Premiering March 31st on National Geographic, and April 1st on Disney+ and Hulu is the new documentary series ‘Secrets of the Bees’, which was executive produced by James Cameron (‘Titanic’, ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’).
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Moviefone recently had the pleasure of visiting Lightstorm Entertainment’s offices, along with other members of the press, to speak with James Cameron and Dr. Samuel Ramsey about the new docuseries ‘Secrets of the Bees’, finding the story in post-production, the special cameras utilized for the project, the science of the series, what they hope viewers learn from the show, and why nature is important to Cameron.
You can watch the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Related Article: Director James Cameron and Kate Winslet Talk ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’
Moviefone: To begin with, Mr. Cameron, can you talk about developing the show’s narrative in the post-production process and discovering the story based on the incredible footage you were able to capture?
James Cameron: It’s a recursive effect. You go in with a rough script and you go in with experienced people who have done this kind of macro photography out in the field. It’s basically a wish list or a hope list. You go and if you get the right people on the team, you’re going to get the results that you wanted, you’re going to get the kind of mind-blowing footage that you want. But when you do discover something new, then the script changes and the edit will change. So, you put it together and you rough it in according to what your game plan was, but you also must be ready to follow a lead and write new dialogue. We find that the voiceover narration and so on and the way in which it’s structured and explained is quite fluid right through to the end of postproduction. So, the story is continuing to reveal itself to us as we go along. I mean, I’d say all documentaries are like that, but certainly natural history documentaries at this kind of scale are absolutely like that. The story’s constantly revealing itself to you as you go along, just as nature is constantly revealing itself to science as you go along. It’s kind of a parallel process.
James, can you talk about the cutting-edge camera technology you utilized to make this series?
JC: Well, our camera team is very experienced with macro photography and have been doing it for decades. The camera technology itself wasn’t really the leap forward. It was really, how do we configure the hive environment around various other environments like tunnels and things that were done with the solo bees. But how do we get into their world? So, you know, I’m not an expert in animal photography, where you’re creating an environment that, we’ve got the best people in the world to do that. But it’s about not interfering with their behavior, making it seem natural for them but still getting the camera in a manner that’s reasonably predictable, that the bee or the animal will do that behavior right in front of the lens. When you have a little tiny area of photography, you have a very shallow depth of field, and this is always the problem with macro photography. So, it’s really about the human in the loop experience team, and these days, less than breakthroughs in the optics, per se.
Dr. Ramsey, from a scientific point of view, can you talk about what you learned about the world of bees from this project?
Samuel Ramsey: So, the way that these kinds of things often work is that when you’re conducting science, sometimes you just don’t have the time and space to be patient. A lot of the most incredible discoveries come from patience. What Jim was just talking about, about being able to get those cameras into that space, you can’t just leave the camera there forever. The bees will cover it in propolis, and wax and you’ll never be able to see anything. You’ve got to get it in there and wait, watch, and really spend the time looking at what they’re doing and hope for the best. That can be really difficult at times in science, but it’s in these spaces where you have the resources and the team that comes along with working with National Geographic, where you can really do this incredible stuff because we’re working with people who do all of this for a living, who are the best, and the top of their field at doing this sort of stuff. So then, with the bees that were using these leaves as a way of covering up the smell from the hornets, that’s the first time that that’s ever been documented. It is incredible to watch them do something like this, and of course, all of us were blown away. We expected that they would be able to do something like that, but not specifically that because it showed that they weren’t just looking for one thing and doing something on instinct. They had the ability to think, “Well, if I can’t find this, maybe I’ll use this as an alternative and it will allow us to cover the smell so that the hornets don’t kill us.” It’s an incredible process. But what it really involves a lot of is patience, because we go there, we’re looking for something specific, but we don’t know exactly what we’re going to see. We must wait and watch and really drill down and allow for time to show us the incredible secrets of the bees.
Dr. Ramsey, what do you hope viewers learn about bees from this series?
SR: I want people to take away from this series that bees are working hard in the background doing things that keep our entire ecosystem healthy. They don’t get enough attention and they certainly don’t get protected nearly enough. Oftentimes when we say, “Save the Bees,” we mean “Save the Bee.” We’re thinking about the one bee species that we keep inside of a box because that’s the one that’s the most precious to us and it’s the one that we know the best. But they are the canary in the coal mine for the other 20,000 species of bees out there that we don’t have as close a connection with, and we’ve been able to show in this documentary some of their secret lives that they’re living underground and inside of tubes and the kinds of ways that they’re interacting with the world. If we couldn’t show that to people, it would be easier for them to discount that those things are important. But now that we’re able to put that front and center in front of people’s eyes, we want them to take away from that that these organisms are important, that they’re incredible, and we want them to expand that phrase of “Save the Bee” back to “Save the Bees” to keep the rest of them safe, healthy, and happy.
Mr. Cameron, what do you hope people learn from watching this series?
JC: Well, you’re opening several different areas here. So, in terms of what I think the series in general is trying to convey, and the ‘Secrets of the Bees’ is an excellent example, is a sense of wonder about the natural world, because we won’t appreciate and make space for and protect that which we don’t love and don’t care about. The way to get people to care about things is to put them into it in a way that’s accessible, that’s not scientifically off-putting. Our primary purpose is not to sound very strident warnings, but as the series has progressed, we have shifted our emphasis a little bit toward this is what is endangered, this is what we may lose. You start off with “Isn’t this amazing?” Therefore, “Isn’t this precious? Oh, and by the way, it’s at risk.” That’s the last leg of that. “What can you do personally?” We don’t get into that that much, but that’s a critical area. I think this is where, when you start the conversation, it’s important not only as documentarians but as the National Geographic in general, to have answers. I think one of the issues that we all face in a global population of eight billion people is, what can I as an individual do? I can’t influence policy, and we all think of it as a government top-down system, and it doesn’t have to be. Let me give you an example. I’m vegan, I want to say that right up front. Animal agriculture is responsible for so much deforestation and loss of habitat that impacts not only bees but all species. The way in which we do our food system with massive industrial agriculture that’s mostly monocropping is also highly deleterious to bees, so it’s not just as simple as insecticides. It’s also, the simplification of monocropping just vast fields of corn or soy or wheat versus diversified vegetables and fruits, which is really what we should be eating as the intelligent hominids on the planet. For example, as a thought experiment, if people just stopped eating meat, which you can and you’d be healthier if you did, we could re-wild more than half of the planet, more than half of the area that’s been dedicated to agriculture, could be re-wild. That would be very good for the bees and for just about every other species out there. So, we make choices as a civilization and as individuals, and those choices have consequences. I think that the way to start getting people to think of those consequences is to let them see the victims, if you will. So, if we can relate to these bees, these hardworking ladies in these hives all over the world, then we may start to make better choices.
Finally, Mr. Cameron, nature plays an important role in many of your films including ‘The Abyss’, ‘Titanic’, and the ‘Avatar’ franchise. Can you talk about why nature is important to you as a storyteller?
JC: I grew up living in a suburban neighborhood, but two blocks away a forest began that went for hundreds of miles. This was in Canada, so it was a rural area, and I grew up with a natural curiosity. I spent all my time out in the fields and out in the woods collecting bugs, snakes, frogs, turtles, and everything that I could get my hands on. I was reading about it and doing dissection, preservation, and drawing it all up, so I was a junior naturalist. Nobody asked me to do this, nobody told me to do it, it was just my natural curiosity. So, I know that that’s always been a driver throughout my life. Before I settled in on a career in film, I went to college to study astronomy and physics, believe it or not. So, I think curiosity is our superpower as human beings and I think science is a natural extension of that. Yes, of course we all reap the benefits in our technological world of science. But I think science in and of itself is just an amazing thing, and I have such respect for researchers and my curiosity is very broad.
What is the plot of ‘Secrets of the Bees’?
Hosted and narrated by BAFTA and Emmy-winning National Geographic Explorer Bertie Gregory, ‘Secrets of the Bees’ uses groundbreaking filming technology to reveal the extraordinary world of bees. With the expertise of entomologist and fellow National Geographic Explorer Dr. Samuel Ramsey, the series uncovers their astonishing architecture and intelligence, unlocking their secrets and featuring never-before-filmed moments.
Who is the host of ‘Secrets of the Bees’?
- Bertie Gregory as Narrator
List of James Cameron Movies:
- ‘Xenogenesis‘ (1978)
- ‘Piranha II: The Spawning‘ (1982)
- ‘The Terminator‘ (1984)
- ‘Aliens‘ (1986)
- ‘The Abyss‘ (1989)
- ‘Terminator 2: Judgment Day‘ (1991)
- ‘True Lies‘ (1994)
- ‘Titanic‘ (1997)
- ‘Avatar‘ (2009)
- ‘Avatar: The Way of Water‘ (2022)
- ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash‘ (2025)
