In September 2022 I was the Director of Photography for the Planet Earth 3 Archer fish sequence in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. This story features in the Coasts episode of Planet Earth III (Episode 1) which was produced by Nick Easton.
Archer fish are one of the most wonderfully evolved marine species I know. They have an incredible talent for firing pin-point accurate, high-velocity jets of water at their prey. This jet of water knocks the prey off the branch they are on, into the water, where the Archer fish can glide over and swallow them up. What makes this shooting even more impressive is that the Archer’s eyes are under the water. This means it has developed the ability to calculate, and adjust for, the refractive index of light as it is ‘bent’ when passing through water. This is typically about a 30º difference. Absolutely astounding.
Our film crew for this shoot comprised of myself, Yoland Bosiger (Director and camera assistant), Mitch Buckley (Topside camera), and Joe Faithfull (Fixer). We were assisted on location by the amazing dive team at Sorido Bay Resort, managed by Chris Harvey.
Our day-to-day involved a thirty minute commute through the pristine islands of the Raja Ampat Archipelago to the fringes of the mangrove area where the Archer fish patrol. Mitch captured topside shots while I worked the underwater angles. For this shoot I used a my Red DSMC2 camera, inside a Gates underwater housing, to follow the Archer fish as it navigated the mangrove roots. For the predation shots I switched to the high-speed Phantom Veo camera inside a custom-built Nauticam underwater housing. This setup is capable of filming at up to 1000 frames per second. Meaning one second of real-life action is stretched to 40 seconds of footage. It truly shows the viewer what the naked eye cannot see. I also added a Nauticam EMWL scope to the mix to give some fish-eye perspective of the behaviour.
Take a look Behind-The Scenes
This shoot was challenging in so many ways. There is the technical aspect of shooting high-frame rate photography and the demands on lighting that brings plus the usual NatHist issues of getting close enough to the subject to be able to capture the shots you need. On top of that we also had to be aware and alert for saltwater crocodiles which had been seen in the area. We would patrol the area before entering the water and our team on the boat would keep constant watch for any movement. We then had our final piece-de-resistance…. the shark-eyes mask strap! Any approaching threat would be totally put off by the fact we had eyes in the back of our heads and were watching it approach. We were in fact very confident that there were no crocs around given they are territorial and had not been seen in our specific filming spot. But it did add some extra little spice to the film-making!
It’s always an honour to work on a David Attenborough production and I was very grateful to have the opportunity to work as an underwater cameraman on this story, after scheduling and covid prevented me from working on the series during the bulk of 2020-2021.
Planet Earth III: Coasts airs on BBC1 and iPlayer at 6:15pm on the 22nd October 2023. It will also be available in other territories at a later date. You can find more information about it on the BBC website
- Field Director – Yoland Bosiger
- Topside Camera – Mitch Buckley
- Fixer – Joe Faithful
- Producer – Nick Easton
- Assistant Producer – Estelle Cheuk
- Researcher – Georgina Ward
- Camera – Red DSMC2 in Gates housing
- Camera – Phantom Veo in Nauticam housing