Ian Derry

SHOWREEL from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

BENEATH THE SURFACE - THE FIGHT FOR CORALS - WARNER BROTHERS DISCOVERY from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

Prepare to dive deep into the world of ocean conservation with “Beneath The Surface: The Fight For Corals.” In this compelling documentary, viewers will explore the urgent battle to protect coral reefs, one of the most vital ecosystems on the planet.

From the vibrant reefs teeming with life to the devastating effects of climate change and human activity, “Beneath The Surface” sheds light on the challenges facing these underwater wonders. Through stunning footage and expert interviews, the documentary highlights the efforts of scientists, activists, and conservationists working tirelessly to safeguard coral reefs for future generations.

Join Discovery on a journey to uncover the beauty, importance, and fragility of coral ecosystems, and discover the innovative solutions being implemented to preserve these invaluable marine habitats.

CORONA X MISSION BLUE from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

This Ocean Month, Martin Dolenc explores Mission Blue ‘Hope Spots’ -- special marine protected areas scientifically identified as critical to the health of the ocean.

CORONA X MISSION BLUE - My Golden Moment with Tatiana Weston-Webb from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

3 July 2014, approximately 5.30pm in Emsworth, Hampshire I was cycling along the A27 with 2 friends. We were training for a charity bike ride from London to Paris, this was our final ride before the event. We'd done a 70 mile ride and were looking forward to a beer.

I was traveling at about 22mph, suddenly a car turned in front of me and I plowed straight into its passenger door and smashed the window. I lay there in shock unaware of my broken ribs, punctured lung and shattered collarbone but also unaware of  how this moment was going to impact my life.

The surgeon said I was lucky to be alive,  in that split second I’d managed to jump the bike to a slight angle so my right side took all the impact and not my chest.  Five days later with some screws and metal plates holding my collar bone together I left the hospital. I was unable to move my arm for 3 months as they were worried the gaps between the pieces of bone would not join.

I couldn’t work, I couldn't exercise, I became frustrated, depressed, annoyed and angry. Sitting on the sofa watching endless television was so boring, beer o’clock went from 6pm to 5.30pm to 5pm to 4.30pm…you get the picture.

Late in the previous year  I had  received an email from Elina Manninen who was a photographer but also the sister of Johanna Nordblad the world champion Freediver under ice. She had seen some photos I'd done for Red Bull magazine of Guillaume Nery, the world's deepest freediver. Elina wondered if I would be interested in photographing her sister but at the time my state of mind was not right, and anyway,  I couldn’t work.

Fast forward 18 months and I began thinking about the email again. All my life I had wanted to make a short film, and I wondered if Johanna under the ice could be it. I was about to get a small insurance payment for the crash so I thought maybe I could turn the negativity of the accident into something positive. I contacted Elina and asked for more information about Johanna.

She told me Johanna got into ice diving after a bad accident on a bicycle which badly fractured her leg. Three years later the nerve pain was still so bad they discussed amputation. The last resort was cold water treatment which she fully embraced. The nerve pain went but the cold water was addictive and this began her journey under the ice.

Johanna's story was compelling but I was also intrigued how our respective accidents had brought us together. Maybe it was fate.

On the 19th January 2016 I flew to Helsinki to meet the sisters and go to the lake. At arrivals there stood two crazy Finnish women in warm clothes and bobble hats waiting for me. Next I found myself in an old  green transit van sat between these two virtual strangers on my way to the lake two hours outside of Helsinki. The windscreen wipers didn’t work and there was no heater. As we got closer to the lake it got so cold the INSIDE of the windscreen started to ice freeze!

Then the most incredible moment.

We stopped and all I could see was white snow, it seemed to go on forever. For some reason it didn’t click with me that this was the lake, my brain was telling me it was a field as it was surrounded by trees. Then the penny dropped, this was the snow on top of the ice below. It was epic. We got out of the green van and the silence was incredible. All we could hear were ourselves, our breath, our clothes rubbing, the crunch of the snow.

Johanna opened the van doors and pulled out the sled and the ice saw and said follow me. We walked onto the snowy lake, my feet went down deep onto the hard ice below. She then started drilling three holes with a huge ice cork screw in the 40 cm ice. Using the ice saw she cut from one hole to another and pushed the ice down to displace it. For the first time I saw the clear  cold water below in this perfect triangular hole. 

Unbeknown to me she had a dry suit in the van and asked if I wanted to go under the ice. It was actually beginning to get dark but I thought well I can’t back out now! So on went the dry suit, she attached a torch to my head and a rope around my wrist so she could pull me out if necessary. (photos below)

So here I am holding my breath under 40 cm of ice with two strange women and a rope around my wrist for safety!

I wasn't using scuba tanks. I was just holding my breath but what I saw under there was incredible, I knew I had to make the film.

When I got out the air temperature was so low the water on my suit began to freeze so the girls got me to the van and wrestled me out of the suit before it totally froze solid.

I flew back to London the next day, my head full of ideas and inspiration. I wanted to do this properly so I assigned myself a ‘huge’ budget of 5k!  (Don’t tell my wife but it ended up closer to 16k)

I met with Jonathan Milward, an amazing storyboard artist and we created the film shot by shot. His drawings were so accurate to my vision and for the first time I could see exactly what it would look like.

Elina and Johanna had a friend who is an underwater cinematographer,  Teemu Liakka. He agreed to shoot it for me and we also had a drone and an underwater safety team. How did I possibly think I could do this for 5k!

Anybody who knows me knows if I make up my mind then that’s that. The costs were rising but so was my excitement to start filming.

5th March 2016 and we are all staying in a house together in a snowy wilderness.. The next morning we made our way to the lake to set up for the first underwater day. I had booked three days in for diving shots and another for drone. We had to hire a mobile sauna so Johanna could warm up between dives. She was incredible, so natural in the water. She wanted her movement to be perfect so she kept repeating things under the ice before she was happy. She would come up between takes and her lips were blue but she kept going.

On the final day the lake looked incredible. I remember the drones first flight as it came over the trees and I knew this was going to be a special morning. Johanna had to walk miles with her sled as we had to keep her in snow without her own footsteps.

I then flew back to London with the material and my friend Joe Walton and I started the edit. Another friend Howie Saunders composed the music and Digital Light did the grade.

Then it just sat there. I really didn’t know what to do with it. I was busy being a photographer, I’d enjoyed the whole process but had no idea what to do with the film. Then I discovered an online film sharing site called Nowness. They loved the film and on 1 September 2016 it went online. It quickly got some interest with great reviews and I began getting enquiries from agents to represent me as a director. I wasn’t a director, I had made one film for fun but who was I to argue! I signed with a great production company called Archers Mark.

Then National Geographic contacted me and wanted to use my film for their Directors Showcase. The last I heard it had passed 80 million views.

This is now where I have to pinch myself. In 2019 we had a discussion with Netflix about expanding the film to tell a wider story of Johanna and cover her attempt to beat not only her own world record but the mens too. Steve Jamison from Archers Mark and I went and shot a teaser for them in Finland with some interviews and some ice footage.Elina’s role quickly became pivotal to the story and so things began to develop. We put an edit together and presented it and they loved it.

So here I was directing a Netflix original documentary all because I’d used some money from a bike accident to make a film for fun. It was a dream come true.

We started filming in March 2020 and thought it would be out later that year. While we were filming with  a full crew in Northern Finland the news started coming through about Covid. Countries were threatening to shut borders so we had to abandon and return home. I’ll never forget the empty airport in Helsinki and the empty plane with just a handful of passengers.

To be honest during that time I never thought the film would get finished. In my head my film was hanging by a thread. Would Netflix want us to go back? Would they find the money to go again? They were dark days anyway so this uncertainty didn’t help. Here I was back on the sofa watching the TV in limbo, just like back in 2014.

A year to the day we had fled Finland we flew back. God knows how but somehow our Executive Producer Jo-Jo Ellison had managed to get us there during another lockdown and with special permissions and covid protocols we were able to try again.

On May 3rd 2022 the film Hold Your Breath - The Ice Dive finally came out. I'll say no more than that but if you watch it you'll see it wasn't easy.

I'd like to thank Johanna and Elina and our amazing  crew for everything they did to make this happen. It’s a beautiful film about two sisters trying to do something that no human has ever done. It's been emotional at times and there have been tears but it's been the best thing professionally I've ever done.

I wonder if I should go and knock on the door of the guy who knocked me off my bike and thank him!

First time I had met Johanna, January 2016

What am I doing?!

No pressure.

MICROSOFT - WORK X LIFE from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

EYEWITNESS from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

I have always been interested in the work of photojournalists. Throughout history, these people have been on the frontline bringing us images that force us to confront the unspeakable. They help humanize the numbers and statistics to make them comprehensible. On Instagram I watched photographer Adam Gray document the outbreak of COVID 19 in New York. Adam is an English photographer working for UK agency SWNS, he moved the US two years ago. I was staggered at how graphic and shocking it was compared to Britain.

As a creative person, I really wanted to output something in lockdown. I looked at various stories but just couldn’t find a way to safely pull them off. So when I saw what Adam was doing I thought maybe there was a way of telling his story remotely from London.

I jumped on a zoom call with him to discuss the idea. Luckily I recorded it as we spoke for 90 minutes and it became a major part of the voiceover.

I then needed a DoP to document Adam at work so we jumped on another late-night zoom call with a guy Adam vaguely knew called Michael Cimpher. He loved the idea and wanted to part of the project.

I then asked editor Joe Walton of Whitehouse Post if he would be interested in editing the film. Instantly he said yes and quickly put together a rough edit of Adams photo with his v/o and some music. At this point, I knew the idea would work. Overnight the NY team uploaded their material and we would download it the next day. Neither Joe nor I had internet that could cope so we ended up using Uber’s to and from central London to a friend who could download onto hard drives.

So now we had Adams stills and voiceover and Michaels video but I needed music to elevate the piece. We sent it to James Wilson at Builders Tea who loved the film and quickly threw us some really interesting ideas. The series Chernobyl had a dark, seeping soundscape that he thought would work for this so that was the inspiration.

Finally, we needed it to be graded. Joe’s EP at Whitehouse helped us out via the New York office so at last, we had a film.

It’s been an interesting process using multimedia and directing via zoom and what’s app but I hope it does justice to one man's pursuit to document history.

What is also really interesting is what he says about what we have seen in the UK. To the outside world, it looks like a long bank holiday weekend…

Nike - Reece Prescod from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

NIKE MO FARAH from Ian Derry on Vimeo.

Short film about Mo farah preparing in Ethiopia to race in the London Marathon.