Award-winning documentary filmmaker Jason-Spingarn-Koff, the Knight Chair of Climate Journalism at UC Berkeley Journalism and a UC Berkeley Journalism alum who studied with legendary Documentary Professor Emeritus Jon Else, will premiere his new film “The Coral Rescuers” on July 28 at The Woods Hole Film Festival. The film follows frontline researchers who are racing climate change to save the last of Florida’s coral reefs — with footage from a devastating heat wave in 2023 to today’s urgent rescue efforts. Andrea Lampros (’97) spoke with Spingarn-Koff (’01) about the film and what it’s like to go from a Netflix documentary executive to a director in the trenches. Spoiler alert: “It’s much easier to give notes than to follow the notes.”
What ignited your passion for working on environmental films and climate change?
It started when I was a grad student at Berkeley when I made a thesis film — a science documentary called “Robofly” about people trying to make a robotic fly and the implications for society. It sounds kind of strange, but it allowed me to explore the wonder of the natural world and the power of innovation and engineering. These are themes that have stuck with me over decades. I carved out this deep passion and I did a great deal of work in that intersection of science and technology in society, as an independent producer and director and working on shows like NOVA. Then when I was at The New York Times [as a video journalist, commissioning editor and founder of Op-Docs] and at Netflix [as Director of Original Documentary Programming], I worked on films and series about a wide variety of subjects, but a recurring theme was about the natural world and the environment, including climate change and oceans. I saw the kind of impact this work can have on the public, and I felt like this was something I want to do more of and devote myself to.
How does this new film relate to the award-winning films you’ve produced about oceans?
JSK: A little over two years ago when I went to a climate conference in Miami, I met people who had watched a bunch of films that I executive produced at Netflix about the oceans and coral reefs, including “Chasing Coral,” “My Octopus Teacher” and “Puff: Wonders of the Reef.” There’s a wonderful community of coral restoration practitioners and ocean conservation advocates who’ve dedicated their lives to saving the oceans and saving corals, and I fell in with this group ….I started thinking there’s an incredible film to make, which is a story where “Chasing Coral” left off. Essentially, the public knows that coral bleaching — when corals turn white from heat stress, often leading to mass die offs of reefs — is a big problem. But the public doesn’t know so much about people who are working on solutions for saving coral.
It seems your films are not only about problems, but also about solutions.
I’ve met so many people who have seen “Chasing Coral” and say it changed their lives — including some of my students. I meet young people who say they saw the film and it made them want to go into either marine biology or conservation. Even when I was filming “The Coral Rescuers,” I heard this again and again. “My Octopus Teacher” also had a huge impact — a lot of people have stopped eating octopus because of the film.
I haven’t eaten it since. This seems to be the best kind of storytelling: films make us feel the existential crisis, but also give us a path forward. How important is it to you to make films that give people a sense of hope or a sense of agency?
JSK: Yes. Well, what’s kind of fun about making a film is I’m able to put what I’m teaching into practice. I teach about how to make people care. And we talk about how to take climate change, which is often kind of an abstract thing, and make it feel tangible. And to take a big issue and localize it. Find a specific place where you can tell a story. Find characters to humanize the issue. And look for solutions. These are all things that I’ve been able to put into practice with this film. At the outset, I was looking for a climate story that would be hopeful.
But aren’t the real downer stories important to tell as well?
I’ve worked on a number of gloom-and-doom stories and they’re important. Sounding the alarm is still tremendously important, but I’ve been trying to find stories that carry a sense of agency and show people not giving up — highlighting science and innovation that can fight climate change. So this is a story that has all those ingredients.
Director Jason Spingarn-Koff (Center) with Director of Photography / EP Jon Shenk (Right) filming in the Florida Keys.
Is there anything about this particular story that surprised you or made you even more hopeful than you had been?
JSK: It was a process of discovery. One of the things that got me most excited is that when I first visited a coral research lab at the University of Miami — when the seed was planted that this could be a story for me — I heard one of the people who works in the lab talking about how, when there was this big heatwave in 2023, they rescued corals out of the ocean. I just became so curious: Did anyone document that?
Did they?
JSK: I found through asking around and speaking with people at NOAA, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, that a group in the Florida Keys called the Coral Restoration Foundation has the largest coral nursery in the world, and they have been filming their work over years. They had this trove of footage, including this incredibly dramatic rescue operation in 2023. Teams are not just doing the science, they’re also documenting the science and documenting the conservation. And that made the film possible.
Did you need to study a lot to get up to speed to be able to tell the story?
JSK: I did a lot of reading, and there are some fantastic resources at the university. Early on, I went to the UC Berkeley Gump research station in French Polynesia. That was an amazing experience, interacting with coral reef scientists and building relationships with faculty like Adrienne Correa. There was a dramatic global bleaching event, what’s called the ‘fourth global bleaching’ event, that began in 2023. But I wanted to find a story that would hold together and be powerful as a standalone story. Initially I was interested in telling the whole global story, but then I realized the best way to do this is to focus on Florida and then let the global story emerge.
Divers in the Florida Keys in the process of extracting rare corals from their nursery to safety on land.
Let’s talk about the actual filmmaking. Do you get in the water?
JSK: I often go snorkeling so I can see what’s happening under the water. I’m a certified diver, but I’ve realized the best thing is to let the underwater cinematographers work with the people we’re filming. I did find a helpful way to communicate: giving the underwater cinematographers a slate of storyboards that shows all the shots to get. It was a huge collaboration with underwater cinematographers to do this. It was hard to produce. On some shoots, we had multiple boats, multiple cinematographers — filming on the boats as well as in the water. And then drones flying around.
That sounds exciting.
JSK: It was very exciting. I also did some filming on my own, which was valuable for me to get back into that technical practice of filmmaking. I hadn’t operated a camera in a long time and it’s so helpful for my teaching. But most of the time, I worked with top crews. One cinematographer is Jon Shenk, who is a co-principal of Actual Films and an EP of the film. He also studied with Jon Else [at Stanford]. There’s a small community of people who hover around Jon Else and so we’re both kind of like disciples of him.
How is Actual Films involved?
JSK: They’ve made tons of films over the years — some of the best environmental and climate films. When I was at Netflix and at The New York Times, I worked with them as an executive producer, and some of the films we worked on together were “Athlete A,” which won an Emmy, “Lead Me Home,” which was Oscar-nominated and “Audrie and Daisy,” which won a Peabody Award.
Clayton Worfolk (‘08)
So we had this strong track record, and then I turned to them when I started developing my film and said, ‘Would you consider coming on as the production company and as executive producers?’ It was a true collaboration. We shared creative control over the film. It was interesting to kind of flip things. I trusted them and respected them so much. I relied on Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk and their third partner, Justine Nagan, who used to run the series POV [PBS]. They helped enormously with the fundraising. We have complementary skills, and for me to make this film — after nearly a 15-year hiatus directing — meant I had some things to relearn. We also brought on a fabulous producer, Joanna Rudnick, and editor Clayton Worfolk (‘08) who’s a J-School grad.
Was it good to be back on the other side as a director?
It’s definitely a strange thing to go back into directing after working with hundreds of filmmakers as an executive producer, network executive and commissioning editor. One of the challenging things is that my standards are so high because I was used to working with Oscar-winning filmmakers, internationally renowned filmmakers and real legends. And then to turn things back to myself. I learned that I’m definitely my own worst critic because my standards have become so high over the years. I have to allow things to be imperfect and allow things to evolve. It’s for sure made me much sharper all around to be hands-on, to be in the trenches, and to understand again how hard it is to do this work. It’s much easier to give notes than to follow the notes.
How do you think diving back into your own filmmaking will change how you teach?
JSK: It’s been incredibly valuable to show students what I’m doing as I’m making the film. To be able to share the different stages: from the pitch materials and proposals for what the film would be; to showing footage and the challenges I encountered along the way. And then during the editing, showing how the film has evolved.
There’s athleticism to making films, which I remember Jon Else talking about, where it’s almost like a sport. To be able to perform in the field, not just to carry around the equipment, but to be really sharp when you’re sleep-deprived and you’re working under these very stressful conditions. You make hundreds of decisions on the fly and manage people in real time and manage the relationships with your subjects. It’s a thrill. You get a kind of high. That was an experience that I missed when I was an executive. It’s also something that I need to be in touch with for my teaching, because when we’re asking the students to go out and make things, it’s so helpful for me to be in touch with exactly what I’m asking them to do. And it’s good to be in touch with how easy it is to make mistakes and how to recover from mistakes. That’s just part of the process.
Jason-Spingarn-Koff (center) photographed at BAMPFA with his Class of 2026 documentary film students and instructor Nani Sahra Walker (’18). Photo: Xavier Zamora (’27).
What are your hopes for the film’s impact?
JSK: It’s a 39-minute short, which is a very useful length for education and outreach. For example, you can show it in a class period. So as we’re thinking about the life of the film, this length felt right.
We want to target education, from middle schools to universities. We want to do special screenings at aquariums and social media about the issues, and we’re also looking into ways that we could tap into hands-on restoration, like working with recreational divers who would want to get into coral restoration themselves. I’m going to involve Berkeley students in some of this work as we roll out the film, as well as the Berkeley Center for Ocean Futures. And I think there’s enormous potential. So the next stage for me is figuring out how to connect it with the public and how to use the film as a tool for positive change.
