Sophie Morgan is an acclaimed natural history TV producer and topic director, with contemporary credit ranking in conjunction with BAFTA and EMMY award-winning series Blue Planet II and National Geographic’s landmark EMMY nominated series Hostile Planet.
On the beginning build from London, she learned her affinity for the mammoth blue and marine life at the backside of rook pools at some stage in family holidays. In her early twenties, she took the tumble and done her PADI Start Water in Sodwana Bay on the African plains. Like a flash forward to now and from the Arctic fjords to a long way away coral atolls, Sophie motion photos contemporary marine behaviors and manages advanced dive shoots in stressful oceanic environments around the globe. She is obsessed with the use of innovative filming tools and contemporary views to present a proof for a world that is inaccessible to many, as it modified into when she modified into a young Londoner.
In equal measure to her success in media diving, Sophie is a legit-active conservationist who uses favorite storytelling ways to encourage folks to care in regards to the ocean and its inhabitants.
For her subsequent credit ranking Sophie is engaged on an underwater episode of every other predominant series for Plimsoll Productions, and little query in the background she is pondering up extra initiatives to attend build our oceans.
DeeperBlue.com: When modified into your first dive?
SM: I’ve always been joyful in the water, nonetheless as a London child I didn’t contain noteworthy to find entry to to it. I’d exhaust every family summer season holiday rock pooling or snorkeling, nonetheless I modified into a relative latecomer to diving. The African plains had been my first wild treasure and it modified into on the wait on of a scientific plant life and fauna-surveying shuttle in South Africa in my early 20s that I did my PADI Start Water in Sodwana Bay. The dives themselves had been fairly uneventful, nonetheless respiratory underwater whilst collecting contemporary shark teeth and taking note of the song of humpback whales, modified into factual so damn cool.
DB: Unique certification stage?
SM: rEvo CCR Mod 1; HSE Pt IV; PADI Divemaster
I’ve been diving a rEvo rebreather for factual over a year now and contain spent approx. 250 hours on it underwater – noteworthy of it on plant life and fauna filming projects (after building a healthy more than just a few of hours pointless to claim). It’s the design of preference for nearly all of underwater digicam operators, attributable to simplicity, redundancy, and the means to repair most concerns in the topic with a gorgeous spares residing.
I don’t use it in the identical map as most CCR divers to create deep technical dives. Indulge in most folk in our industry, I take advantage of it to lengthen my backside time at fairly shallow depths and decrease my bubbles. In the plant life and fauna movie-making industry, rebreathers contain leveled the taking half in topic with land-essentially based filming, by the use of mute lengthy drag statement of a topic. We can exhaust 6-7 hours underwater a day, with advanced grip tools (sliders, tripods, motion preserve watch over rigs) and interpret by no map before viewed marine habits – and the fish can’t hear us coming from 100m away, like with OC! I realized the variation in plant life and fauna habits around me at some stage in my practising in the Crimson Sea – the dolphins and turtles there were a long way extra welcoming after I accomplished sounding like Darth Vader.
DB: Characterize your route into plant life and fauna and TV?
SM: I at closing did a Zoology BSc at Bristol College, after canceling my favorite plans to alter into a vet – I’ve always adored animals and my careers officer didn’t contain noteworthy of an imagination. Fortunately I realized in time that what I wanted modified into to be in the topic, watching animal habits.
No topic studying in Bristol – the epicenter of worldwide plant life and fauna television – I had zero recommendations that my stage and my student media involvement had been acceptable practising for this industry. I modified into head-hunted straight out of student radio/journalism to work in song PR in London, which didn’t fulfill me and I wanted to utilize my skills to promote science and conservation, so I began job looking. An commercial for a Researcher at the BBC Natural History Unit led me straight wait on to an interview in Bristol. One I didn’t to find, nonetheless that encouraged me ample to stop my job for two weeks of work trip at every other neutral production company in the metropolis. I modified into lucky ample to to find an favorite belief commissioned by BBC Natural World in my preliminary months there, which helped to kick-beginning up my profession, and acquired me my first Researcher credit ranking. In the 10 years following I’ve worked my map as a lot as Producer.
DB: What got here first – diving or media?
SM: On a legit stage, media for sure got here first, and being a documentary researcher pushed forward my pastime in the water. In this role you are always buying for novel reviews and I modified into discovering that underwater modified into where to glimpse. I’ve always been a little resentful of the distinctive explorers, who bought to trip so many contemporary species and behaviors, and the extra I researched the extra the ocean felt like this thrilling last frontier. I furthermore felt that we had been/are at a crossroads where the technology modified into allowing us to dive extra and deeper, nonetheless marine life is diminishing at an alarming charge. This modified into what I wanted to assign motion photos about and here’s what I wanted to guard. Then all yet again, I wanted to present a settle to my dive skills seriously to create it.
I fell wait on in treasure with diving in a serious map and turned into very targeted on development and safety. In around a year I went from a gorgeous-weather PADI wetsuit diver to an HSE IV industrial diver doing customary cool-water UK drysuit dives. I’ve been very committed to retaining contemporary and updating my practising ever since, which is incredibly essential in my role.
DB: What modified into your role on Blue Planet 2?
SM: Working on Blue Planet 2 modified into my life aim, nonetheless I had been extra presenter-plant life and fauna targeted and didn’t contain blue-chip nature programming trip. My commitment to diving and underwater modified into thankfully ample for the Executive Producer, James Honeyborne, to present me a shot. I in actuality stepped down a stage wait on to Researcher to create it – a depart, which modified into 100% neutral and positively, made me the Producer I’m this day. It gave me the unbelievable more than just a few to work under renowned Producer Miles Barton, whose teachings were the most connected and precious of my profession. A researcher is largely to blame for legend and records discovering, nonetheless there were furthermore opportunities to lend a hand in the topic, and I extinct my dive qualifications to furthermore act as Dive Supervisor and OC Security Diver at instances. As the venture moved forward Miles furthermore gave me the assorted to solo speak my first blue-chip habits sequences.
DB: Safe you ever met the mammoth D (Sir David Attenborough)?
SM: No. I even contain lots to thank him for too. As a baby, I modified into sat in entrance of limitless nature packages that he narrated, so it is no shock that my profession followed in his footsteps. Unfortunately, my lag schedule for Hostile Planet meant I overlooked the assorted to be desirous in regards to the click for BP2 and assembly Sir David. Then all yet again, I did hear that, at an event, he particularly mentioned liking undoubtedly one of my sequences, and that’s ample for me.
DB: What modified into your role on Hostile Planet?
SM: I directed the ‘Oceans’ episode of ‘Hostile Planet’, as properly as constructing the reviews and working the worldwide dive operations. Plimsoll Productions will must were and must serene be undoubtedly one of many most thrilling and fastest-increasing neutral production companies around. And what’s extra, they’ve Dr. Martha Holmes as Head of Natural world – a myth of diving and underwater filmmaking (BBC Existence – Fish, BBC Blue Planet), who I modified into massively eager to work with. After I heard they had an ‘Ocean’ episode planned for his or her first blue-chip commission, I modified into intrigued. After I heard ‘Hostile Planet’ would feature no longer only outrageous environments nonetheless kind out the actual fact that these extremes are increasing attributable to human-brought about change, I modified into provided. And by this time, I had the neutral skills for the job…besides being CCR educated at the time, which most frequently left me Dive Supervising on the floor.
DB: What’s it like working at the entrance line?
SM: It must even be no longer easy. When it’s your job to search out and movie plant life and fauna you alter into very conscious of contemporary environmental adjustments – story fish runs of ten years up to now which would be in actuality a trickle, turbulent weather in a historically stable season, and so forth. Animals and events are changing into extra difficult to search out and predict correct thru the globe and pristine habitats are a thing of the past. And even then it’s a myth of attractive baselines – I modified into angry to glimpse around ten sharks on a dive in Chagos (BIOT), only to learn that just a few a protracted time up to now I’d contain encountered extra than a hundred.
However it’s furthermore a astronomical privilege. The arena isn’t any longer yet destroyed and there are many unbelievable areas and animals which would be serene rate showing to an audience. And there might perchance be the occasional gorgeous records legend that provides you hope. In ‘Hostile Planet – Oceans’ we featured blue whales in California and olive ridley turtles in Costa Rica that both contain bounced wait on from the brink since stricter looking and fishing laws had been offered. Proof that some aspects of nature can enhance in the event that they are factual given the assorted.
DB: Are you somewhat too young to be this rad already?
SM: In the event you indicate ‘cool’ I’m no longer obvious I’m that, nonetheless I’ve always been somewhat radical. I’m very driven and contain by no map been alarmed to present a explain to my passions and beliefs. Age 4 I believed nothing of strolling as a lot as girls in fur coats and repeating the advertising and marketing and marketing and marketing campaign slogan of the time, ‘It takes as a lot as 40 uninteresting animals to assign a fur coat and only one to wear it’. My map has bought reasonably much less aggressive, nonetheless I serene contain the conviction to assign essential points like this by my motion photos.
DB: How create you to realize to a call your episode subject matters and dispute material?
SM: By the time I step onto a production it fundamentally has a solid series-huge theme. It’s my job as a Producer to create a program that has a totally different explain nonetheless furthermore appears like half of the broader venture. I then work with an editorial group to search out reviews that fit that theme and present a solid myth arc and sense of legend.
‘Hostile Ocean’ journeyed the total ocean, so we had the safe of experiences of animals surviving in a diversity of totally different marine habitats, which allowed for some solid habits and a speedy-witted looking diversity of images. I knew from the beginning up that I wanted to kind out the finest concerns in the ocean from an animal point of gaze, without shedding the cinema and the drama. So I targeted carefully on integrating visually gorgeous overfishing and increasing carbon sequences into the total myth. National Geographic Channel modified into refreshing supportive of this.
DB: What’s the role of a Director?
SM: I’m both a Producer and a Director. I’ve mostly defined the producer role above, though it furthermore contains one map of logistics, managing, and budgeting that I won’t bore you with. I furthermore speak and work with other directors to convey reviews to life – this implies working with digicam operators in the topic to to find a chain of photos that successfully expose the legend and being ready to react as that legend shifts on device.
In the event you are, like me, directing on dive shoots, the chance is that you just are furthermore half of the dive group because there might perchance be restricted room on boats! I most frequently like to separate the two roles and focal point on safety after I’m underwater. Then all yet again, I safe being down there and seeing the surroundings and habits (or lack of) first hand enables me to assign larger-informed choices about easy how one can ship the sequence. At times I assign director notes on my slate, nonetheless things can to find weird after 6 hours underwater and so that they sometimes attain out like haikus – cue my group laughing into their loops.
DB: Reveal me about your panel dialogue in the States?
SM: As the Director of this technique, National Geographic Channel invited me to affix some panel discussions at ‘Hostile Oceans’ screenings in LA, which modified into an true honor. The audiences had been in actuality receptive to both the movie’s extremely wonderful cinematography and the environmental messages, which I learned an uplifting signal of the instances. Being given a platform to debate both the artistry of filmmaking and conservation modified into a dream, and proof that the two don’t must be mutually distinctive.
DB: To any extent extra press events coming up?
SM: Likely no longer till my subsequent expose is out. I even contain promised to create the UK dive lectures for you soon though!
DB: Are you able to justify on the busy work and lag schedule you and your group contain?
SM: Smartly closing year I spent lower than 6 months at dwelling in Bristol. The groups on dive projects are most frequently extra like a family, as we in actuality create depend on every other to outlive. All of us in actuality care about what we’re doing and thus work spectacularly hard to enact on device. It’s no longer a job for the faint-hearted, nonetheless the rewards could also be big, and we to find to dive in and capture photographs of the most unbelievable and much away areas in the realm.
The irony of my carbon footprint isn’t any longer misplaced on me, and I’m working to amend this by staying out on device for longer and the use of a long way away crew where that you just are going to be ready to contain. I create contain it’s a space the industry needs to address as a total, nonetheless I furthermore believe that the environmental passion our work sparks offsets it somewhat.
DB: Who are your mentors?
SM: As above, working under Miles Barton at the BBC made me the Producer I’m this day.
One other mentor of mine would be Neil Brock of Bristol Channel Diving – an unsung hero of the TV dive industry, who has been desirous about overseeing the protection of most predominant underwater productions in contemporary years. Neil keeps me on the straight and slim close to contemporary global safety laws and any extra dive practising I need for shoots. He furthermore fixes one map of my equipment, fairly most frequently on a gorgeous reduce wait on-off date, and has nicknamed me ‘Calamity Jane’ as a .
I no longer too lengthy up to now had the assorted to work and lend a hand diving with Doug Anderson, broadly regarded as undoubtedly one of many tip underwater digicam operators in the realm – anyone I even contain admired since I joined the industry. Being a reasonably amateur rebreather diver I modified into nervous, nonetheless couldn’t contain begun my CCR profession with a extra supportive work ‘buddy’. Having dived the rEvo correct thru the realm, his advice and troubleshooting means had been friendly to my development. And from a ingenious point of gaze, he’s factual so thrilling to work with.
DB: Elevate out you’ve got got any Role Objects?
SM: I’ve always admired solid girls in the underwater world – especially folks who entered it when it modified into very noteworthy viewed as a man’s work, reminiscent of blue conservation celeb Dr. Sylvia Earle, shark lady Dr. Eugenie Clark and the lesser-known Jean Villepreux-Energy who invented the first aquariums to thought paper nautiluses in the 1800s. Martha Holmes, whom I work for at Plimsoll, is furthermore a total badass and modified into presenting Sea Bolt in a bubble helmet before I even checked out a pair of fins. Issues contain modified and there are a long way extra feminine marine scientists and divers making a title for themselves, nonetheless I’m serene reminded of it after I battle to search out technical dive garments that suits me. But again one thing that is altering – Fourth Voice factual informed me their contemporary tech shorts attain in XS!
DB: What’s for your equipment web?
SM: Sticking purely to diving, Fourth Voice, Apeks, and Otter Drysuits are all astronomical British brands which contain provided me with encourage and closing-minute fixes/suggestions over time. And I’ll give a shout out to Shearwater, who suited sorted us out with a alternative NERD on a recent shoot.
DB: Reveal us just a few profession highlight.
SM: Finding a truly spectacular contemporary habits isn’t any longer one thing that happens on day by day basis. Filming big trevallies looking birds for Blue Planet 2 modified into a as soon as in a lifetime moment – especially when we headed out there on nothing extra than a fisherman’s memoir, a astronomical chance to the production (calculated chance and several experiences, nonetheless no longer a single present describe). Underwater Cameraman Dan Beecham and I furthermore bought to dive a situation that nearly about no-one else had with critters that had by no map viewed a diver – me with jet lunge, forgetting the symbol for manta and factual pointing, gave him a fright as he got here face to eyeball with one on our test dive.
Then all yet again, the exact profession highlight is when your presentations contain a lengthy-lasting affect, be it on one particular person or many. Seeing Blue Planet 2 induce an true change in human plastic consumption (furthermore lots attributable to the a big selection of charities and NGOs already campaigning in this device) modified into incredibly thrilling and has opened the door for extra conservation campaigning in plant life and fauna programming. I factual hope we can now create the identical for native weather change and overfishing, that are a long way bigger threats for the ocean.
DB: Favourite plant life and fauna interactions
SM: My contemporary rebreather work has led me into the realm of benthic filming. Being ready to sit down on the backside in the tip productive layer of the water for 6-7 hours a day has allowed me to to find to know habitats and stare fish and invertebrate habits like by no map before. It furthermore affords you an true more than just a few to habituate marine animals to your presence – I’ve witnessed and filmed some in actuality intimate and special moments for my contemporary program.
DB: Any hairy moments in the topic?
SM: In a legit means and as a bunch leader I’m always wary to dive properly within my limits. The more than just a few to create one map of warm water benthic filming on my contemporary venture modified into what opened the door for me to step as a lot as CCR diving on an exact industrial stage. Then all yet again, I’m serene at a stage where I’d leave extra sophisticated shoots to extra skilled divers and as an more than just a few operate as supervisors working to contend with them precise. When filming orca and humpbacks in Norway, as properly as to the sizable matters, the divers had been in wetsuits in cool water for maneuverability, there were solid currents, fishing boats and in actuality little gentle available – even the highest safety diver in the industry (John Chambers) bought caught yelling expletives into the comms as a sizable oblivious humpback whale crashed past him.
Having said that, even a easy-seeming dive can test you. OC scouting for squid eggs at 35-40m in California for ‘Hostile Planet’ and finning too hasty in a drysuit after my buddy, gave me a inappropriate combination of narcosis and hypercapnia. It left me puzzled and with a novel feeling of fright that made me are looking to lag to the floor – thankfully speedy mounted by swimming slowly a little as a lot as the anchor line and respiratory for just a few minutes, whilst I figured out what modified into happening. I’m a mammoth believer that dismay is the finest enemy of the diver, and I’m happy that my practising allowed me to override it.
DB: What’s going to you learn subsequent?
SM: Daily is a discovering out day, as technology marches forward underwater I’m under an responsibility to contend with up with it to create the highest TV and preserve my group precise. My subsequent planned contain is an M48 Mod-1 Kirby Morgan chunky-face mask with communications residing up. Chubby-face masks are friendly tools on extra advanced shoots – for communique between divers for setup, and for communique with the floor for safety. They might perchance well presumably be a little claustrophobic for of us that are out of apply, so I’ve been informed to wear it in the bathe! Then all yet again, I know, as an skilled Dive Supervisor, that it is serious no longer to depend on comms in a attractive wild atmosphere and contain wait on up safety protocols in build, ought to serene they fail. In the conclude it’s all about getting the highest job done, nonetheless safely.
DB: What’s the mammoth dream?
SM: I’m in the midst of hatching an thrilling understanding to continue my profession whilst residing by the sea, as it is where I feel most at peace. I’d furthermore like to work extra with native groups in that build to diminish the carbon footprint of documentary filming.
In the conclude, I are looking to contend with engaged on underwater filming projects that excite me and space me from a ingenious point of gaze and confidently furthermore contain a sure affect from an environmental angle. As the realm adjustments, I believe now we contain a neutral responsibility to expose it and I don’t contain conservation has to contain a antagonistic affect on cinema – feature movie could also be heart-broken if it is gorgeous and I contain ‘Hostile Planet’ hits that ticket with its glittering fish scales and alien jellyfish expansion. I’m under no phantasm that I’m going to build the realm, nonetheless I’m on a mission, to expose the actual fact.
Note Sophie’s adventures on Instagram: @sophiedives
