Whether it’s a camera suspended from a bicycle wheel, suspended from a wire, scaling a mound of bat droppings or hut in a rainforest set up months in advance to capture the illusive birds of paradise, the efforts involved in producing natural history content are staggering. Given that the reaction of so many viewers to the BBC’s natural history output is “how did they do it?”, Alastair Fothergill is a very appropriate interviewee in this series. The programmes he is best known for, including Frozen Planet and Life in the Freezer, feature both spectacular images of the natural world and feats of filmmaking innovation. Each of Alastair’s major series took several years to complete with teams working across many different parts of the world recording often filming in single locations for many months. In this interview, Alastair discusses both his own career path, which took him from producing student films at Durham to becoming Head of the BBC Natural History Unit, and how his own films are put together.