Aug 14, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min · 15 segments
Josh Murphy is a filmmaker whose path from fisheries biology and action-sports films to environmental documentaries has been anything but conventional. His work includes *Artifishal*, *Purple…
So how did you navigate that, and were you able to use your degree and your experience with biology a-along the way?
It was [laughs] that was the secret weapon because here, here we were meeting all these people from fish farms and fish hatcheries and, and they were asking like, "Well, what's this film about?" And I would say, "Oh, I have a degree in fisheries biology, and we're kind of exploring what's happening with wild salmon." And they're like, "Oh, come on in." Because for some reason, I think they thought that I would be sympathetic to their point of view.
And, and of course, I was trying to tell a story that, that did rely on authenticity r-rather than sympathy for the position of, of state hatcheries and privately run fish farms.
But because they had seen me as simpatico with them because I had a knowledge of fish, that's what got us in all the doors, and, and, and that's what opened up them to talk about it because I could, I could talk learnedly about the issues they were dealing with on a day-to-day basis and then ask questions, and I don't think they realized that my questions were really probing deeper than they might have assumed.
And, and I'll say, for the record, you know, in all the schooling I did in fisheries biology, nobody, not once that I can remember, talked about the value of wild fish.
It was about all of these agricultural norms that landed into the resource management world.
And so it, uh, it was really eye-opening for me when we made that film to realize the way we think about things needs to change.
And so sure, yeah, the way I was able to talk about it to the people and the professionals that we were interviewing following in the film allowed me to do so because I could, I could speak their language.
So for people who have never seen Artificial, if you had to give them a general rundown, what, what would it, what would you tell them?
I, I think the film succeeds because it really is about this unsettling question which is, uh, you know, have we reached the end of wildness? When you see how far humans go to manipulate wild things in order to give us the sense that we are connecting to wild, when you eat farmed salmon now, you eat salmon and you go, "Isn't this amazing? This salmon came from," what our brain tells us, the wild, even though it says it right there on the menu, s-farmed salmon.
The reason we love salmon to begin with, because it was a wild product, right? And, and fish is the last food we humans eat wild food, the last wild food we eat at scale, bar none.
So how did you navigate that, and were you able to use your degree and your experience with biology a-along the way?
It was [laughs] that was the secret weapon because here, here we were meeting all these people from fish farms and fish hatcheries and, and they were asking like, "Well, what's this film about?" And I would say, "Oh, I have a degree in fisheries biology, and we're kind of exploring what's happening with wild salmon." And they're like, "Oh, come on in." Because for some reason, I think they thought that I would be sympathetic to their point of view.
And, and of course, I was trying to tell a story that, that did rely on authenticity r-rather than sympathy for the position of, of state hatcheries and privately run fish farms.
But because they had seen me as simpatico with them because I had a knowledge of fish, that's what got us in all the doors, and, and, and that's what opened up them to talk about it because I could, I could talk learnedly about the issues they were dealing with on a day-to-day basis and then ask questions, and I don't think they realized that my questions were really probing deeper than they might have assumed.
And, and I'll say, for the record, you know, in all the schooling I did in fisheries biology, nobody, not once that I can remember, talked about the value of wild fish.
It was about all of these agricultural norms that landed into the resource management world.
And so it, uh, it was really eye-opening for me when we made that film to realize the way we think about things needs to change.
And so sure, yeah, the way I was able to talk about it to the people and the professionals that we were interviewing following in the film allowed me to do so because I could, I could speak their language.
So for people who have never seen Artificial, if you had to give them a general rundown, what, what would it, what would you tell them?
I, I think the film succeeds because it really is about this unsettling question which is, uh, you know, have we reached the end of wildness? When you see how far humans go to manipulate wild things in order to give us the sense that we are connecting to wild, when you eat farmed salmon now, you eat salmon and you go, "Isn't this amazing? This salmon came from," what our brain tells us, the wild, even though it says it right there on the menu, s-farmed salmon.
The reason we love salmon to begin with, because it was a wild product, right? And, and fish is the last food we humans eat wild food, the last wild food we eat at scale, bar none.
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