Secrets of the Elephants

Drone operator on Secrets of the Elephants — the National Geographic four-part series, executive produced by James Cameron, following elephant family dynamics across savanna, forest, desert and Asian populations.

My contribution was aerial work on the East African savanna segments — flying with family groups, following matriarch-led migrations, and supplying the wide-context establishing material that the series uses to ground its close-observation behavioural sequences.

Production context

Secrets of the Elephants is the second instalment in National Geographic’s “Secrets of…” strand (after Secrets of the Whales), which treats high-intelligence social species as cultures rather than as collections of individuals. The drone work supports that framing — wide passes that show family decision-making at the herd level, not just individual behaviour.

The series sits in the Nat Geo / Disney+ broadcast tier and was made with the visual-quality expectations that come with that — RED-grade cinema cameras, full long-lens coverage, drone work integrated into the principal photography schedule rather than treated as B-unit.