Feeling warm about life in cold blood: The story of a natural history shoot

Summary

The brief - film a story that would make the viewer care about slow, unexpressive reptiles

The subject – Green turtles

The location - a limestone pinnacle rising two thousand feet from the ocean floor

The main text: So there I was, on Seaventures dive platform, a converted oil rig off the East coast of Borneo, about to head to Sipadan to begin filming on my toughest and most high profile assignment yet. A 10 day shoot to capture a stunning green turtle orgy. The demands were high, not only did my director, Adam White of the BBC Natural History Unit, want beautiful turtle images, he wanted behaviour and he wanted it shot beautifully. It was a tough ask and the pressure was made even greater because I knew who was producing the series. No less a man than Sir David Attenborough, the big D himself. A legend amongst natural history filmmakers and viewers. Apparently 'Life in Cold Blood' was the series he had always wanted to make. No pressure then. The location for this shoot was, really, a no brainer. Sipadan has one of the highest densities of green turtles in the world and they are strangely comfortable in the presence of divers, which meant I would be able to get up close at this most personal of moments! I was also there at the right time of year; August is traditionally when the highest frequency of egg laying occurs and therefore when the most mating action is going on. So, I was totally confident of being able to shoot one of the many mating events which happen each day in August.

Seaventures dive platform, a converted oil rig off the East coast of Borneo (Scubazoo)

The major question was how to spot the event in the first place? Sipadan is a relatively compact dive destination with around ten dive sites on the perimeter of the island. In August however visibility usually hovers around the 5-10m mark and many mating pairs swim into the blue once they engage so rather than hope to spot a coupling my strategy was to relax on the boat. A pretty lazy strategy you might be thinking, and you’d be right, but the best one nevertheless! Green turtles have to come up for air regularly, even more regularly if they are involved in energetic activities (!), so I was confident of seeing a mating pair at the surface. I situated the boat around the calm, protected area, known as ‘the drop off’ with camera on, ready to be in the water within 60secs of a sighting. I didn't have to wait long. Within 30mins of the stakeout beginning, and before I’d even opened the second box of donuts, the first couple hit the surface with one synchronized huge snorting breath. I was quickly in the water and trying to keep track of them as they descended. It was too early to attempt to film yet, the idea was just to get near the turtles that were swimming at a fair old rate in the blue. After a few minutes they were feeling less vulnerable and had slowed down enough for me to come alongside and start to think about shooting. I began with some nice steady wides to establish the action, which hotted up almost immediately. While I was filming the mating pair another male green turtle glided in to join the action. This new entrant obviously prescribed to the well known saying, ‘two's company and three's a crowd’ and got stuck in straight away, biting the male’s rear flippers and tail with its sharp beak in an effort to dislodge the 'husband' so that he could then take his place. These boys are hard to kick off though. They have a claw, almost like a bird’s talon, on each flipper which they use to hook on to the females carapace and this gives them an excellent hold. By the time I had taken some close ups of the interloper biting the flippers yet another male had joined the fray. It was time to back off again and get some more wide shots of the mayhem, which was building nicely. We'd been far from static during this period, moving at a steady pace the whole time. The turtles had popped up a couple of times already to get some oxygen into their lungs and when I finally pulled my eyes from the monitor to check my gauges I realised that it was high time to get to the surface myself for a breath.

Right: Mating turtles off Sipadan island, Malaysia (Scubazoo)

After a fairly relaxed tank and tape change I settled in and waited again for one of the greens to surface. It wasn't long and I was back in again. There were now a total of four males to the one female and, I thought and later confirmed on tape, it was the same male hanging on. Good on him! The action had hotted up considerably now and the competition was fierce. The incumbent turtle was taking bites from several turtles and the female was also having a rough time of it. One of the aggressors had latched on to the front right flipper of the mating male and was slapping the female in the face. It was TV gold! No matter what the other males threw at him though, the hubbie was going nowhere.

At this point it became apparent that the two mating turtles were having trouble getting to the surface to breathe. In contrast, the pursuing males were able to break off from the battle individually and get some air while the others maintained their attack. It seemed that stopping the pair getting to the surface was a group tactic by the aggressors to force the pair to disengage and bolt for the surface, leaving the female free to be mounted. If it was a strategy, it seemed a good one and I was sure that the male would have to finally break off after over 3 hours. Just as this thought went through my head the couple broke free and the female charged upward. They crashed through the surface and filled their lungs, love-locked and safe until they chose to descend again toward the waiting gang.

Scubazoo cameraman, Roger Munns (Scubazoo)

This initial sequence on the first day of filming was to form the backbone of the story. Over the next 9 days, I added the close-ups, cutaways and extra shots needed to form a cohesive sequence and give the Director the options he needed to tell the tale. My colleague Russ also contributed with some great wides. The sequence was later chosen as one of the top ten of the series.

You can see the sequence with an afterthought by David Attenborough on BBC: Life In Cold Blood

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