Super/Natural TV Series

For 28 days (over a segmented 3-month period) I worked as a camera assistant for season 1 episode 5 of the National Geographic series Super/Natural on Disney+. During this time I worked on filming grizzly bears to tell the story of their courtship. Male grizzly bears will rub their backs against the same tree yearly, leaving behind pheromones and hair captured in tree sap to assert dominance and attract the attention of a potential mate.

To capture this behavior required the use of remote camera traps installed in the forest that were motion activated by laser beam breaks and passive infrared sensors (PIR). With the cinematography Matthew Hood and the expertise of researcher Dr. Melanie Clapham, I installed these devices and periodically monitored them over a 3-month period, collecting footage of grizzly bears in their natural environment. We also used gimbals mounted to small skiffs to film across the the water, sliders, handheld gimbals, drones, and time-lapses to capture immersive footage.