It was at the end of a five week shoot and many days at sea that it finally happened. On the open sea off the Azores and with the weather turning from bad to worse, a fast disheartening crew were all but ready to turn the whole thing in. Having convinced themselves and each other to try one last seamount, one final attempt to bring home the story of the open ocean, nature filmmaker, Toby Nowlan and the renowned cinematographer, Douglas Anderson threw one last roll of the dice.

It was a decision that would go on to shape the course of the entire project and one that would deliver for Toby – a celebrated wildlife storyteller, director, and producer – something far deeper and more profound than anything before it. This would become his ‘Attenborough moment’.

Having grown up – like all of us – on a hearty diet of Sir David Attenborough’s nature documentaries, Toby recalls the inspiration he found in a particular sequence involving a bait ball and a celebration of whales from the seminal 2001 series, Blue Planet. A sequence which – for its time – pushed the boundaries then of what wildlife storytelling could achieve. It perhaps never crossed his mind that some 25 years later, he would be living such a moment for himself. But then again, perhaps it did.

“I remember thinking ‘this is it’,” he tells Oceanographic Magazine. “This is the moment. Finally, we’re in the water with an enormous bait ball, thousands of Cory’s shearwaters above just going wild, huge tuna – the size of cars – rocketing past my shoulder and slamming into the bait. And then it happens, a sei whale comes straight past, touching distance and eyeball-to-eyeball.”

It was to become Toby’s favourite shot in the film. And for good reason, too. Because Ocean with David Attenborough – a cinematic ocean epic co-directed and produced by Toby alongside co-founder of Silverback Films, Keith Scholey, and co-founder of Open Planet and Sir David’s own long-time collaborator, Colin Butfield – finds itself doing something no other of its kind has ever really managed to do before; use cinema to turn natural history into a cultural moment.