FIN, executive produced by director Eli Roth, Leonardo DiCaprio and Nina Dobrev, uncovers the truth behind the death of millions of sharks. Roth and a professional group of scientists, researchers and activists sailed around the globe to capture the real story, exposing the criminal enterprise that is impacting the extinction of the misunderstood creatures. The docufilm is now streaming on discovery+.

We asked Roth about making FIN and what he hopes viewers will take away:

It seems that sharks have held a fascination for you since childhood. As you planned to tell this important story for FIN, what were the visual elements you saw as critical to creating a compelling message about sharks?

I wanted the film to be cinematic and beautiful, but not afraid to just show the raw slaughter with an iPhone if that’s what it took. I wanted the photography to pull you in showing the beauty of sharks, but then have the feel of handheld documentary when they were getting killed. The entire film is about how we are tearing apart nature for pure greed. There’s absolutely nothing edible or usable about a shark. It’s all a giant lie – so we had to show the beauty of the creature and the land. The more beautiful you make the beach in Mexico, the more horrifying it is when you see the sharks being cut up and disemboweled by the fishermen. It was the toughest film to make. (Cinematographer) Doug Glover was an absolute rock star – totally fearless and, somehow, he can get a camera anywhere and make it look beautiful no matter what the conditions. And they were very, very, very tough conditions.

Tell us about your discussions with Glover. There were land stories and underwater/sea segments – how did you envision the look for those scenes?

Doug and I were traveling to parts of the world we hadn’t been to before, so we would figure it out once we were there. We didn’t want Mexico to look like Hong Kong or Liberia to look like New Bedford, etc. The look of the film evolved as we went, and sometimes you had the time to do those slow-motion shots of finning, and other times you were running and gunning. We would usually save a day for drone shots; once we knew what we had, we had a better sense of what drone shots we could use. For example, in Mexico we showed the beach and its beauty after we spent the day with the fishermen killing the sharks there. In Liberia, the filming was so dangerous, but once we got through it, we sent drones over the ships to show us isolated at sea. In the Bahamas, (underwater cinematographer) Joe Romeiro and his wife Lauren were filming with us, and Doug got spectacular drone shots from above. Each place took on its own characteristics. I just saw the film projected at the Ischia Global Film Festival where it won Best Documentary and it looked incredible. Doug’s photography is spectacular and draws you in.

How did those plans and the visual aspirations for FIN lead you to choose RED?

I had shot Man with the Iron Fists on RED. I love the range and that you can get the camera up on a drone. We wanted to get down and dirty but not have the film look cheap. I wanted a movie you could play in cinemas, and I like the range of color and light with REDs. It’s an extremely durable camera and holds up to difficult conditions. The last thing you want when you’re escorted by the military on a pirate shark killing boat is for the camera to overheat or glitch.

This seems like a true documentary production – ambient light and sound, fast paced, many varied locations. How did the RED cameras support the demands of this kind of production and how did the process transition into the post production workflow?

The footage all cut together beautifully. We could always start the scenes with drone shots and beauty shots and all the global locations really tied together into one cohesive thread. All credit goes to Doug, he just knows how to use the light and really make the colors pop when we needed it. In a documentary, you have to use any source you can get, even hidden camera footage, and we could always frame those scenes with footage shot on RED. Somehow when you see the cinematic footage it grounds you in the movie again and you feel a sense of safety and comfort. It allowed me to use some stuff that’s grainy and shot undercover, like the whale shark being cut apart live on a dock with people cheering. It’s the most shocking shot of the film and the grainiest and dirtiest but it works because we surround it with the beauty shots.

Michael Muller’s work with sharks is captivating. How did you work with him in telling the story?

Michael is a friend and we bonded over our love of sharks. I went diving with him in Mexico and he photographed me with great whites. He’s an amazing human and conservationist. I was part of his VR series “Into the Now” and he came on as an executive producer on FIN. It was pretty amazing to work together. And he had so many years of shark footage he just donated to us! It was above and beyond. I love him; he’s family.

What do you want FIN to accomplish; how can viewers act?

There’s so much to do it’s hard to know where to start, but a good place is writing to your representatives (see finthemovie.com) and asking them to ban the sale of shark fins by passing the Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act. We have a Take Action page to guide you through the process.

Then, it’s about understanding that any time a shark is killed someone is making money and they’re robbing you not just of these beautiful animals but of your health. The ocean produces half our oxygen, and sharks are the ones who keep the ocean healthy by eating the sick and dying fish. Without them, disease spreads into epidemic and algae blooms suffocate the plant life providing our oxygen. So, all the shark cartilage pills, Squalene (Shark Liver Oil) in makeup, the toxic meat in supermarkets that’s sold to poor people under false labels – it’s all horrible for humans and even worse for sharks. The shark trade is like the tobacco industry in the 1950s. They will tell you everything is fine, keeping quiet, and killing sharks. But literally the entire industry is a scam and people are making billions by killing the sharks and selling them. We must speak up and say we cannot buy shark in any form. We have to stop killing our sharks to sell them – we are the seventh largest exporter of sharks. It’s all got to stop, or they don’t stand a chance.

Special thanks to Eli Roth and team for sharing behind the scenes of FIN.