Queens
FEMALES IN THE FRAME As well as the female dynasties at the centre of the story in Queens, talented and passionate women took on key roles behind the camera and throughout the production team to capture the groundbreaking wildlife series. …
Category Features
Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory
WILD WORLD For wildlife cinematographer Bertie Gregory, “the animal always comes first”. This principle is clearly evident in his BAFTA-nominated series, now streaming on Disney+. As Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory unfolds, you can see his relationship with his…
Wild movers and shakers
WILD AT HEART Meet the organisations, charities, festivals and more who play their part in making the world of wildlife filmmaking a roaring success. BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is the best-known producer of natural history content in the…
Wildlife filming and CGI
WORLD UNITED Find out how some productions are combining visual effects flair and natural history expertise to create the next generation of wildlife documentaries. In 1999, Tim Haines, BBC Studios Science Unit, Discovery Channel, and Framestore released an ambitious six-part…
Aerial wildlife cinematography
TAKE TO THE SKIES Aerial filming – whether by helicopter or drone – may be more mobile than shooting from a hide on the ground, but dynamic and useable footage of wildlife requires just as much patience and experience. “There’s…
Macro cinematography
SMALL BUT MIGHTY From shrimps to spiders, capturing the natural world’s smaller inhabitants calls for specialist kit and knowledge. Macro cinematography demands meticulous control, with a mix of studio-based and on-location work. Veteran filmmaker Richard Kirby says most macro cinematographers…
Underwater shooting
INTO THE BLUE Join the cinematographers taking the plunge into our oceans as they strive to capture the world beneath the waves. It used to be that simply taking a camera to an unusual place – the top of a…
Filmmaking equipment
KITTED OUT FOR SUCCESS Film and TV projects have long combined custom-built equipment with the latest high technology, and that seems even more common in natural history work. The natural history field demands material that’s novel and achieves the sort…
Wildlife filmmaking techniques
NATURE KNOW HOW Providing a definitive overview of how to shoot wildlife is a near-impossible task. However, with help from a selection of brilliant and very experienced cinematographers, we can cover some of the ground rules. In terms of kit,…
Changing habits
A wildlife cinematographer doesn’t only capture the results of evolution in the natural world – they also experience it in the very tool boxes they take into the wild: Shifts from film to digits, terrestrial radio to satellite phones, paper…
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