I wanted the viewer to almost feel like he or she was one of them, completely immersed as they gracefully and gently cruised through the blue. I really tried to capture the feeling of ‘flying’ with this fever of around 1000 rays. For me though, the standout shoot was filming the cownose rays in Mexico. There were some absolutely incredible locations, such as the jellyfish lake in Palau where I was completely surrounded by thousands of harmless jellyfish, or Sipadan where I lost myself in a school of jacks that could have filled a house. Wave Breaking (2) (Chris Bryant – Tahiti).Spinner Dolphins (Roger Horrocks – Costa Rica).Sea Stars (Roger Munns – Kapalai, Malaysia).Jellyfish, Golden (3) (Roger Munns, Palau).Moon Jellies (2) (Roger Horrocks – Alaska).Kelp Forest (2) (Roger Horrocks – South Africa, California).Jacks (Roger Munns – Sipadan, Malaysia).Golden Cownose Rays (Roger Munns – Mexico).Coral Plan View (Roger Munns – Red Sea, Egypt).Californian Kelp Forest (Roger Horrocks – California).Bumphead Parrot Fish (Roger Munns – Sipadan, Malaysia).Barrucada (Roger Munns – Sipadan, Malaysia).Luckily for me, each individual shoot was researched and planned to perfection by the team at the BBC NHU in Bristol, to give us the very best chance of success, and we managed to prevail on every shoot we attempted.Ī post shared by Roger Munns on at 5:55am PDTĪs of 1st February 2020 Apple have released 20 underwater screensavers (cameraman and location in parentheses) – as follows: That was tough mentally as I could find myself a week or more into a shoot without a single ‘keeper’ to show for all our hard work.

I think a good analogy is stepping up to the tee and repeatedly trying to hit a hole-in-one until you either get one or it gets dark. Shooting for the screensavers we were only after that one magical shot. Every day I am collecting useful material and achieving something. What do I mean by that? Well, typically on location we are trying to tell a story through say 50-100 shots that we will pick up over the course of the shoot. Compared to my work on landmark natural history productions like Blue Planet II (which you can read about on my blog) it was incredibly binary. Our average shoot duration was around 2-3 weeks and we generally were targeting coming home with anything from 1-3 shots in that period of time. Trying to emulate the style of the aerial images but with far less technology and grip and (most importantly) with moving animals rather than static landscapes was extremely tough. This was a unique project in terms of the challenges it presented to our team. We filmed the underwater screensavers on Red DSMC2 Helium cameras at resolutions of up to 8K. You can read more about Phil Holland’s experience filming these on his blog. On the land and in the air this has been typically done using Cineflex or Shotover gimbals mounted on helicopters, boats or cars. As Directors of Photography we were involved from the very start of the project as we honed in on solving the manytechnical, creative, and logistical issues that come with attempting to film 2-3 minute long, ultra-steady, tracking shots underwater. Working with the production team from Bristol myself and Roger Horrocks were brought in as the principal cinematographers. Apple commissioned the BBC’s Natural History Unit to produce a set of these screensavers from diverse underwater ecosystems. To film a new set of ‘Under the Sea’ screensavers for Apple TV. In 2019 I had one of my most interesting and challenging natural history projects. So for anyone that has come here to settle an argument or bet… The Apple ‘Under the Sea’ screensavers are real! Read on for more details on my involvement in this super-interesting project. Since I first wrote this blog I have had a lot of people contact me to thank me for settling arguments they have been having with their spouses and friends about whether the Apple under the sea screensavers are real.

Play a video screensaver apple tv