James Brickell

For over two decades I had the privilege of working at the BBC Natural History Unit — one of the most remarkable creative institutions in the world — making films about the natural world across every format, environment and scale imaginable.

From landmark productions like Planet Earth II and Life in Cold Blood to fast-turnaround adventure series like Deadly 60, I’ve shaped stories that have reached tens of millions of people and, I hope, deepened their connection to the natural world. Along the way I’ve been fortunate enough to direct some of the most respected presenters in the business.

My career has taken me to some of the planet’s most extreme environments — the high Arctic, scorching deserts, tropical rainforests and deep underwater — filming everything from polar bears to rattlesnakes, giant Pacific octopus to multiple shark species. Some of those sequences had never been captured on film before and some were new to science entirely.

As Head of Digital Production at the BBC NHU, I also led the unit’s expansion into multiplatform storytelling — overseeing VR and 360° productions, and social media campaigns across Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter that attracted record global audiences. Wildlife filmmaking was changing rapidly, and I was fortunate to help shape what that change looked like.

As head of the BBC Natural History Unit’s dive team for over a decade, I advised on safety and logistics for some of the most complex underwater shoots ever attempted — witnessing first-hand how the best operators plan and prepare for conditions that can change in a heartbeat, where the margin for error is zero and the risks are real.

None of this started with a job application. It started with a childhood spent filling the family home with exotic animals, reading Gerald Durrell, and watching David Attenborough — and then reading Zoology at university and deciding to follow the thing that had always fascinated me most. Outside of filmmaking I’m a TEDx speaker, a rugby coach, and an enthusiastic wine lover. I have so far survived close proximity to an extraordinary range of dangerous animals, with nothing worse than a minor piranha bite to show for it.