The Bigger Picture Films

12/07/2025

On 1 March 1954 the USA detonated the largest nuclear bomb in their history to date. The hydrogen bomb was 1000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima at 15000 megatons.

It turns out that it was exponentially more powerful than the scientists anticipated, mainly due to some miscalculations in the fuel design.

The 23 tests vaporised 3 islands. You can see the crater the Bravo castle test left behind to the west of Namu. That’s a pic of Namu today.

The human aspect is something I will leave for another post because that is a whole story in itself.

We dived ground zero with some coral scientists, amongst others, and cameras to see whats left of it. What had regenerated and what one of the few places on Earth looks like due to 70 years of basic human abandonment. Pesky radiation issues keep cropping up. The place itself is fine but any coconuts, crops, coconut crabs etc eaten slowly push levels up in the populace which is not conducive to long term survival.

The bravo crater itself is largely a massive sandy bottom with little, but some coral life returning. Possibly due to some radiation nothing has really started to regenerate. On the outside reefs though we saw resilience, possibly unaffected by radiation, coping with warming seas and having to deal with relatively low human pressures. These corals may have developed some resilience and could be a hope for the future of all corals which is a positive take-away.

The juxtaposition of having this insanely beautiful tropical island and then having the most devastating nuclear tests imposed on it, whilst relocating the indigenous Bikinian population “for the good of mankind and to end all wars” is an interesting lens to view ourselves through.

The islands are uninhabited to this day and it remains one of the most difficult places on Earth to get to. The Bikinians, generationally detached to the islands, long to return but remain in limbo with their small voices falling on deaf ears. The world has moved on while they desire to return to a simple life of fishing and lagoon life. A dream from yesteryear relegated to the history books.

20/05/2025

A few years back we were diving off Kona trying to understand the relationship between Oceanic White Tips and why they would follow the Short Finned Pilot Whales. In a vast and endless blue ocean we would find the whales and then jump in to see if they were being followed, there was really no other way to consistently find the OWT’s.

What we discovered was quite remarkable and served to answer our question, and once you know, you know.

The whales, upon return to the surface from one particular 10-15 minute dive to about 500 meters, started to regurgitate the beaks of the squid. The OWT wasted no time and picked up the scraps. The sharks only require about 500g daily to sustain themselves and so if you weight up the energy expenditure to sustenance received it makes for an efficient feeding strategy for an animal which as home in the vast blue wilderness of the Iveans deep waters.

24/02/2025

It’s been an incredible weekend in False Bay with all the SA hope spot champions getting together and getting to know this special lady, Dr Sylvia Earle, a whole lot better.

SA’s 7 hope spots were represented by passionate and incredible folks from different walks of life and backgrounds. The 2 oceans aquarium and Cape Radd were our kind hosts and it was such a lekker ocean centric weekend.

I was proudly representing the epic Maputaland coastline and through Thonga Trails non profit we facilitate various community and conservation programs. Dr Earle selflessly flew out for just 3 days to inspire the communities and folks driving the conservation in these nodes. We have several projects kicking off this year with the assistance of Mission Blue in partnership with Thonga Trails.

Sylvia’s passion and respect for the ocean is truly inspiring, the pressure we’re putting on our oceans is quite simply unsustainable and is not a future problem but requires urgent attention by each and everyone of us.

10/12/2024

Thanks for all the good times team! 🙌🏼

05/10/2024

Nat Hewit and Jimmy Chin direct the story of Endurance22 discovery. Finally out heading and premiering next weekend. I didn’t film this production but was part of the expedition crew and worked the back deck as well as ice deployments onto the frozen Weddel Sea. It was just incredible to be a part of history, as you can only find it first once!

05/10/2024

11/11/2023

In the far reaches of northern Norway, well inside the Arctic circle already, it’s early winter and the sun visits us for 14 minutes less every day. The air temperature hovers around 0C. Factor in wind chill and it feels a lot colder, but the air is crisp.

We have long short days on the boats, it’s a filming expedition and in the evenings we’re pulling footage, drinking a beer, discussing the days adventures and plotting what to do differently come tomorrow.

But, when it’s not snowing or clouded over we have these guys throwing a party in the sky above us. It is a spectacle that is surreal & ethereal and soon had me singing along (badly) to the ghostbusters theme song for days to come. Thanks to for the mentorship when to go outside and look for them and when to stay inside and stoke the fire.

31/07/2022

A big congrats to all involved, but particularly the cinematography crew behind the lens, as Pumas receives this years Emmy nomination for Outstanding Cinematography! It's a stunning film narrated by Uma Thurman and was filmed in the breath taking mountains of Patagonia!

Particular mention & congrats to Dereck and Beverly Joubert for their faith in the project, Casey Anderson and his crew at VisionHawk as well as René Araneda for their vision to get the project off the ground(and for being such legends in the field) and Candice Odgers for her incredible storytelling & post skills! Congrats to everyone else involved in the project, you know who you are...

Hopefully third time lucky!

14/05/2022

At the end of last year I got to start traveling again, having not left the African continent for 2 years I finally reached my 7th continent. Antarctica.

In a seemingly random series of circumstances I was on the second ever Airbus A340 flight to the continent to build an Igloo for .desert.antarctica, a high end pioneering continental Antarctica travel company.

I worked with 4 Russian ice artists, over three weeks, to build an 8m wide 4m high ice igloo fully furnished with ice furniture carved and welded together with water.

The sensation I felt when we touched down will never leave me. It’s surreal departing early Summer Cape Town and five hours later touching down on a landscape that you have as much reference as you would Jupiter!

There is nothing on earth to compare it to, the blinding white glare off the snow and blue ice, the deadening silence except when the ice moves and pierces it with a sharp crack, the biting cold that cuts through to your bones and the camaraderie built up over the weeks with fellow adventurers.

As Shackleton pondered, there’s a strange magnetism that keeps drawing one back to the ice and it remains true for me. Little did a I know that this was just the precursor to a much greater Antarctic adventure around the corner…

09/05/2022

Thanks to at RED Digital Cinema for delivering to us their most advanced camera to date!

Usually black in colour, nicknamed the RED Rhino, it’s the first 8K V Raptor in the customised grey colour & exclusively for natural history shooters.

I’m really excited to put this latest addition to our RED lineup through its paces in the field over the next few months!

06/05/2022

Another memory found in the depths of the phone archives…

I spent months living out in the Botswana bush, sometimes alone, out of the land cruiser only returning to town every two weeks or so for provisions. I would wake pre dawn, track the animals and spend hours just quietly observing their lives and documenting.

This female leopard and her 2 cubs became super relaxed in my presence over time, documenting them day after day; learning to climb trees, to hunt small animals and just bonding with her sibling and mum. It was a heavy day when her sister was killed by lions and it’s hard not to have an emotional attachment to another sentient being, even if it is the laws of nature.

On this particular October afternoon the heavens had opened and I was trying to get a shot of the lightening flashes behind the mum as she lay on a log drying out. The cub, curious as ever, approached me and hung around for several minutes and it was a privilege to be allowed this access into their normally private lives. The mum was also completely unperturbed by her cubs curiosity and her approaching me.

I stopped filming and reached into the cruiser at some point to grab my phone and sn**ch this memory, and just to take a moment to be present, a reminder of a simple and fulfilling time deeply
connected in nature.

05/05/2022

In the wildlife filmmaking industry it’s really hard to be current on social media as we’re limited with what we can post due to strict NDA’s. These essentially gag us for a time period until well after the release of the series or film. I recently moved phones and found a bunch of special pics and memories and decided I’ll post a few of them here as we go along. Botswana has special place in my heart, watch this space as we usher in a new era of wildlife films from the field. “Predators” a Sky/Netflix co-pro to be released later this year.

This picture taking us back to the Savage Kingdom days, now available on Disney+