackers.
Our crew worked seamlessly, capturing the action from the vessel and via drone. Jamie’s GSS camera, mounted on a crane arm over the side of the ship, allowed his 1000mm lens to hover just inches above the water. This powerful setup enabled us to capture intimate close-up coverage while maintaining the appropriate distance. The drone, now a staple tool for every wildlife filmmaker, was piloted by the talented Canadian operator Conor Gallagher. Using a second controller, I was able to monitor and direct shots in real time as events unfolded.
Despite a valiant effort, eventually the Weddell seal ran out of luck and was unceremoniously dragged by the tail into the water. We thought the battle was over, but incredibly, the whales returned to continue their assault on the crabeater. Leigh noted that the extremely poor ice year appeared to be forcing the pod to hunt less desirable crabeaters, despite the greater difficulty in subduing them.
Then, the scene shifted from incredible to astonishing. The whales employed every tactic at their disposal—rolling the ice from below, pushing the floe to more favorable positions for attack, and even breaking apart a massive platform with a wave that seemed to ripple upward from beneath. Their tactical intelligence was jaw-dropping.
After hours of relentless assault, with the crabeater’s death seeming inevitable, the whales themselves appeared exhausted. In one final spy hop, they turned and swam off, leaving the seal trembling, bleeding—but alive. What a survivor!
It was nearly midnight, but the lingering light allowed us to capture the whales’ departure into an uncertain future. While we celebrated the crabeater seal’s miraculous survival, we felt deeply crushed for the whales. They had worked so hard, expending immense energy, and yet had only a single Weddell seal between them—a far cry from the one seal per day each whale likely needs to thrive.
It was heartbreaking to be in Antarctica and witness the poor conditions and the clear, immediate effects on the wildlife. The consequences of the climate crisis are often difficult to depict, making us grateful to have captured a sequence that so vividly illustrates what is unfolding in this fragile region.
This series would not have been possible without the incredible skill and dedication of our extraordinary international crew and the invaluable support of the scientific community. We hope this series brings the plight of the world’s oceans to the forefront of people’s minds. Now more than ever, it’s vital to cherish and protect our oceans for the health of our planet and future generations.