The Air Jaws Phenomenon

Producer & director Jeff Kurr teamed up with Apex Shark Expeditions to facilitate all 3 Air Jaws and our own Chris Fallows from Apex has co-hosted all 3 shows.

To be able to capture the Great white shark breaching behaviour from so many different angles has meant much time spent in the field. One of the key successes has however been to make use of extremely valuable information on the Seal Island area and shark behaviour that the Apex crew have recorded over the last 15 years.

Quite possibly the closest a human has purposefully got to a Jumping Great White Shark, 5 meters away and at eye level!

In total the three Air Jaws shows took over 150 full days of filming during peak times in 4 locations. By far and away the bulk of this time, 120 days, was spent at Seal Island False Bay with Apex Shark Expeditions.

As technology has advanced new cameras have allowed the jumping sharks to be filmed like never before and bring the majesty of breaching Great white sharks to those who cannot experience this in person. Images of sharks racing at full speed from the deep and catching a decoy on the surface, three different angles of sharks investigating Chris on a kayak or the unforgettable shot of a great white breaching towards Chris on the Seal sled have become Shark Week icons.

All three shows broke new ground. In Air Jaws1 the first ever helicopter breach, night time feeding and mass feeding on a whale carcass was filmed. During the whale carcass filming the unforgettable scene of Dr Rocky Strong sitting on top of the carcass whilst white sharks fed alongside was a moment many remember.

Many of Seal Islands now famous landmarks such as the Launch Pad, The Gallery and the infamous Ring of Death got their names during this film.

Sitting in the submarine with your head dry and body wet was a very strange feeling. However, being able to spend long periods underwater without having to surface to breathe gave me a great chance to observe marine life from a different perspective.

Air Jaws 2 captured the first ever breaching shark footage from Australia as well as Ano Nuevo island and also for the first time showed great whites attacking decoys from underwater. One of the biggest headaches for the crew in AJ2 was the wait for sharks in Australia. During the three weeks in South Australia only three sharks were seen.

In Ultimate Air Jaws new contraptions were the seal sled that towed Chris within a few meters of breaching sharks, the submarine that Chris followed sharks with underwater and aerial shots of multiple great whites interacting with Chris on a kayak.

The main feature of Ultimate Air Jaws was however the super slow motion video footage shot on the Phantom camera by Tony Sacco that really caught the viewer's imagination in all of the above sequences.

For Apex Shark Expeditions the key throughout the three shows was to attract the viewers through spectacular footage and technology and then use their attention to highlight the beauty and majesty of these animals and push the need for shark conservation.

Not surprisingly all three shows are amongst the top 6 highest rated shark shows of all time on Discovery Channel with Ultimate Air Jaws reaching #2 in only its first showing.