The character arc of Craig Foster

A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record

A South African film maker and naturalist. Between 2000 and now sit tracking techniques learned from the San people of the Kalahari while making a film in 2000, a second film in 2010, a decade of diving in the kelp forests of False Bay begun that year, a nonprofit founded in 2012 to protect those forests, eight new species of shrimp discovered, a film released in 2020 about one octopus, an Academy Award in 2021, and two books. The line below draws the story so far, in order.

Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.

Who is Craig Foster?

One bay, one octopus, and ten years of cold water.

He made his name as a documentary film maker in South Africa, and the training that matters most came from outside film. Making a film about hunters in 2000 and another in 2010, he learned tracking techniques from the San people of the Kalahari Desert: the discipline of reading marks, noticing what has changed and inferring an animal you cannot see. He then took that discipline into the sea.

From 2010 he dived in the kelp forests of False Bay, near Cape Town, in cold water, without a wetsuit and without a tank. In 2012 he co-founded the Sea Change Project to protect marine life and to argue for the importance of those forests. Over the course of his underwater tracking he discovered eight new species of shrimp, one of which is named after him. None of that was a film. It was ten years of going into the same cold water and paying attention.

In one of those years he found a common octopus who began to trust him, and he went back and filmed her every day for a year. The film that came out of it, released in 2020, was ten years in the making, the first South African nature documentary made as an original for its distributor, and it won an Academy Award in 2021. He has since co-written one book in 2021 and published another in 2024. The footage that made the film was possible only because of the decade of ordinary dives before it.

The moments

Craig Foster's timeline.

The 2000s

~2000

Tracking, from the San

Milestone, and it changed everything. The oldest tracking tradition on earth, learned from the people who kept it.

The 2010s

~2010

He starts diving daily

Milestone, and it changed everything. Cold water, no tank, no wetsuit, every day, for ten years.

1 Jan 2010

Get in the water daily

Crossroads, decided.

The paths laid out: dive every day, taken, or make the next film. The film that came out of it was released in 2020 and won an Academy Award in 2021.

~2012

The Sea Change Project

Milestone, and it changed his direction. A charity for a forest almost nobody knew was there.

~2015

Eight new species

Milestone, and it changed his direction. Eight species nobody had described, found by a film maker paying attention.

~2017

The octopus trusts him

Milestone, and it changed everything. Every single day, for a year, to the same animal.

The 2020s

~2020

My Octopus Teacher

Milestone, and it changed everything. Ten years of diving, cut down to eighty five minutes.

~2021

An Academy Award

Milestone, and it changed everything. An Oscar, for a man who spent a decade swimming in cold water alone.

~2024

Amphibious Soul

Milestone, and it changed his direction. The argument in words, after the argument in pictures.

False Bay is still the office and the water is still freezing. What it has set moving is a change in how a great many people look at an animal: a creature most of the world would have called food became, for a season, somebody with a name, and millions of viewers went and looked at the sea differently.

What he wrote

Books by Craig Foster

2021
Underwater Wild
Written with Ross Frylinck, about the kelp forest and what a decade of diving in it teaches.
2024
Amphibious Soul
Finding the wild in a tame world, which is the argument he has been making underwater for years.

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His is ten years of getting into cold water every day before anything happened at all. Yours is already further along than you think, and drawing it takes about five minutes.

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Craig Foster: frequently asked questions

What people ask about his line.

What is Craig Foster's character arc?

A documentary film maker who learned tracking from the San people of the Kalahari, then spent ten years diving the same cold bay near Cape Town without a wetsuit or a tank, found one octopus who trusted him, and won an Academy Award for the film.

What is My Octopus Teacher by Craig Foster?

The 2020 film in which he is the subject, producer and photographer, about a common octopus in the kelp forests of False Bay who began to trust him. He filmed her every day for a year, and the project as a whole took ten years.

How long did Craig Foster dive for?

Ten years, and he is still going. He began filming in the kelp forests of False Bay in 2010, in cold water and without a tank, and the footage that became the film was drawn from that decade of daily diving.

What is the Sea Change Project by Craig Foster?

The nonprofit group he co-founded in 2012 to protect marine life and to raise awareness of the importance of the kelp forest in South Africa. It came out of the same diving that eventually produced the film.

What species did Craig Foster discover?

Eight new species of shrimp, found during his underwater tracking. One of them, Heteromysis fosteri, is named after him. He is a film maker rather than a trained marine biologist, and found them by paying close attention.

What books has Craig Foster written?

Two. Underwater Wild, co-authored with Ross Frylinck in 2021, and Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World, published in 2024. Both make in words the argument the film makes in pictures.

Where does this timeline of Craig Foster's life come from?

From the public record. Character Arc drew every moment on this line from the sources listed at the foot of the page, and the kind and weight of each moment are our editorial reading. Craig Foster isn't a Member of Character Arc and has no connection with it, and no feeling is attributed to him.

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Sources

Craig Foster, English Wikipedia biography, filed under living people.
Academy Awards records for My Octopus Teacher, 2021.
Sea Change Project, organisation records, founded 2012.