The BBC series Planet Earth, The Blue Planet, and Frozen Planet have awed viewers the world over with remarkable footage of wild animals going about their daily lives—from orcas on the hunt to sloths in search of a mate. Whether you’ve watched a minute or multiple hours, you’ve undoubtedly asked yourself: “How did they film this?”
“They” are videographers, cinematographers, producers, and directors from around the globe who lie in wait, deploy drones, set up camera traps, and utilize other innovative methods to film the dramatic sequences that have become synonymous with these shows. One such cameraman is Jupiter’s own Tom Fitz.
Fitz specializes in underwater cinematography and has filmed in all five oceans and on all seven continents. A member of the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, he is the recipient of six Emmy Awards and two British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards. Recently, he filmed Florida scenes for the series Underdogs, which spotlights unsung heroes of the animal kingdom and is narrated by actor Ryan Reynolds. Fitz shot the episode titled “Total Grossout,” capturing some of the stranger aspects of Florida’s manatee population. The series will premiere on National Geographic June 15 and be available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu starting June 16.
Across his work for National Geographic, the BBC, and other outlets, Fitz has captured incredible footage of the rhythms of the natural world and all the mysteries that lie therein.
“Once in a while, we’ll be sent on a mission to film something that is not easy to find, not easy to see, and maybe the scientists don’t know much about,” says Fitz. “There will be one part that’s the holy grail of the story. [Those at the] BBC know there is always a chance we won’t get anything, but [they’re] willing to roll the dice.”
In 2011, while filming for Frozen Planet, Fitz and his team spent a month in Antarctica, all with the goal of documenting orca (or killer) whales on the hunt for other whales. “That’s going a long way and spending a long time to get that one chance to tell a dramatic story,” Fitz notes.
Although Fitz is as comfortable underwater as he is on land, in this case, it was deemed too risky—and pretty much impossible, considering the potential speed of the hunt—to be in the water. They filmed from the 65-foot sailboat they were living on instead. One morning, they followed a pod of orcas socializing and listened to them chatting through an underwater microphone.
“Suddenly, all went quiet, and that got our attention,” Fitz recalls. “They had detected something up ahead that we couldn’t. They traveled along in silence, and then way ahead in the distance, we saw a minke whale come out of the water. The chase was on.”
While orcas and minkes are both regarded as very fast swimmers, the former are better known for their sprints and the latter for their endurance. In this instance, as Fitz explains, the orcas’ strategy was to break off into groups of three or four and pursue the minke relay-style.
“The first group caught up with the minke to bother it until they were exhausted. [They] broke off when the next group came along. The tag continued until eventually the minke was exhausted and they took it. It’s hard to see the predation, but that minke whale fed the whole group, and killer whales share their food with others. It was fascinating to see firsthand their strategy and how successful it was for them.”
Another remarkable experience for Fitz was being among 1.5 million nesting Laysan albatross. Once a year, these enormous birds—that spend their lives hovering over oceans and can actually sleep while flying—come to Midway Atoll in the North Pacific Ocean to nest with thousands of other seabirds, about 21 species in all. As Fitz notes, all the birds are looking for suitable habitats, and the Bonin petrels will often dig their nests in tunnels under the albatross’ nests, creating an “apartment complex” of sorts, as he describes it.
“Wearing a kind-of snowshoe allowed us to walk safely between the birds without falling through an albatross’ nest into a petrel’s nest,” he says. “We had two weeks to shoot, and on our third-to-last day a celebrity arrived, a bird named Wisdom. She is the most famous seabird on the planet. She was banded in 1956, which makes her the oldest confirmed wild bird, approximately 74 years old. Her lifespan—still ongoing—coincides with when scientists first noticed what has become the huge problem of plastic in the oceans, especially visible in the Pacific.”
Regardless of whether Fitz is living among birds or trailing Florida alligators, safety is a top concern. Sometimes, he’s tasked with documenting inherently dangerous situations, as was the case when he traveled to Hawaii to film humpback whales during a heat run for the BBC series Fierce Queens.
“The heat run is when a single female controls the mating game and orchestrates a competition with up to 20 males,” Fitz explains. “These big animals go at a fast clip, jockeying for her attention, pushing other males down. Their pectoral fins are up to 18 feet long, weigh a ton each, with very sharp barnacles on all sides and edges [that] are used as weapons. There’s blood in the water as they knock each other about and try to keep up with the gal.”
Fitz was asked to free dive (without oxygen tanks) during this assignment so that he could be as mobile and flexible as possible in the water.
“All bets are off when these large animals are blasting toward you,” he continues. “You need to be agile enough to move out of their way. Free diving requires calm so that you can take in more air, slow the heart rate, and stay down longer. On this occasion, I was a little nervous.”
Sometimes, luck comes into play. As Fitz was finishing an Arctic shoot for Frozen Planet, filming narwhals with their 8-foot-long tusks, the producer requested a specific shot of a narwhal coming straight out of the water and head-on toward the camera. All Fitz could do was set his camera toward the water to capture the moment that he hoped would not be out of focus or out of frame. Many hours and tries later, the miracle happened. To this day, Fitz’s head-on footage of one of these “unicorns of the north” (as described by narrator David Attenborough) remains his “once-in-a-lifetime standout shot.”
While Fitz continues to work on marine and land shoots, his primary focus is Schoolyard Films, the nonprofit he co-founded in 2008 with his then-wife, Karina. Fitz and his team provide schools with natural history and environmental programming and complementary study guides free of charge, all with the goal to educate, inspire, and promote environmental awareness and good stewardship of the planet.
Schoolyard Films is completely international, supporting new environmental filmmakers across the globe and mentoring them through the process of professional storytelling. And, as Fitz notes, the organization’s films all have threads of sustainability and are designed to spark discussion in the classroom and action outside of it.
“Kids are tomorrow’s leaders,” Fitz says. “It behooves us to give them a solid environmental education in stewardship.”
Schoolyard Films made a film about service learning that followed young people involved in science and environmental projects, in the hopes that students and teachers would be inspired to create their own versions of service learning. It’s worked. Locally, for example, Schoolyard Films teamed up with Palm Beach Day Academy, with younger students participating in a tree-planting restoration project in the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge and high schoolers diving in the Florida Keys for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and documenting the resurgence of reef life.
“Projects at the local level serve communities throughout the country,” Fitz explains. “And when children see their peer group on projects in the films, it inspires them to want to do the same.
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