What It Takes to Film Humpback Whales | Filming Underwater Wildlife in Freezing Water

Off the coast of Canada, a natural phenomenon unfolds. The return of the humpback whales. They are drawn in by food. Billions of tiny fish. To film this epic event, not only one, but two crews are needed. One above the waves, and one in the deep. Follow veteran diver Didier Neuron into the Atlantic Ocean where he captures a world rarely seen on screen. But finding those massive whales is harder than expected. What does it take to film humpback whales in their natural habitat? And can the crews get the amazing shots they came for? And what secret did they find on the ocean floor? Let wildlife filmmaker Jeff Turner guide you through this epic odyssey. On the eastern coast of the country, we tackled one of the most challenging wildlife sequences of the series. The annual return of humpback whales to the coast of Newfoundland. To cover this amazing event, we needed two camera teams. A topside crew, working from boats and using high-speed cameras. And an underwater crew, who had a whole different set of challenges. The first was finding the whales they needed to film. The sound of the whales underwater is something like really amazing. You can't see them. They are just a few meters away from you. I like to have some rocks where we can hide. It's quite tricky down there. When you see three or four whales coming in front of you, and they scoop the bottom like that, you wonder how it can end your day. So I'd rather be a bit more concerned with safety and all that. So let's get everything ready. We breathe on, and when we are ready to go, we'll boom. There are millions of capelin here. A spectacle in itself. And this is what the whales are here for. But it's almost impossible for Didier to see whales through all these fish. However, there are other creatures here, feeding on the capelin, that were a lot easier to get close to. Like the Atlantic cod. The cod didn't seem to be afraid of Didier at all. Their numbers have fallen over the years, and it was a nice bonus to get shots of them feeding on the capelin. But no whales for Didier this time. Well, not underwater anyways. We did not see them in the water. They were close, but we did not see them. Our topside crew was having the opposite problem to Didier. The whales were almost getting too close to film. But while Didier was struggling to see humpbacks, he did manage to capture on film something that had never been recorded before. The spawning of capelin underwater. Capelin normally spawn on beaches, so to see them under 20 meters of water, spawning on the sandy seabed, is a first. The best moment of the day was definitely the spawning. When you see all those fish coming down, and they go down, they just... But you can't really see it, it's so fast, and there are so many, you don't know where to look. So next dive, I will go with a long lens, tight shot, and very high speed, like 240 frames, and hopefully the camera will reveal to our eyes what we could not see this morning. Scientists believe that this spawning behavior harkens back to the last ice age, when sea levels were dozens of meters lower, and this seabed was actually a beach. The capelin continued to return to this exact spot to spawn, while over thousands of years, sea levels rose, submerging the beach. Unfortunately, the spawning didn't improve conditions underwater for trying to film the humpback. Very hard to see, very hard to see, like five, six meters in front of you, that's all. We heard a lot of whales again. We just saw one white petrel fin in the distance, and that's it. They were not far, we were close, but we filmed again. And the visibility wasn't much better topside. Newfoundland's famously foggy weather was plaguing Ben and Justin. I think we should just have a coffee. There is no competition with Justin. He works from 4 or 5 in the morning to 7, 8, 9, whatever, then stop because the light is too high, and then work again late evening, you know. He does like 16, 17 hours a day. Me, it's a totally different way to work. I work only from, let's say, 10 to 3 o'clock, you know, five hours a day, and I rest. Oh, eight hours? Come on, baby, it's a maximum. Finally, the ideal conditions converge. Good light and plenty of whales. Both crews are excited by this rare opportunity. It's the final days of the shoot, so it's now or never. Dogleg, quick dogleg. We've got to cut to about 10 seconds earlier. With their boat, the topside crew is able to move around the whales easily to get the shots they need. But Didier can't move around much. He has to get to exactly the right spot. And this time, he's done it. The whales are all around him. I can't see. OK, they're still there. 10 o'clock. Look, there's one just there. He's really, really close to you. Both crews are in the perfect spot now. But with so many capelin in the water, Didier is not always sure exactly where the whales are coming from. Finally, after weeks of hard work, the crew's efforts pay off, providing one of the most stunning sequences in the series. I think today was the day that you have maybe one in your life. I saw those white pectoral fins coming straight in front of me. I just had time to put my head down, and the three whales came right above my head like that. That was just magical. And after we were like in a washing machine, you know, with the helis from the tail, that was the most spectacular thing I have seen underwater. Thank you for watching. Please like, share and subscribe to the Terra Mata channel so you don't miss our next documentary.