Shifting Baselines : What Are the Best Ocean Films?

The Shifting Baselines Blog

Jennifer Jacquet is a Ph.D. candidate with the Sea Around Us Project at the UBC Fisheries Centre. She works closely with Dr. Daniel Pauly, who coined the term Shifting Baselines, the syndrome on which this blog focuses.
Josh Donlan is a conservation scientist and a Visting Fellow at Cornell University. He often hides out in the backcountry of the Teton Mountains, pondering bygone giant beavers and ground sloths. He also is also the founder and Director of Advanced Conservation Strategies and has a habit of restoring remote islands.

Scientist turned filmmaker Randy Olson, founder of the Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project is also a blog contributor.

Search

New Projects & Publications

November 2008 Jennifer Jacquet is lead author of the study In hot soup: sharks captured in Ecuador's waters published in Environmental Sciences.

November 27, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "Why Consumers Alone Can't Save Our Fish" at 1pm at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.

August 2008: Josh Donlan is co-author on a new paper titled Integrating invasive mammal eradications and biodiversity offsets for fisheries bycatch: conservation opportunities and challenges for seabirds and sea turtles published in Biological Invasions.

August 2008: Jennifer Jacquet is co-author on a new paper titled Funding Priorities: Big Barriers to Small-Scale Fisheries published in Conservation Biology.

August 2008: Josh Donlan is an author on a new paper in Journal of Applied Ecology titled Diversity, invasive species, and extinctions in insular ecosystems.

July 26, 2008: Randy Olson's film Sizzle premieres on the East Coast at the Woods Hole Film Festival in MA.

July 24, 2008: Josh Donlan gives a talk on biodiversity offsets to The Alcoa Foundation and the Alcao Intalco Aluminum Plant in Bellingham, Washington.

July 22, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "A Way Forward in a Sea of Market Based Initiatives to Save Wild Fish" at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, CA.

July 19, 2008: Randy Olson's film Sizzle premieres on the West Coast at Outfest in Hollywood, CA.

July 17, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "In Hot Soup: Shark's Captured in Ecuador's Waters" at the Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting in Chattanooga, TN.

July 9, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet gives the talk "Flawed Data, Reef Fisheries, And Food Security: A Close Inspection Of Marine Fisheries Catches in Mozambique, Tanzania, Fiji, And The Solomon Islands" at the 11th International Coral Reef Symposium in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

June/July 2008: Josh Donlan attends training for his Kinship Conservation Fellowship in Bellingham, WA.

May 2008: Josh Donlan is an author on a new paper in Ambio titled High impact Conservation: Invasive Mammal Eradications from the Islands of Western Mexico.

May 15, 2008: Jennifer Jacquet reviews Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood at the Tyee.

April 2008: Trade Secrets: Renaming and Mislabeling of Seafood by Jennifer Jacquet and Daniel Pauly is published in Marine Policy.

April 2008: Randy Olson and the Puget Sound Partnership release the flash video Shifting Baselines in the Sound:.

Mar. 2008: Dr. Josh Donlan joins the Shifting Baselines blog.

Jan. 2008 Jennifer Jacquet launches the Eat Like a Pig Seafood Wallet Card

Online Resources and Blogs

« Anchovies: Fighting Down the Food Web | Main | Book Review: Should Bloggers Stop Bush-Hating? »

What Are the Best Ocean Films?

Category: Communicating
Posted on: August 20, 2007 9:00 PM, by Jennifer L. Jacquet

Recently, The End of the Line film crew came to the Fisheries Centre to interview Daniel Pauly, who is one of the characters in what will soon be a "cinematic documentary thriller" about overfishing. In the film's treatment, Daniel is described as "the man who blew the lid off the story [of overfishing] through 25 years of scientific investigation." I read and enjoyed The End of the Line (see booklists), especially Clover's allegation of diet, fashion and health advice in the fisheries crisis. I'm not quite sure how this will transpire on film and how the film will differ from other documentaries on overfishing such as Empty Oceans, Empty Nets.

But the filming got me thinking about ocean/fisheries documentaries in general. There is of course the slew of Howard Hall films, the lovely Blue Planet series (which, after five years of filming, captured some extraordinary behavior), and the delightful adventure through the Drake Passage with Berserk in the Antarctic. There is Darwin's Nightmare, which was misconstrued as a film centered on fish when it was actually about weapons (something I wrote about here). I would like to know some of the favorite (or least favorite) ocean documentaries out there and, if possible, what made them great (or horrible). What are the best (or worst) ocean documentaries? (And no, A Fish Called Wanda doesn't count.)

Comments

Best ocean film ever made, hands down, was "The Living Seas" -- narrated by Meryl Streep, music from Sting, nominated for an Oscar. Now let's hear all the purist whine. Just like in film school when I would tell my classmates that "Titanic" is the greatest movie ever made. It made the most money. It must be the best. Case closed.

Posted by: Randy Olson, Head Dodo | August 20, 2007 10:20 PM

There is a film edit of the Blue Planet series called Deep Blue.

One of the best bits of the Blue Planet series was the 'making of' short films. You really get to appreciate the skill and effort of the film makers.

Posted by: Simon Harding | August 21, 2007 12:36 AM

I also enjoyed Clover's book a great deal. It motivated me to do a lot more research on West African fisheries, especially. Hopefully, the documentary film will add to public awareness about the issues.

While Blue Planet has already been mentioned, it is worth reminding people that the BBC's Planet Earth also includes several episodes about the oceans, with further discussion of ocean issues on the final DVD, which discusses ecological threats specifically.

Posted by: Milan | August 21, 2007 12:00 PM

I don't think Sharkwater has gotten the recognition it deserves yet, although one of my favorites is Blue Water, White Death. No, it's not conservation minded, but it's still an exciting and interesting film from when the Great White Shark was almost more myth and monster than reality. Outside of those, the Blue Planet series was utterly fantastic.

Posted by: Laelaps | August 22, 2007 12:53 PM

Although not a documentary.....I simply love Finding Nemo! It is such a feel-good ocean film, reminding us that our actions do affect the ocean's critters. Anthropomorphic? Yes, but delightful still! I didn't realize that The End of the Line would be made into a film - am looking forward to it.

Posted by: Megan | August 22, 2007 9:32 PM