How Frog Squad travels the world to deliver dynamic aquatic scenes for international production

When HBO shot the third series of The White Lotus in Thailand in 2024, it turned to marine logistics and underwater camera company Frog Squad.

“Once the production is floating, we oversee all aspects of the work, from on-camera water and boat action to behind the scenes and camera support,” says Frog Squad co-founder Jason Martin.

The company was created in 2003 in Cape Town by Martin with Jimmy Fraser and Andre (AJ) Jaques; the trio had all served as navy divers for South Africa. Frog Squad now boasts marine coordinators, diving instructors, commercial dive supervisors, divers, skippers, riggers and in-house underwater camera operators.

Frog Squad experts travel around the world, to the Caribbean, to countries in central and northern Africa, to Mauritius, the Seychelles, the Maldives, Egypt and the UAE, as well as Malaysia, Greece and Central Europe. In 2023 the company was in Colombia for Paramount Television and Amazon Prime’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.

“If you go on location, we know how to deal with language barriers and handle logistics,” explains Martin of how Frog Squad oversees all the marine-based film and TV work for productions. 

For The White Lotus, the company facilitated daily unit moves between Thailand’s islands, managed unit travel for the full moon party scenes, and oversaw and managed the logistics of filming on the Chao Phraya River in the heart of Bangkok.

Frog Squad also oversaw all the beach scenes and extensive open ocean film work which included a flotilla of more than 20 vessels and heavy-lift drone work.

High-speed chase

Martin, Fraser and Jacques take pride in the painstaking level of care with which the company provides productions over every aspect of marine filming. In 2023, the company was in Abu Dhabi to support the production of Ayan Mukerji’s Hindi-language action thriller War 2, produced by Aditya Chopra for Yash Raj Films, which involved water work on the set.

A high-speed motorboat race between two boats driving at up to 70km an hour took place in the canal network that flows through the base of the Abu Dhabi’s iconic skyscrapers. To film the race Frog Squad used a boat-to-boat technique that utilised a combination of drone work and a custom crane boat from Dubai called the Ultimate XCat 

“I brought a team of marine specialists to Abu Dhabi,” says Martin. “If a driver had hesitated even for one instance, there would have been lots of injuries and a multi-million dollar accident.”

Frog Squad offers an unparalleled range of camera and support craft, pontoons, diving equipment, rigging gear, water safety and marine props, as well as the latest underwater camera equipment, all owned and operated by the company itself.

On each production Martin and his team draw up an action plan for the producers, ideally after spending time on location for a few weeks to assess weather conditions, riverbed levels, canal depths and tides and reef depths for ocean-based filming.

“I’ll read a script, work out how much time we’re going to need then we’ll sit with the team and the stunt coordinators, and map out the whole process to get what a filmmaker wants to end up on the screen,” says Martin.

“We explain how many days we will need, what kind of marine support is required and give them an idea how much they can shoot in a day. Then we break it down to locations, do marine scouting for the project.” 

Frog Squad hires in crew, trains when necessary and uses local support where required, all under the careful guidance of the team. “Head of department positions are filled by experienced marine crew such as camera boat drivers,” says Martin. “Boat stunts or diving and all key rigging is done inhouse by the team. We also have two IMDB-credited underwater camera operators.”

Martin says there is just one constant on every production. 

“We have a desire to create great marine and water-based films, that come in safely, on budget and keep the audience entertained.”