ONE of the people behind the ground-breaking television series Blue Planet II is coming to HOST, Heatherton Park Studios, Bradford-on-Tone.

BBC Natural History producer Jonathan Smith will give a behind the lens account of the making of the documentary on Thursday, February 8.

Blue Planet II was four years in the making, involved spending more than 6,000 hours under water and generated over a million feet of diving depth.

It also made film stars of the oceans’ most rare and magnificent creatures, while highlighting the impact of human activity on the world’s precious, maritime ecosystem.

Smith will give a first hand account of life in the field – what it is like waiting hundreds of hours for one single shot, how to get up close and personal with a walrus, and how technology is revolutionising the images that can now be captured in the underwater realm.

“Working alongside the giants of our oceans is a privilege,” he said. “What this production highlights is just how quickly camera technology is evolving and our understanding of marine life along with it. Our team were able to capture scenes later in the production cycle, which were completely impossible to film when we began.

“For example, the bioluminescent display which featured in Episode 1, of millions of microscopic plankton erupting in light as hundreds of mobula rays swim through them. It is like an incredible, underwater firework display which wouldn’t have been possible to film even two years ago, let alone 16 years ago, when the first series aired.”