PUFF: WONDERS OF THE REEF WINS EMMY FOR OUTSTANDING NATURE DOCUMENTARY

Puff: Wonders of the Reef, Netflix’s first Original Australian documentary, has had a big win in New York, taking out Outstanding Nature Documentary at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards.

The tiniest creatures in an ecosystem are often the most important, and yet the most easily overlooked. A shared desire to showcase this fascinating micro-world is what brought together director Nick Robinson of Wild Pacific Media and specialist Director of Photography Pete West of BioQuest Studios to tell the story of the reef from this new, unique perspective.

Nick is a documentary filmmaker with decades of experience, and the ocean has always held a particular fascination for him. “The colour and the beauty that we all associate with coral reefs is like the tip of an iceberg - if you were able to look closer, you would see that every reef houses thousands of creatures operating on timescales we can not comprehend, and of a size often too small for our naked eyes to perceive,” Nick explains.  “Our vision was to shrink the audience down and transport them to this world, where they could come eye-to-eye with some of the tiniest creatures on the reef.”

This is, of course, easier said than done. The filming process required expertise in marine science, specialist cinematography and engineering. Cinematographer Pete West of BioQuest Studios explains, “The cinematography for Puff required the development and manufacture of specialised equipment including a range of precision motion control equipment to capture unique images both underwater in the field, and in the studio aquarium sets.”  The team at BioQuest has spent many years developing the techniques used for filming Puff’s world, but advancements in camera and lighting technology allowed them to record underwater images with greater detail, contrast range and colour accuracy than ever before.

The team set out with a vision to reveal the inner workings of a coral reef, but this concept presented some early narrative challenges. “Corals are fascinating creatures, but they don’t have eyes or personalities that we can easily connect to, and they tend to be stationary for most of their lives. Many people don’t even know that they are animals. In a narrative context, the scientific detail of the corals’ story can end up feeling quite dry.” Nick recalls, “so the question was, how do we engage an audience with this story?”

The answer came in the form of a baby fish. Reef fish are an indispensable part of a thriving reef ecosystem, and they interact with the reef in different ways as they grow. “We hoped that if we could create a more character-driven narrative, the audience would really engage with the reef, and at the same time we could reveal the 101 of reef ecology. Balancing this narrative storytelling style with traditional natural history documentary techniques was a real challenge,” says Nick.

The team set about a casting process, capturing test footage of several juvenile reef fish. The Valentin’s sharpnosed puffer fish quickly stood out from the pack, with its prominent eyes, expressive face and inquisitive nature. “It was naturally curious and seemed almost fearless, never hiding from the camera.  This was likely a result of confidence in its ‘superpowers’ - a natural toxicity and the ability to Puff up to deter predators” says Pete.  “In addition, Puffer fish are not built for speed.  They have small fins and tend to hover, making them easier to follow with the camera.” The team quickly nicknamed the tiny fish “Puff”. The name stuck, and Puff’s life journey became the vehicle for the story of the reef.

At the beginning of the film, Puff is smaller than one centimetre in length - many of the other characters in Puff’s world are even smaller. To capture their story, the team at BioQuest used specialised macro and timelapse cinematography techniques that are only possible in a controlled aquarium environment. The smallest of these aquaria was no bigger than a matchbox.

Pete West explains, “BioQuest’s biologists provided information about animal behaviour, physiology and the natural environment. With this, we could record images depicting realistic behaviour, natural environmental lighting and suitable studio aquarium sets.” It is a process that requires not just an understanding of animal behaviour, but also a good deal of patience. “It’s often necessary to sit in a darkened studio for many hours waiting for a specific action from an animal. This can be the same when shooting underwater, however underwater you get cold from inactivity, and you don’t have access to copious amounts of coffee. Blink and you may miss it.”

As well as hundreds of hours in the studio, the production team spent more than one hundred hours underwater filming on location on the Great Barrier Reef. More than 140Tb of material was acquired, providing the editors with a huge range of images with which to build the story. After viewing hundreds of hours of puffer fish footage, Nick’s perspective of Puff’s story and the coral reef world began to evolve. “For me, one of the most surprising things from the whole shoot was discovering that different puffer fish seemed to have different personalities. Some of the fish we filmed were great in front of the camera, some of them seemed brave, others more shy. It’s easy to just think that ‘fish are fish’, but it changes your perspective of the ecosystem as a whole if you start to see each fish as an individual, with its own life and role to play.”

Peering into this tiny world often feels quite intimate, and Nick wanted to enhance this intimacy with the original score. “When you’re dealing with key characters that can’t emote, music becomes an essential tool to drive the emotional arc of the film. We wanted these cues to be subtle but familiar, and fit seamlessly into the aural world we designed for Puff.” Composer Hylton Mowday worked with the editorial team throughout the production to compose musical cues that would balance with the underwater soundscape.

Australian actor Rose Byrne provides the narration for the film. “There was a really delicate balance we were trying to achieve in the narration - we were trying to find a tone that was informative but not too dry, playful but not too childish,” recalls Nick. “We had Rose Byrne’s voice in mind when we were writing the script and it was such a privilege to have her narrate the film.  When she read the lines in the sound booth we could feel the film coming to life. She brings warmth, humor and heart to the story.”

“At BioQuest Studios, art meets science, the best way to showcase the beauty and diversity of the natural world,” says Pete. “Our aim is always to tell stories that have never been told, using images that have never been seen. To uncover these stories and tell them to the world in a compelling way, has never been more important.”

For Nick, this was a deeply important and timely story to tell. “The world’s coral reefs - along with our oceans as a whole - are in grave danger.  These underwater environments are so often overlooked, and my philosophy is that people can’t care for things they don’t really understand.”

“These alien-seeming worlds exist throughout every tiny patch of coral and seagrass within our oceans. Entire worlds that we pass by without ever noticing. And despite their tiny size, these small worlds are just as complex as our larger world, filled with weird and wonderful creatures, relationships, thought processes and a continuous interconnectedness of life that links our world to theirs,” says Nick. “My hope is for the audience to share my love of the ocean, and if they connect with Puff for just a short time, hopefully they will feel compelled to look after his world.”