Speaker 1: Well, I mean, yeah, we often talk about art imitating life,
Speaker 1: but in some respects I think it's important when we
Speaker 1: analyze these sort of movies fifty years on to recognize
Speaker 1: the real impact that art can have on life, and
Speaker 1: in this case, how a blockbuster film about a killer
Speaker 1: great white shark, as fictitious as it looked, could inform
Speaker 1: opinions and perspectives on these incredible sea creatures and of
Speaker 1: course the way that we treat them now. I wanted
Speaker 1: to turn for this discussion to an extraordinary Australian. His
Speaker 1: name is Rodney Fox. He's a filmmaker, conservationist and shark expert.
Speaker 1: He was working alongside the team in Hollywood as well
Speaker 1: as off the coast of South Australia back in seventy
Speaker 1: five when the movie was released, and he's with me
Speaker 1: on the line. Rodney, thank you for your time, much appreciated.
Speaker 2: Yes, fine, Michael, it's quite an event to think it's
Speaker 2: fifty years ago since everybody raced out of the water
Speaker 2: and had wanted to kill sharks.
Speaker 1: Well, I suppose we can almost sum it all up
Speaker 1: in our first question, and that is that despite the
Speaker 1: fear that came as a result of this movie was
Speaker 1: incredibly well put together movie.
Speaker 3: Spielberg did his magic.
Speaker 1: But despite that, as you've said, over the years, it
Speaker 1: created a curiosity in these creatures, which in turn has
Speaker 1: ironically led to conservation efforts.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, really. We're still running our Great White Shark
Speaker 2: expeditions regularly off the South Australian coast and we had
Speaker 2: four scientists out doing a film recently and they said
Speaker 2: they were all inspired by the sharks, by the Jaws movie.
Speaker 2: And you would be unbelievably surprised how many people have
Speaker 2: said told us over the years how it's got them
Speaker 2: interested in sharts and one of them to learn more.
Speaker 2: There's been so many articles and magazines, and we've actually
Speaker 2: worked on over eighty different movies. A documentary is over
Speaker 2: the year from all different countries, and they've all been
Speaker 2: so very interested and a lot of all of them
Speaker 2: can nearly quote scenes from the Jaws movies.
Speaker 1: Mind, the damn Gewes movie did pay a few of
Speaker 1: your bills. So let's go.
Speaker 2: Back over the Yes. I ended up with a job
Speaker 2: as a crusty old salt at Universal Studios, Florida and
Speaker 2: had to go around and tell stories on radio and
Speaker 2: television and stuff. But the interesting thing I went on
Speaker 2: that Jaws ride. I was.
Speaker 4: In the un studios, Yeah, Universal Studios, and I really
Speaker 4: was interested in why people would stand for an hour
Speaker 4: and a half and wait to go on the ride.
Speaker 2: And I ended up by coming up with just a
Speaker 2: few words. It's the tingering excitement of fear that people
Speaker 2: get to go on those rides and things that they're
Speaker 2: really interested in. But what really worries me is that
Speaker 2: people say, you know, I have never been in the
Speaker 2: water since I saw the film Jaws. And one guy
Speaker 2: even said to me, I haven't even had a bus
Speaker 2: since I've actually been in that since I've seen the
Speaker 2: film Jaws. But if people don't can't work out fiction
Speaker 2: from fact, and imagine all those other horrible movies that
Speaker 2: are out there that they they're learning from and they
Speaker 2: think that's what's normal. That's really quite amazing. How yes, movies.
Speaker 3: Well that's a very valid point.
Speaker 1: And of course they'd never get in a taxi, they'd
Speaker 1: never get in a bus, they never do anything if
Speaker 1: they base their life off movies. To take me back
Speaker 1: fifty or so years to when you know the Spielberg too,
Speaker 1: and he was sort of starting out really he wasn't
Speaker 1: the big superstar that he is now Steven Spielberg. But
Speaker 1: I mean you, and I think Valerie Taylor and Ron
Speaker 1: another they sort of tapped on the shoulder and said, right, well,
Speaker 1: we need a bit of expertise here, fellas well.
Speaker 2: I was very excited. Ten years before that I'd made
Speaker 2: the first underwater cage. I was badly attacked by great
Speaker 2: white of course, and I wanted to learn more about them,
Speaker 2: to see if it was safe to go back in
Speaker 2: the water. So I invented the shark diving cage, and
Speaker 2: we made the first films right with Ron Taylor as
Speaker 2: the cameraman and he as the expedition the organizer and leader.
Speaker 2: And that film went around the world and it was
Speaker 2: amazing how people would just ring up and ask us
Speaker 2: if we could organize an expedition. And so that's how
Speaker 2: Rodney Fox Shark Expedition started because people just kept contacting us,
Speaker 2: and for twenty years we were the only really place
Speaker 2: in the world where you could film great white sharks,
Speaker 2: and it became quite a And of course the Jaws
Speaker 2: movies was an inspiration to anybody who was a bit
Speaker 2: interested and they wanted to go and see them face
Speaker 2: to face themselves, and it's our expeditions really have been
Speaker 2: running for sixty years.
Speaker 3: Now, all off the air Peninsula.
Speaker 1: That shark attack, though, was one hell of an attack
Speaker 1: that you suffered, and I mean, I think you would
Speaker 1: say you were lucky to be alive after it. It's
Speaker 1: been recorded as one of the worst ever shark attacks
Speaker 1: where someone's pulled through.
Speaker 2: I can't believe how I always thought in the back
Speaker 2: of my mind that I've been left here to do
Speaker 2: something on this earth, because nobody would you know I
Speaker 2: could survive all that those darn wounds, and of course
Speaker 2: they took them on the operating table and they went
Speaker 2: around the world many times. And I'm still been sending
Speaker 2: off photographs of the scars, you know, and whereas I
Speaker 2: don't show them anymore because I'm they're a bit fat
Speaker 2: and ugly. It was amazing, and I often thought I'd
Speaker 2: been lefty to do something. And I look back over
Speaker 2: my whole life and we really all just worked with sharks,
Speaker 2: sharks and got people to try and understand them, and
Speaker 2: those sharks. With over four hundred varieties of sharks in
Speaker 2: our oceans, we've really, you know, with the great white
Speaker 2: of course, is the pinnacle one, but there were so
Speaker 2: many other problems in our oceans with the overfishing and
Speaker 2: plastics and pollution. Now that been a bit instrumental in
Speaker 2: helping all those because so many people now are researching
Speaker 2: and looking at sharks. We had these four sigentists out
Speaker 2: on our boat during a film the other day and
Speaker 2: we died with them with great white sharks from South
Speaker 2: Africa and America, and they were really quite interested. And
Speaker 2: they also knew half the words of the Jaws movie.
Speaker 1: It seems to be the basis of the lexicon, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety nine was an important year in this whole
Speaker 1: story for Australia though, because that's when the federal government
Speaker 1: declared the great white vulnerable to extinction. And when that happens,
Speaker 1: you know, things happen, Things change from a legislative point
Speaker 1: of view. When you think about the movie came out
Speaker 1: on this day in nineteen seventy five, and then it
Speaker 1: took the better part of twenty four years before the
Speaker 1: federal government here is that actually, you know, if we
Speaker 1: actually scientifically look at the numbers, these things are under pressure.
Speaker 1: Just give us a sense, if you could ron if
Speaker 1: the Great whites were hunted to extinction because everyone feared them.
Speaker 1: Would what would the ocean ecosystem look like?
Speaker 2: Well, it's basically that they apply pressure to any schools
Speaker 2: of fish that get too large that we eat all
Speaker 2: the food that they eat, or the dolphins or the seals.
Speaker 2: They actually are very good at locating the sick and
Speaker 2: the slow ones because they're easy to catch, the dolphins,
Speaker 2: the seals, the whales, and so they keep our oceans clean.
Speaker 2: And so they're called a major predator in our sea
Speaker 2: for sea life farm and we really need them in
Speaker 2: our oceans, and just to wipe out something from fear
Speaker 2: is not just the thing to do. We've got to
Speaker 2: learn to live with them and not just kill them
Speaker 2: from fear.
Speaker 1: Well, what about those that go into the water, their
Speaker 1: surfers or their ocean swimmers or whatever. What can they
Speaker 1: do to as best as possible not be attractive to sharks?
Speaker 1: Shark's drawn to us? Or I mean, what's the story
Speaker 1: with the relationship.
Speaker 2: I made my living as an abalony diver in the
Speaker 2: same order as we're filming all these great white sharks
Speaker 2: for sixteen years, and I used to use the analogy
Speaker 2: that sharks only eight to ten sort of kill eight
Speaker 2: to ten people in the whole world per year. They
Speaker 2: don't like abalony, and generally speaking, there's a reason. And
Speaker 2: a lot of the surfers that get bidden, of course,
Speaker 2: are in the same area where the sharks like to live,
Speaker 2: on the reefs where the seas break, and that's where
Speaker 2: the fish live, and so at surfer on the surface
Speaker 2: of his legs over the side looks like a dolphin
Speaker 2: or a seal. That could be a damage or cook.
Speaker 2: You know, a surfing is not really a good place
Speaker 2: to go. And a lot of our southern headlands and
Speaker 2: coastlines because that's where the great white sharks hang out.
Speaker 3: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: I guess wherehere's sort of swimming in their supermarket, as
Speaker 1: it were.
Speaker 2: Well, that's right, it's their world out there, and we've
Speaker 2: got to learn to live with them and not just
Speaker 2: kill them from fear. And over the years, the Finders
Speaker 2: University and a lot of people and we on our
Speaker 2: boat have been trying to make available to anybody who's
Speaker 2: got a great shark repellent. And you know, there's been
Speaker 2: fifteen or twenty different times, and there's an electronic shark
Speaker 2: repellent now that you wear that sends out an electrical
Speaker 2: field that keeps sharks they reckon. It's very, very good,
Speaker 2: and the results have been by the Frienders University has
Speaker 2: shown that they actually are keep sharks away.
Speaker 1: Just finally, Rodney, because I've soaked up a lot of
Speaker 1: your precious time, but it is fascinating speaking with you.
Speaker 1: Just had a text come in from someone who was
Speaker 1: listening as we speak, and it's from Jeffy says, my
Speaker 1: mate and I were on a surfing trip up Foster
Speaker 1: Away in nineteen seventy five and we saw the movie
Speaker 1: Jaws for the first time at the local cinema. We
Speaker 1: didn't surf for the rest of the holiday. Now, I
Speaker 1: mean that was stock standard. But having overcome that extraordinary attack,
Speaker 1: and I've seen the photos of what the shark did
Speaker 1: to you, I mean you were a mess. How did
Speaker 1: you overcome what I think would be completely acceptable as
Speaker 1: a natural fear of these creatures, to not just go
Speaker 1: back in the water, but to dedicate your life to
Speaker 1: their preservation and the study of them.
Speaker 2: When I was in hospital, they and after about a
Speaker 2: week I was allowed visard this but they allowed forty
Speaker 2: visitors to come instead of two the normal two. The
Speaker 2: doctors thought that if they showed that I was really
Speaker 2: loved and I had something that lived for, i'd fight
Speaker 2: hard and to fight off any problems that I had,
Speaker 2: And so I noticed at that time, but the word
Speaker 2: shark was really a feared and horrible thing, like death
Speaker 2: and hell and the devil up there, you know, the
Speaker 2: sort of you know they're there and they might affect
Speaker 2: you in time, and the fear of not seeing them
Speaker 2: in the water by standing on the beach was really
Speaker 2: quite a difficult thing because you didn't know there was
Speaker 2: a shark within a few meters or miles away from you.
Speaker 2: And as an avaloni, as a diver snorkler in the
Speaker 2: early days when I was attacked, I knew that when
Speaker 2: you had the mask on and you go into nice
Speaker 2: clear water, you could see there were those sharks there.
Speaker 2: And I badly wanted to get back diving again. It
Speaker 2: was a fabulous sport where you not only saw all
Speaker 2: these incredible, beautiful scenes, but you got healthy and well
Speaker 2: at the same time. And I certainly wanted to dispel
Speaker 2: the myths that people had that you just had to
Speaker 2: kill them for the safe of fear.
Speaker 1: Well, you've done that. It's been an extraordinary right of yours.
Speaker 1: Wonderful to speak with you, Rodney. I've really enjoyed the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you for calling all the best.
Speaker 3: Bye, bye, Rodney Fox. As I said, instrumental in the Sharks.
Speaker 1: Scenes in Jewels and Jewels came out on this day
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: You might have seen it in the early days. You
Speaker 3: can