Ocean with David Attenborough, a Masterclass in Storytelling

I finally took the time to go watch Ocean with David Attenborough. Here’s the short recap I wanted to share with you:

Yes, footage looks great. Yes, you should see it if you haven’t already. But most importantly: it was a masterclass in storytelling.

I found myself caught in a loop of emotions: wonder at the beauty of marine life, despair for its destruction and hope for what’s still possible. But it was the way the film used narrative structures that kept me on the edge of my seat. I think I also missed 25% of the doc because I was trying to figure out how they created the story (whoeps).

So instead of sharing a review with you, I prepped a “creator breakdown” to see how we can adapt these narrative structures and storytelling tools into our own climate or science messages. No major spoilers ahead. 🙋🏻‍♂️

The hammer and the dance 🔨 💃

As we’ve gotten used to from David Attenborough, Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios, this documentary didn’t try to overwhelm us with facts or data.

Neither did it rely on fear as the only storytelling vehicle, or this naive optimism we’ve seen in other docs. Instead, it created an emotional rollercoaster, triggering a range of feelings throughout the whole movie.

It’s a technique that some call “the hammer and the dance”

The hammer: Set up the story with some hard shocking truths to wake up the audience, to force them to confront the status quo.
The dance: Stories of hope that remind us why it’s worth fighting for change, looping with stories that show the hard work still ahead of us.

*My notes after returning home from the theater. X-axis: timeline and duration of the documentary. Y-axis: intensity of positive and negative emotions perceived by the viewer.*

I believe this interplay of emotional highs and lows was a very deliberate and strategic choice. One that holds the key to effective climate storytelling.

The movie didn't feel like a flat narrative of problems or solutions. It’s a dance between these extremes:

Pushing you to feel the gravity of what’s at stake,
But also the possibility of recovery.

A purely negative narrative can overwhelm. A purely positive one can feel naive. But this mix of despair and possibility keeps you invested.

Your takeaway:
Show the hard truths, but also the path forward. More about this below 👇

Show us what we don’t see

In movies, creators usually play with a few storylines at once. There's a main storyline, and then one or more smaller storylines to keep the flow and rhythm interesting.

For Ocean, this main storyline is showing the important topics we don’t see in every day media. The stories that aren’t picked up, but matter:

Quiet success stories: like local fishermen finding harmony with their environment, or nature that can rebuild itself without human intervention.
The catastrophic scale of industrial destruction: scraping away entire ecosystems (as seen in the trailer), or turning parts of the ocean into a floating factory (and again, scraping away an entire ecosystem).

The film gives a voice to these hidden stories, bringing them out of obscurity, for better or worse.

Your takeaway:
Show the stories of people making change happen. If it works locally, it can work globally. That’s where real change begins.Personal witness statements

Personal witness statements

So remember that secondary storyline? That’s where our friend Sir David comes in. Throughout the film we get small flashbacks from David’s life, where he witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly. He ties the movie back to his personal journey.

“In my lifetime, I have seen…”

What’s so strong about these secondary storyline scenes is how they frame the story as a witness statement.

By lending his voice to the story, he brings what’s happening far away in the world to a closer psychological distance. And after almost 100 years, David has a lot to look back on.

It shows continuity: We all understand how changes affect a human life. It makes it concrete, taking the abstractness away from environmental issues as climate change.
It shows urgency: If David has seen these changes happen in the last 100 years, imagine what we’ll see in our own lifetimes.
It shows trust: It’s a lived experience, not just theory. We trust his voice, his words and his actions. The story holds more weight since we can connect it to David personally.

Your takeaway:
Don’t be afraid to share your own witness statements in your content. It builds trust around your personal brand and makes your message more relatable. Share your emotions and struggles, but also your wins. Make it human.

Playing with scale

One of the narrative tools they adopted really well is the use of scale. They are not afraid to zoom in & out to help us understand, well.., the scale of the causes, impacts and solutions.

It’s an intentional moving between intimate details and the global picture:

A close-up of the life of a whale or a local fisherman on his boat.
A wide view of entire ecosystems at risk, or industrial ships that can decimate miles of ocean overnight.

But also
Organism vs ecosystem
Cause vs impact
Industry vs survival
Small actions vs global stakes

This rhythm helps people connect the dots: small actions matter, but we need big system changes too. This rhythm also shapes two other themes in the movie that are pitted directly against each other:

The power of over-industrialization
The power of rewilding nature

Without going into too much detail (or spoilers), the movie is showing us what happens when we give nature space to recover vs. what happens when we over-exploit beyond the capacity of the system.

Your takeaway:
Use scale to show how local stories fit into global issues, and how our choices ripple outwards.

This was also part of our first podcast with co-host Charlie. He told us how documenting local projects can ignite ideas or support on a global level (sounds familiar?).

Hope has to be earned

As they say: last but not least! Putting it simply, the film doesn’t offer false hope. With what's at stake, that's not a small feat…

The movie shows us that life rebounds faster than we imagined. But it also shows how quickly that hope can vanish if we don’t make the active decision to protect nature.

So instead of giving us this over-optimistic “everything will be fine”, or overly dramatic “humanity is lost”, it paints a very real and sober version of hope:

Hope is grounded in reality:
Nature can recover, but only if we protect it.
Hope is conditional:
It depends on our decisions. Will it work out? Only if we take it seriously.
Hope is motivating:
It transforms despair into determination. We CAN, if we CHOOSE to.

Your takeaway:
Offer real hope, backed by action. Help turn a “why bother?” into “what can I do?”. And for that, you can use the other narrative structures we talked about above!

The 'Ocean' playbook

Recap time! Here’s how I’m thinking of using these tools in my own work (and how you can, too):

Wake up, or shake up, the audience with the stakes. What can trigger a deep personal, emotional response? What's your hammer?
Show the audience what they normally don’t see about your story subject. How can you play with success and failure? What's your dance?
Let them feel the personal stakes by sharing your own perspective. How can you make it very real, very core to their identity? What are you witnessing?
Occasionally, pull back to reveal the bigger picture. How can you move beyond the details of your own story? What's the bigger impact?
Give them a glimpse of what’s possible when people act. How can you offer real hope, not just dreams. How can this hope activate the viewer?

Even if you’re creating a 60 second TikTok, IG reel or writing a short LinkedIn post, you can use these narrative tools to make climate topics feel urgent and relatable. Good luck! 🤞🏻