SHARKFEST 2025 | ©2025 NatGeo

It’s summer, which means, among many other things, that it’s time for National Geographic’s SHARKFEST. Two programs that arrive on this year’s opening night, July 5, are SHARKS UP CLOSE WITH BERTIE GREGORY and the first episode of INVESTIGATION SHARK ATTACK, which runs for six consecutive nights. Both programs debut on National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo, Disney Jr. and Disney XD, are thereafter available on these networks’ streaming platforms, as well as Disney+ and Hulu.

Underwater wildlife cinematographer Dan Beecham is originally from Oxfordshire, England. He has worked extensively for National Geographic and the BBC, as well as for Disney+ and Apple TV+. He gets on a Zoom call to talk about SHARKS UP CLOSE.

Also on the call from a separate location is shark expert Candace Fields, currently a PhD candidate at Florida International University, who is part of the INVESTIGATION team.

Fields and Beecham both express sincere regret that they so far have not had the chance to work with one another.

“But,” Beecham tells Fields, “it was interesting to hear you talk about CEI [the Cape Eleuthera Institute] today, because I went to the Institute a few years ago. I used to work for the Save Our Seas Foundation, which sponsored some projects there for a while. The shark community and the underwater filming community and the documentary community, they’re all overlapping circles. So, while we know a number of the same people, sadly, we’ve never worked together as yet. But it’ll come.”

“Exactly,” Fields concurs.

How did both of them get into the profession of studying sharks and other marine wildlife?

“I’m from the Bahamas,” Fields explains, “and so I think that there is a natural draw to the ocean and ocean life. For as long as I can remember, I was fascinated by sharks. There’s no sort of ‘aha’ moment that got me into this world, but what helped me get my foot in the door in the research world is working at a marine field station called the Cape Eleuthera Institute in the Bahamas. That place does amazing research on a variety of species, and I think really that opened my eyes to the world of research and how exciting it is and how rewarding it can be. That was almost ten years ago now.”

“I’m sadly not from the Bahamas,” Beecham observes with a grin, his British accent making this apparent. Fields laughs appreciatively. “I often wonder how I managed to get obsessed with the ocean. If you look at where I’m from, I’m geographically as far as you can get from the ocean in the U.K. But I was very lucky to start diving when I was twelve, and I think diving gave me direction in life, it gave me ambition, and from when I was about eighteen or nineteen, I wanted to be working on big wildlife shows. It takes a lot of time to get the experience and get the hours behind you, but that’s what I did.”

SHARKS UP CLOSE delves into host Gregory’s trepidation about the prospect of swimming with Great White sharks outside of a cage. However, as a marine wildlife cinematographer, this is commonplace for Beecham.

“You can’t film very much from inside a cage,” Beecham notes. “If you’re a tourist and you were going out to film a [Great] White shark, I would recommend a cage, you’d be wise to use a cage.”

There are other precautions that can be taken, Beecham continues. “Even though we [as cinematographers] don’t use cages, safety is very much our number one priority.” He cites the conditions that are safest for swimming with Great Whites. “We need calm seas, we need clear water, good visibility. There are a whole bunch of parameters that we need before we will consider diving with a big shark like a [Great] White shark without a cage.”

It is mentioned in SHARKS UP CLOSE that there are only a few places in the world where anyone is allowed to dive without a cage when Great Whites are in the vicinity. “You have to get special permission to dive with [Great] White sharks out of the cage,” Beecham affirms. In addition to South Africa, “They probably give filming permits for working outside the cage in Australia and New Zealand, for people with the right levels of experience.

“Really, you’re looking for all the right conditions to dive with that kind of animal. You need the right depth. It’s useful to have something behind you,” Beecham gestures with his hands, indicating a ledge or a board, “so that animal can’t come from behind you.

“The place we were hoping to dive in [coastal South Africa], we would have the peninsula behind us, so the [Great] White shark could only come at us from in front or left or right, not behind us or underneath us – hopefully not above us, that would be bad. Even though there are places you can do it, there are still only really a handful of days in the year where the conditions would be right to be able to dive with the animals.”

It is crucial to be able to see the sharks approaching, both as a matter of safety and for filming purposes. “As a shooter, the number one thing you’re going to do is get great pictures of these animals underwater, and to do that, you need good visibility. We’re not interested in putting our lives in danger for bad pictures. You could go and dive in one meter of visibility, but you would never see the shark coming. So, it would be dangerous, and you’d get not very good pictures out of it. So, at the end of the day, we’re I think diving in the conditions that generate the good shots that we want.”

Having seen Beecham and his peers at work outside the cage, host Gregory came to the project with a good sense of what it entails. “He’s a smart guy,” Beecham declares.

As for INVESTIGATION SHARK ATTACK, Fields says that the series is exactly what its title suggests. “The premise of the show is to look at these unfortunate, negative human/shark interactions, but sort of from the shark’s perspective, trying to, from a scientific perspective, understand why the shark might have been in that area in the first place, understand what species was likely to be involved.

“There are six episodes, and each episode focuses on a different location.” These include the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas, Florida, California, and Hawai’i. “And then myself and three other shark experts [Dr. Mike Heithaus, Dr. Megan Winton, and Gibbs Kuguru] discuss what we think, based on our different expertise, what we think was happening in the situation, and why this incident would have occurred, from the perspective of the shark. There’s no, ‘Let’s have a reenactment of this terrible situation.’ There are some news clips and things like that to provide context, but the overall goal is to understand why sharks are in the areas that people are often occupying, [where] so many times people have no clue, and to really stress the rarity of these [attacks] happening.”

Fields describes the format for INVESTIGATION SHARK ATTACK. “The setup is almost as if we’re in a think tank. We were in Canada, in a round-table-type discussion with videos and pictures and with some different props to highlight what we’re talking about. Besides talking with [each other], we would talk to people who are experts on the species that we’re talking about or have done lots of work in the location we’re talking about. So, it’s a different sort of show, I think, for SHARKFEST.

“It’s different from what I’ve been involved in,” Fields elaborates, “but I think that it provides a lot of information and hopefully, once again, stresses the rarity of these interactions, even though that’s all we’re talking about. It highlights it’s not the shark coming out to get you, it’s a wrong place, wrong time situation the majority of the time, and I think that that’s a big message that’s trying to be driven home.”

Do Fields and Beecham have particular favorite species of shark?

“I think I know what Candace’s is going to be,” Beecham smiles. “It’s a good one.”

Fields laughs – there is an enormous still image of an oceanic whitetip shark behind her. “Yeah. I’m very much into the oceanic whitetip shark. I also love hammerheads, because I feel like the way that they swim,” she moves her head from side to side, mimicking a hammerhead shark, “it’s as if they’re constantly looking for something, and I feel like that’s how I’m moving through life, where I look like I might not necessarily have a plan, but I do.

“But I think the oceanic whitetip is just spectacular. First of all, it’s critically endangered, which means that it’s one step away from being extinct in the wild. So, to be able to interact with it is a privilege. And also, the Bahamas is one of the few last strongholds for this species, so I think that I find pride in that, being from the Bahamas, it’s is one of the few places where, if you’re there at the right time of year, you will for sure see oceanic whitetip sharks. They’re just super-cool and they look like planes when they’re swimming. You can identify individuals based on their fin markings. They’re similar to whale sharks in their spot patterns. There’s just so much that we don’t know about this species, because they’re so elusive, and I think there’s something cool about that.”

Bertie Gregory, on the seabed for SHARKFEST 2025 | ©2025 National Geographic/Dan Beecham

Beecham agrees. “It is an amazing species you work with, Candace. I’ve been diving for twenty-five years. I’ve had very, very few encounters with oceanic whitetips. You’ve spent far more time with them than me. I should have seen a lot more oceanic whitetips than I have. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they were at one time the widest-roaming predators on Earth.

“They were one of, if not the most abundant open-ocean predators,” Fields confirms, “because they were in tropical and subtropical ocean basins. So, the fact that it’s hard to come across them is devastating, really.”

The plunge in numbers is manmade. “Because they were bold and aggressive,” Beecham discloses, “they were one of the first to be fished out, which is very, very sad.”

Fields nods soberly.

Beecham hopes to gain more direct knowledge of the species. “I would love to come and spend some time with Candace and her oceanic whitetips.” In terms of his own shark passion, “[Great] White sharks do have a special place in my heart. They’re also amazing creatures, and probably their elusiveness is the big concern about them these days, because there are a few hot spots in the world, but so many of those hot spots either you can’t go to, or you’re not allowed to go to, or the normal hot spots go cold. So, yeah. Any time that you get to spend with a [Great] White shark is good.”

In fact, SHARKS UP CLOSE goes to a place off the coast of South Africa where Great Whites usually congregate, but the sharks aren’t there. Did the team ever find out where the animals were instead?

“No,” Beecham replies, “I don’t think we do know where they were at that time last year. We shot that show in July last year, which is traditionally the best time when the sharks are there and the weather was good, so we’ll see this year if they come back. But every year is different, and this is one of the challenges we face as wildlife filmmakers at the moment is, animals are doing weird things, weird movements, weird patterns, weather is weird, just with the changing world that we’re in. So, it’s certainly making our job harder.”

And what do Fields and Beecham hope audiences get out of their SHARKFEST programs?

Fields offers, “I always hope that people can get an appreciation for sharks and their importance in our environment. My show obviously talks only about when the negative interactions happen, but highlighting how infinitesimally small the odds of that happening are, and it’s their world and we choose to live in it when we go into the water, and so, I think that’s something that I hope people take away from this, is that we have to respect that we are entering the home of these sharks, and we cannot persecute them for behaving in the way that they are supposed to behave.”

Beecham elaborates, “I feel the same way, and I think the show with Bertie shines a light on a place that’s had human/shark conflicts recently, and it’s finding ways to resolve those conflicts, and finding ways to live alongside sharks. If we choose to live in coastal areas and spend time in the ocean, we have to find ways to coexist.”

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Article: Exclusive Interview with Cinematographer Dan Beecham and shark expert Candace Fields on new SHARKFEST docs

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