‘The Americas' gets up close and personal with whales, bees, and everything in between

Boston Globe

20-02-2025

He's referring to the fact that these expeditions don't just involve the folks involved in filming a given scene. Every trip has to be a self-contained collection of people capable of managing logistics, health, and safety. The project took five years overall to film.
Male orchid bees (Euglossa viridissima), compete to collect the most intoxicating smells from across their forest home, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico.
BBC Studios
As is often the case in nature documentaries, 'The Americas' gives you plenty of protagonists to root for, whether that's a bee seeking out a mate or a tiny owl that lives in a cactus trying to avoid predators. As Gunton puts it, 'nothing is perfect' in their process, but he says they 'very much cast these stories like a movie. Of course, animals don't read any scripts, but we know the sort of story we want to tell.' The creative team endeavors to create a narrative that is entertaining and informative, but also gives a sense of what the locale is like.
As anyone who's tried to get an animal to hold still for a photo knows, this doesn't always work. 'Nature always throws curveballs at you,' says Gunton, resulting in something that's 'weird and wonderful, hopefully, and often much more exciting and much more interesting than the original story you wrote.'
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The 10-episode series is divided into regions, with each one named after the region it visits, including 'The Amazon,' 'The Frozen North,' and 'Patagonia.' And the technology involved brings the viewer as close as possible to the action — it's a common occurrence in the show to hear noises as subtle as the clack of a pygmy owl's beak. 'This series could not have been made without one significant piece of technology, which is drones,' Gunton says. 'What they do, which nothing else can do, and why it's particularly pertinent to this series, is they get you in a proximity to the animals that you can never normally do.'
It's not just that a human physically can't get into some of those spots — moving a camera that quickly is otherwise logistically challenging. A person darting from place to place simply isn't as fast as a drone flying closer.
Of course, as an experienced hand at this type of documentary, Gunton has seen a lot of powerful moments in the wild. But if you're looking for the moment that he called 'one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen in my life,' don't miss the pod of four blue whales cavorting. 'These are the biggest animals,' Gunton says. 'It's faster than a warship.' And while filming animals is always a gamble, the crew was able to use drones to capture the moment one of them leaped out of the water, did a barrel roll, and crashed back into the water.
'It's just spectacular,' Gunton says.
THE AMERICAS
Narrated by Tom Hanks. On NBC
Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at