“I need to attempt one thing that my mum actually doesn’t need me to do,” confesses Bertie Gregory a bit cheekily firstly of this particular kicking off Nat Geo’s annual Shark Fest which runs on the channel till July 18. The wildlife filmmaker, recognized for shut encounters of the animal form, is in South Africa to dive amongst nice white sharks with out the standard protecting cage for Sharks Up Shut With Bertie Gregory.
Gregory is taking the danger as a result of it’s the easiest way to see the ocean’s celeb predators behaving naturally as they hunt seals underwater. “The factor I’m most terrified of is an ocean with out sharks as a result of they preserve the entire ecosystem in stability,” the adventurer says. “The overwhelming majority of the time, sharks need completely nothing to do with us.”
The toothy swimmers show him proper, at first eluding the group. “Everybody thinks that if you find yourself attempting to movie a giant, harmful, scary predator, that you’re always on the sting of operating away,” Gregory shares. “That’s not true, particularly with many species of sharks. You’ve bought to sneak up on them and do every part on their phrases.”
The search itself continues to be awe-inducing. “I need the viewer to really feel like they’re on my shoulder,” says Gregory. The movie crew captures daybreak boat scouting journeys, underwater digital camera drops, dives with different species together with ragged tooth sharks, and Gregory’s go to to the seaside patrol the place he will get a security lesson that his mom would love: “It’s not about managing shark conduct, it’s about managing human conduct.”
A lot of the worry of nice whites was fed by the film Jaws, which celebrated the 50th anniversary of its launch on June 20. Gregory has no hate for the blockbuster. He says, “I typically see conservationists trying again on Jaws and going, ‘That was horrible.’ If the movie was made at the moment, then I’d have an issue with it. In TV reveals, in motion pictures, I see sharks being portrayed in the identical means that they have been 50 years in the past. That’s what I’ve an issue with. We’re higher than that now.”
On this doc, premiering on July 5, Gregory finally finds an ideal white, however issues don’t go as anticipated. In case you’re nonetheless hungry after watching, stick round for the premieres of two six-part collection, Investigation Shark Assault (9/8c), which explores shark conduct from their perspective, and Tremendous Shark Freeway (10/9), to find out how the famed finsters and people can coexist.
Sharks Up Shut With Bertie Gregory, Premiere, Saturday, July 5, 8/7c, Nationwide Geographic