- This movie's great 'cause when Sam Jackson goes,
he's standing there,
"you know we all have to come together and-"
[chomps]
He just gets eaten.
[laughs]
Hi, my name is Apryl Boyle,
I am a marine and environmental scientist
who specializes in sharks,
and the founder of El Porto Shark.
And today we're going to review some
shark attack scenes in film and television.
So come on in, the water's great.
[electric guitar]
This clip is from Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg.
- What kind of a shark is it?
- Let me see, I don't know.
I think it's a "mah-ko".
- Got a deep throat Pratt.
- Yeah, but what kind?
What kind of shark?
- It's a tiger shark.
- A what?
- I love this scene because it is a crack-up.
The fellas around don't know what kind of shark it is,
they've allegedly been in the water their whole lives.
They're watermen, they're fishermen, they're boaters.
They don't know what kind of shark this is.
First of all that's really silly to me because
if they've been waterman their whole lives,
they know what a tiger shark, a white shark, a Mako.
It's not "mah-ko", it's mako.
- I think it's a "mah-ko".
- So they're pronouncing things incorrectly,
and that's not something lifelong watermen would do,
or waterwomen but in this case the scene has watermen.
- But the fact is that the bite radius on this animal
is different than the wounds on the victim.
- The thing about bite radius,
there is something to that.
Often when a shark bites a surfboard, a boat,
anything, a person,
you can figure out how large the shark was
based on the size of the mouth.
So there is something to the bite radius thing.
- C'mon fellas, let's be reasonable, huh?
This is not the time or the place
to perform some kind of a half-assed autopsy on a fish.
- A necropsy is actually what it's called
when you do an autopsy on an animal.
And to do an animal necropsy
you certainly wouldn't do it on the dock.
Unless you had a lab or a setting next to the dock,
where you weigh the animal out
and you do it properly by weighing and measuring.
So back when this film was made,
they absolutely would've put the shark on display and said
look here's the man-eater
that's been terrorizing the beaches.
However today fortunately,
that's not the case in the US
and many other places where sharks are protected,
because since this movie came out,
there are 75% fewer great white sharks in the ocean
largely because of fear, misinformation,
and movies like this.
But, fortunately, this movie is what inspired me
to grow up to become Matt Hooper, so it did good.
Peter Benchley, who wrote Jaws,
is a green conservationist.
He spent his life as a conservationist
for sharks and the ocean.
Didn't realize what a bell he would ring with this one,
and the film was just so good and so suspenseful
it made us all afraid of sharks.
This clip is from Deep Blue Sea, directed by Renny Harlin.
[metal scraping]
- How long have they been synchronized like this?
- So, the whole lab setup and genetically modifying sharks
that is pretty absurd.
I can't imagine anyone funding that for starters.
Making sharks smarter,
I can't think of a reason to do that,
without doing other research first.
So the whole notion of
genetically modifying sharks to be smarter,
and work together and mind control.
This reminded me of the Aquaman cartoons
when I was a little girl,
where he would just telepathically get animals to do
what they wanted.
And I think I bet the writer's an Aquaman fan too.
[intense music]
- Tell me I didn't see that.
They recognized that gun.
- An interesting thing a lot of people don't realize,
is that sharks are skittish.
Most wild animals are skittish.
They all have personalities,
and you'll come across some who are curious,
and others not so much.
Generally though, a wild shark is skittish of
something that's not its food or it hasn't seen.
For example, it would not recognize that
there is a gun pointed at it,
or that a person is doing something in its harm,
because that's kind of not part of its world.
I myself have been surfing,
and because a great white shark can't
see directly in front of him,
or directly behind him,
as soon as it turned a touch to see me,
it was just gone,
just super skittish.
And I've seen this behavior with all types of sharks,
nurse sharks, blacktips, reef sharks, hammerheads.
I've had more of them swim away from me
than I've had come towards me.
[gunshot]
[Apryl laughs]
Tough guy.
Oh, they got him.
I'm not quite sure what he shoots into the shark
to make it just pass out like that
and go up and all that's really silly.
So it's kind of not feasible at all.
This is, I would say this is almost 100 percent fiction.
- And I'm still starving.
- We're about to have a feeding frenzy.
[whimpers]
- Come on, let's get this over with.
- This is finding Nemo, directed by Andrew Stanton.
[bell dings]
- Right then.
The meeting has officially come to order.
Let us all say the pledge.
- [In unison] I am a nice shark.
Not a mindless eating machine.
If I am to change this image,
I must first change myself.
Fish are friends, not food.
- What I do love about finding Nemo is
they try to portray a different side of the shark with the
"fish are friends, not food".
I can't tell you how many students have said that to me
because of Finding Nemo.
And I think that's great because it's showing that
hey look, the sharks are trying to care,
we should care,
and I think it's trying to send
a bigger environmental message.
But showing you that sharks can be
quote-unquote humanized
to where they're cuddly or friendly.
Which is why conversation is hampered,
because they're thought of as
eating machines, killers, et cetera.
So this humanization if you will,
I think was great 'cause it kind of
gave kids a less scary intro to sharks.
In a way that wasn't so much like
yes, they're going to eat you no matter what.
- Now do you all have your friends?
- Got mine.
[whimpers]
- A lot of sharks have very
symbiotic relationships with other fish.
You'll see pilot fish
and you'll see remora stuck to the bottom of sharks.
So those are both kind of
really great symbiotic relationships.
The pilot fish and the remoras
are not part of the sharks food,
they don't think to eat them.
So they hang around and get protection
from the shark and pick up scraps.
They're very specific eaters,
great whites, hammerheads, everyone,
they have their specific niche in the ecosystem,
so they don't just eat everything.
So they do have relationships with other fish.
- That's mine give it back!
- Dory cut it out!
- Give me-
Ow!
- Oh I'm sorry, are you okay?
- Ow ow ow.
- I'm so sorry.
- Yeah you really clocked me there.
Am I bleeding?
- Oh.
- Ow.
- Here we go.
- Dory, are you okay?
Oh that's good.
- [Together] Intervention!
- The little tiny bit of blood
that goes into Bruce's nose
and he inevitably is drawn into a frenzy.
Which is one of the best shark myths that scares everybody.
And I have to say,
I've used it to my advantage before
to get people out of the line up surfing.
Oh you have a cut you better get out.
More waves for me.
But honestly,
if I could cut my finger,
stick it in the water,
and have white sharks or any other sharks come to me,
imagine how easy my research would be.
How easy would it be to attract them?
The truth is,
there's a whole cacophony of smell out there
and while sharks can detect
a small amount of blood in
an Olympic sized swimming pool,
that doesn't mean that's what drives them to go and eat.
Great whites in particular are very picky eaters.
They don't simply eat everything.
Its a little more complicated than that,
they're not just indiscriminate eaters.
Yes, tiger sharks and bulls
are sometimes known as garbage cans of the sea
and they'll eat everything.
White shark's far more picky.
So every shark has its specific food.
And again, we have another clip from Jaws.
[crash]
[intense music]
Oh lost the spear.
[Apryl laughs]
So the shark in Jaws is a great white.
And we do cage dive,
or use cages to observe great white sharks in the wild,
however, most of the time
the cage is attached to the back of the boat,
there are those that go down by themselves
farther into the water,
but they're not as flimsy as it appears.
The shark simply bumped into it,
and the cage falls apart.
It's far safer than you think.
And interestingly,
I have never seen a great white
or any other shark attack like that.
It seems like in movies they're made to like,
act like a dog.
I've seen them like,
take something and
[growls]
or like keep going and
[growls]
and that's just not how a great white shark feeds.
So, the shark is a bit unrealistic,
quite a bit unrealistic,
in the film.
Now, if the shark actually
did get in a cage and present a danger,
he could feasibly go down into
hide in a coral area.
In Southern California he can hide in a kelp bed maybe,
he can hide in some rocks.
So that's feasible,
that part is more believable than the shark.
- Marcel we have a real problem here.
- It is not a problem,
it is the circle of life.
- This is Couples Retreat, directed by Peter Billingsly.
- The circle of life is circling our lives,
right now.
- Do not move, do not panic.
- Shark!
- What?
- Shark!
- Jason?
- Okay, it's all happening Marcel.
- Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
- [Marcel] Don't worry!
- Their reactions are so over the top and unnecessary,
it's absolutely fantastic.
And I've actually seen people afraid of tiny sharks.
Now, the fella in the movie calls them lemon sharks.
They look like they're in really tropical, beautiful waters.
And I've seen lemon sharks in that water,
and I actually have video of one coming just as close to me
and minding its own business.
So those little guys were checking them out
and would absolutely do no damage to them.
Sure, there's times where
you'll hear a shark has bitten a foot,
or taken a nibble off of somebody,
But the way those little guys were?
I mean, honestly they were in no danger whatsoever.
And if that was my guy out there,
I'd be like,
okay we need to sit down and have a talk,
and I would take him cage diving with 18 foot great whites
to get that fear right out of him.
- Stop it.
You said not to panic,
you said not to panic.
I'm sitting in blood.
Marcel this isn't a drill buddy,
you got real sharks here.
It's time to get the guns,
and it's time to shoot some fish.
- So let's talk about the word attack.
It is used in a lot of situations where
it isn't actually human and shark interaction.
You can go to the
international of global shark attack files,
search it online and download the excel file yourself,
and see that sometimes a bump and run,
as I said I was bumped by a leopard shark.
I was never in any danger,
it was turbid water,
trying to figure out if I was food or not.
Boom, wasn't, it left.
That would be classified as an attack.
Nothing wrong with my wetsuit, nothing.
This also maybe characterizes an attack,
and there has to be something done about that
and there's some researchers including myself
trying to get rid of the crazy attack scenario
where everything is an attack
and not just an encounter.
So I had an encounter.
These gentlemen are having an encounter with these sharks,
this is not an attack.
The one actor dumps him
and leaves Vince Vaughn there
with all the blood.
Really is a non issue
but Vince Vaughn should get out of the way,
because there's little bits of food in there
that they were feeding the sharks.
So it's not necessarily the blood's going to
attract them right away and everything.
But if there are bits of food in there
you know, get out of the cloud of food dumb dumb.
Just, you know
swim a little bit.
But they really weren't in ever
in any danger.
So they were just letting all their fears
get the best of them.
This is The Meg, directed by John Turteltaub.
[slow music]
[sound intensifies]
This is allegedly a big
research thing of some kind.
The shark would already know it's there.
Not only does it have lateral lines
so lateral lines on fish are those things that,
they go down the sides,
and it allows them to feel vibrations.
And sharks have this,
and its why, you know,
you'll see schools of fish schooling,
they can feel the vibration of the other fish
and by vision as well.
So vision and the lateral lines,
they're ampullae of Lorenzini,
these are all things that allow them to hunt.
And their vision is not that bad.
So if it was dark,
if it was turbid,
meaning there was a lot of particulate in the water,
a lot of wind action,
sure something could happen.
But this thing in the water
should've been there for awhile
and this big ginormous shark
trying to take a bit of this tiny little girl
is incredibly silly.
I mean if there were a whole bunch of kids,
like you've got a whole bunch of potato chips,
I could see him going by and tasting one.
But for the shark to do that,
that was pretty absurd
and something I don't think would happen.
[crash]
In The Meg its really ridiculous
the shark would try to bite that glass
where the little girl is
because if you recall,
the shark came from way down deep in the Marianas Trench
and had never been up above a certain layer.
So this shark would have really bad vision,
because you don't really need vision
down where there's no light.
You hunt by other means et cetera.
Your vision doesn't have to be that great.
So the fact the it was dark around there
would have nothing to do with that shark
eating that little girl
or trying to eat it.
It would not go after it
because it certainly doesn't look,
or sense, or smell, or sound, or feel,
like any food its ever had.
It'd be afraid of it.
It'd be away from that.
- Get out of the water!
- Next up we have Baywatch
filmed right here in beautiful Los Angeles County.
- Help us!
- Help!
[all yelling]
- Help!
- So they definitely had a lot of fun filming this.
The entire thing is an homage to Jaws.
When Michael Brody was in the pond
with his little kid friends in a boat,
and they got knocked over,
all his friends swam away,
and he sat there,
and the shark went by him
just like in this.
So, the writers of this,
to me this whole clip is just a fun
we really love the movie Jaws
and we're gonna be as absurd as possible
and make up all kinds of nonsense about a shark attack.
- Get out of the water!
[intense music]
- [Apryl] The whole absurdity is
I could see everyone
shark oh my god get out of the water
out of the water!
I can see people panicking and that happening.
But I can't imagine a lifeguard
getting in the water
when the lifeguard boat is right there
and could get to them far quicker.
Because when you're training to be a lifeguard
or a first responder of any kind,
you don't kill yourself to save somebody else,
you have to make sure you safely save someone,
its part of their training.
The fact that lifeguards,
especially Los Angeles County lifeguards
who are part of the fire department,
they're incredibly trained,
would run out into something that
was dangerous like that if for real,
that little tiny shark
that looks like a dolphin in some shots
was actually going to attack.
If there was some real danger right there
they would bring the boat over there.
Now the other silly thing is,
okay she swims out,
she gets to him,
turn the boat over,
get on the boat,
get your limbs out of the water
if you're so worried about it,
but really just swim calmly to the boat
because the shark isn't going to
keep coming after you like that
and the other homage to Jaws
was when Jill does get eaten
and she's taken through the water
just the top part is out.
That's just like the very beginning of the very first Jaws
where Chrissy, if you remember,
she's screaming
oh god send help!
You know,
and then she lands on the buoy before she goes down.
So this was a giant love letter to the movie Jaws.
Just this over the top absurd,
probably a really fun shoot to do.
This is The Shallows, direct by Jaume Collet-Serra.
[roars]
If the shark in this movie is supposed to be
a great white shark
they're picky eaters.
I've witnessed myself
them accidentally taking a bite of something
that wasn't their normal prey
and spitting it right back out.
So the notion that they would fight so hard
to get this small morsel that is not calorie dense.
Again, in the wild,
survival means calorie dense meals.
Which is why they love seals and sea lions
because their blubber is not like human fat.
It's super dense,
it's a whole other organ
which is why its called blubber and not fat
I don't care how big and fat a person may be,
we're still not shark food,
they don't want you
'cause you look like a big weed ball or whatever.
They want the calorie rich food.
Because they don't know when their next meal is.
So it's like any other animal in the wild.
You waste a certain amount of energy
to get the food.
So the amount of energy that shark wastes
jumping out and hurting itself
is not worth the payoff if it got to eat her.
The shark going up on the rock and in the coral
probably would be pretty abrasive on the animal.
So movies where the shark comes up and it's bite bite,
it's just not their behavior.
I've never seen that happen in the wild
and I've seen them eat stuff in the wild
with my own eyes.
This is Open Water, direct by Chris Kentis.
- I don't see anything.
- Are you okay?
Are you hurt?
- I don't know-
- Oh, oh honey!
Oh my god!
Honey, you're okay.
- I'm bit!
- Honey?
- I'm bit.
The [beep] bit me!
- Okay, okay.
- Yes.
- So Open Water is the most frightening movie
out of all these movies today.
So its based on a true story.
Two divers did actually get left behind on a dive
and they were never found.
So the movie is speculating,
kind of what they went through.
I mean I'm getting chills thinking about
being left behind on a dive boat.
That is the scariest part of this movie.
And anyone who's a diver,
research diver, or commercial diver, or just for fun,
that is the most frightening part.
[groans in pain]
And then the next most frightening part is
the little shark bite,
and how this happens is actually on the feasible side.
The shark took a bite like
yep this isn't my food
and took off.
So that makes it really feasible and believable.
Which makes it entirely frightening.
And the fact that divers do get lost on dives
is a thing that happens.
And unfortunately this clip is very feasible
it could definitely happen with the certain conditions.
So it's the most realistic.
This is Bait, directed by Kimble Rendall.
[somber music]
So sharks don't feed at the top
as much as previously thought.
In fact, a paper just came out
about this very recently,
they spend more time down below,
being that their food isn't on the surface.
However, if the shark
was going to come up and take an entire person,
it would be very quietly much like that fella
that just was swimming and whoop, he's gone.
But I don't know what that explosion was afterward,
I'm not sure what that was.
But I could definitely see someone being dragged down
if the animal thought that was food
and took the person in.
But again, we're not their food
so we don't look like their food
so it's really unlikely.
- Shark!
- I can't hear ya!
- Shark!
- What?
- So, sharks in South Africa and other places
actually come up from the bottom
and surprise attack.
I've actually seen them do this
in Guadalupe Island in Mexico with my own eyes.
Looking at one shark behind you another one
goes up and grabs something.
So they do come from the bottom and just [snaps].
So that's part of their strategy.
Go swimming everybody,
did I scare you enough?
But at any rate,
they took the shark jumping up
out of a natural behavior that
sharks in South Africa and other places have done
to get seals and sea lions.
So that behavior is something that
they over exaggerated for this clip.
But once the shark ate the guy,
he probably realized that's not food
and probably wouldn't be so excited about this guy.
Again it's all a big, absurd, really quick
oh my god there's a shark he's eating everybody.
It's perfect for the movies.
So, we've seen a lot of clips with shark attacks.
A lot of encounters,
things called attacks that weren't attacks.
We have to remember,
using this language to say attack,
makes the sharks a villain.
And really they're a top predator of the ocean
that keeps the entire ecosystem in check.
And they need our protection.
In just one hour, over 11 thousand are killed.
If there's one thing you can do
to help sharks and the whole ocean ecosystem,
stop using single-use plastics,
and especially straws.
What the alternative?
Look.
Oh my god, I drank something without a straw,
you can do it too.