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A very happy “Shark Week” to all who celebrate! It’s wild that this marquee Discovery summer event seems to increase in size every year, spawning a massive 21 separate programs for its 2024 slate — which is, naturally, hosted by John Cena. This got the IndieWire Craft team thinking about how documentarians capture footage of nature’s most infamous cartilaginous fish, so we reached out to some “Shark Week” cinematographers with the same questions we ask both documentary and scripted DPs about how they craft the look of their projects.

You likely won’t be surprised to learn that the logistical constraints of getting up close to sharks are numerous and inform what these DPs arm themselves with, camera-wise. Andy Casagrande, who shot this year’s “Air Jaws,” stressed the unpredictable nature of the animal subjects as being core to a lot of decision-making. Particularly with respect to Great Whites, Casagrande told...

On Wednesday July 10 2024, Discovery broadcasts Great White North!

Episode Summary

In this episode of “Great White North” airing on Discovery, viewers are taken on a thrilling expedition into the unexpected realm of Canada’s coast, where a burgeoning population of aggressive white sharks has surfaced. Led by Andy Casagrande, renowned wildlife filmmaker and shark expert, the episode explores Nova Scotia’s coastal waters in search of clues to understand if this new population could potentially be the largest of its kind globally.

The episode unfolds with Casagrande and his team embarking on a daring mission to study and document the behavior and habitat of these formidable predators. With cutting-edge technology and scientific expertise, they aim to uncover the reasons behind the white sharks’ presence in Canadian waters and assess the implications for marine ecology and conservation efforts.

Viewers can expect breathtaking underwater footage, insightful commentary from marine biologists, and firsthand...

In the eleventh episode of Shark Week, titled “Great White North,” shark expert Andy Casagrande leads an expedition off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. The focus of this episode is on the surprising surge in encounters with Great White Sharks in Canadian waters and the possibility that this new population could be the largest […]

Shark Week: Great White North...

Dive into the thrilling world of marine exploration with “Great White North,” airing at 8:00 Pm on Wednesday, July 10th, 2024, on Discovery. In this captivating episode, viewers will join Andy Casagrande on an exhilarating expedition along Nova Scotia’s coast, where a surprising discovery awaits: a burgeoning population of aggressive white sharks.

The episode promises to unveil whether this unexpected influx of white sharks could potentially represent the largest population of its kind worldwide. Andy Casagrande, renowned for his expertise in underwater cinematography and shark behavior, leads the charge as he navigates the waters off Nova Scotia. His mission is not only to observe these majestic creatures up close but also to understand the ecological implications of their presence in this unusual habitat.

Audiences can anticipate breathtaking underwater footage, insightful commentary from marine biologists, and gripping moments as Andy Casagrande delves into the mysteries surrounding these apex predators. From the...

It is everyone’s favorite time of year! Shark Week is finally here and Discovery has put together a spectacular line-up on shark-fueled specials that we can’t wait to sink our teeth into this summer!

We had the amazing opportunity to catch up with Marine Biologist Tom “Blowfish” Hird to discuss his two Discovery Shark Week specials, “Cocaine Sharks” and “Great White Fight Club”! It was a fascinating chat with Hird, as we dive into some of the story behind “Cocaine Sharks” where Hird and his team study shark behavior patterns in the Florida Keys. It is an area where researchers believe that the ocean may become contaminated with cocaine due to increased drug smuggling in the region. First, we have “Cocaine Bear” and now “Cocaine Sharks”….uh, oh! It is definitely a fascinating topic to discuss.

Hird, also speaks about “Great White Fight Club” where, “A team of...

Actor and conservationist Jason Momoa will host Discovery Channel’s 35th year of Shark Week, a celebration and investigation of shark habits and behaviors.

Beginning Sunday, July 23 at 8 p.m. Et/Pt on Discovery, Momoa will guide fans through nearly 20 new hours of television featuring the apex predators. The programming, which attracted over 28 million viewers last year, will also spotlight innovative technology used to track and study unique shark species and their enemies.

Additionally, Shark Week will delve into sharks’ mating and migration patterns, showing rare footage as researchers follow them to remote locations in South Africa and New Zealand.

In addition to airing on Discovery, Shark Week will be available to stream on Max. Check out the full slate of programming below.

Sunday, July 23

“Belly of the Beast: Feeding Frenzy,” which premieres at 8 p.m. Et/Pt on Discovery, will see researchers with cameras brave a great white shark...

Discovery Channel’s Shark Week returns Sunday night for its 34th year, and TheWrap has an exclusive sneak peek at an incredible moment from one of its most jaw-dropping programs — “Air Jaws: Top Guns.”

In the exclusive clip above, the “Air Jaws” team lured a shark with their fake seal decoy that trailed behind the boat, catching on film a legendary great white shark as it propelled itself out of the water, and performed a 360-degree (or nearly 360-degree) turn in the air, before diving back down with very little splash.

The objective for this year’s “Air Jaws” installment, from creator Jeff Kurr — the 22nd for the franchise — was to shoot the largest breaching great white shark ever captured on film

“I had the pleasure of, up until this year, filming the largest great white, which is this 15-foot humongous beast of a shark that came flying out of the water.

Summer is the right time to appreciate sharks. Pop culture has always intrinsically understood that, whether it was Steven Spielberg creating the summer blockbuster with Jaws in 1975 or Discovery Channel creating the couch potato with Shark Week in 1988.

The summer of 2020, however, stands to be the best time for these dead-eyed elasmobranch fish monsters in a long time. The coronavirus pandemic has beaches sparsely populated and sharks’ reign as king of the seas more unquestioned than ever. National Geographic is going to do its part to celebrate the summer of the shark with a five-week supersized Sharkfest of shark-related programming.

Nat Geo’s Sharkfest kicks off on Sunday, July 12 on National Geographic. Then National Geographic and its animal-imprint Nat Geo Wild will continue to air shark content from the networks’ existing library along with new specials several nights a week until concluding on Sunday, August 2.

Last year’s Sharkfest amounted to three weeks of programming.

This summer’s TV forecast is Sharknado-free — but there’s still plenty of shark-themed programming to sink your teeth into, thanks to Discovery Channel’s Shark Week.

Beginning this Sunday and continuing through Saturday, Aug. 3, Shark Week is an annual, Jaws-dropping spectacle featuring more than 20 hours of original programming about one of nature’s most feared predators. In addition to myriad documentaries, 2019’s line-up includes Shark Trip: Eat. Pray. Chum., a comedy special starring Rob Riggle (Holey Moley), Anthony Anderson (black-ish), Joel McHale (Community), Adam Devine (The Righteous Gemstones) and Damon Wayans Jr. (Happy Endings); and Capsized: Blood in the Water,...

It’s that time of the summer again — “Shark Week” is about to rear its toothy head. Discovery Channel released the official schedule for 20 hours of shark-tastic programming from July 28 to Aug. 4.

For the first time ever, Discovery Channel is rolling out a scripted, feature-length film just for “Shark Week” — starring Josh Duhamel, “Capsized: Blood In The Water” tells the true story about an October 1982 shark encounter.

After each day’s specials, Rob Riggle will host “Shark After Dark,” the week’s nightly talk show. Riggle will also star in “Shark Trip: Eat. Pray. Chum” alongside his friends Adam DeVine (“Pitch Perfect”), Anthony Anderson (“black-ish”), Joel McHale (“Community”) and Damon Wayans Jr. (“New Girl”). Original programming wraps up Aug. 3, with reruns of the week’s best content featured on Aug. 4.

Also Read: Discovery's New 'Undercover Billionaire' Has 90 Days to Start a Million-Dollar Company From Scratch

Below, find Discovery’s full descriptions for all 18 programs,...

Shark Week or not, you wouldn’t catch Richard Dreyfuss pulling this kind of stunt.

In this exclusive sneak peek at Sunday’s Isle of Jaws (Discovery, 10/9c), cinematographer Andy Casagrande — hoping to locate the great whites that mysterious and completely vanished from the Neptune Islands off South Australia — hops into a self-propelled shark cage and goes underwater.

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Almost immediately — c’mon, this is Shark Week! — he comes face to toothsome face with a 12-footer. It’s neither the first nor the last...

Paul de Gelder has every reason to steer clear of the ocean. In 2009, the former daredevil Navy clearance diver was attacked by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor. He lost his right arm and leg in the process. Images of reenactments, which have become synonymous with Shark Week, are likely filling your head right about now. This, however, is not an attack story.

Saturday, de Gelder will return to the water, this time with great white sharks, to investigate a spike in deadly shark attacks in Australia for Great White Matrix. De Gelder, who had never seen a great white shark until making this program,...

What's shark for 'Say Cheese'? Andy Casagrande should know. The filmmaker's work has been featured in 27 Shark Week specials - this year alone he took part in Air Jaws: Fin of Fury, Lair of the Mega Shark, Zombie Sharks and last but not least, Great White Matrix, which airs Aug. 16. With all of this experience under his camera strap, we choose to believe him when he tells EW.com that sharks do smile for his camera."They've got this avalanche of razor blades that they call their mouth. To me, it looks like a smile," he says. "They're really muscle-y.

Shark Week is highly visual: Its name alone conjures up images of great white sharks breaching out of the sapphire blue waters of South Africa in slow motion. Between their impressive size and sleek design, sharks lend themselves to sight. They are the perfect subjects to be filmed, entirely photogenic.

This imagery grabbed hold of Andy Casagrande, now a long-time Shark Week filmmaker, at an early age—he grew up on Shark Week. “I’m so passionate about sharks, always have been,” Casagrande says. “I saw my first on television and never looked back.”

Today, Casagrande’s work has been featured in 27 Shark Week specials,...

Loyal Shark Week viewers have, in years past, seen reef sharks turn upside down and go near catatonic. It’s a state known as “tonic immobility,” and while the sharks appear to enjoy it, it also renders them unable to defend themselves. In the new special Zombie Sharks (premiering Aug. 13 at 9 p.m. Et on Discovery), professional diver Eli Martinez sets out to determine whether great whites can, like their reef brethren, also achieve tonic. If so, it could help support one theory about a recent spike in orca attacks on white sharks: killer whales may have learned how to induce the state.

He’s worked on Shark Week for more than two decades, but veteran filmmaker Jeff Kurr still experiences firsts. In Lair of the Mega Shark (premieres Aug. 12 at 10 p.m. Et on Discovery), Kurr and fellow shark expert/cameraman Andy Casagrande head to New Zealand to investigate the sightings of a 20-foot great white. As Kurr watches on a monitor aboard the boat, Casagrande and colleague Kina Scollay take part in the first-ever cage dive at night in those waters—where aggressive sharks are known to work in tandem as a gang. The resulting six-minute sequence could deliver the most...

As Shark Week begins Sunday, Aug. 10, so does viewers’ amazement at the titles of Discovery’s new specials. “We have brainstorm meetings for titles on every show, and I’m telling you, when a brainstorm meeting on the next car show comes up, you go to a conference room and there’s like four people in it,” Michael Sorensen, VP of development and production for the channel, says. “Anytime we have a Shark Week brainstorm for titles, you have to get more seats. It’s packed, people throwing out mash-ups: One of my favorites that came out of one of these meetings was Sharkcano.

This year marked the 25th anniversary of Discovery’s Shark Week. In a two-part interview originally published over the summer, Emmy-winning wildlife cameraman and apex predator expert Andy Casagrande, who’s worked on 13 Shark Week specials, told us how he’s able to free-dive with great whites, what we should do if we find ourselves swimming with a curious one (swim toward it?!), why he was once chased to the surface by a 10-footer, and how he managed to capture “The Impossible Shot.” For more stories behind this year’s top TV and movie moments, click here for EW.com...

Last night, Discovery counted down its top 25 ‘Best Bites,’ or camera shots, of all time. No. 1 on that list: The aerial view of a great white’s Polaris breach in South Africa dubbed “The Impossible Shot” in a special that kicked off this year’s 25th anniversary Shark Week last Sunday. This shot was more than just cool: It offers a possible theory as to why roughly 50 percent of seals are believed to escape that kind of ambush attack — they’re the lucky ones who see the flash of a shark’s white chin beneath them before the great white breaks the surface.

Tonight, Discovery counts down Shark Week’s 25 Best Bites (10 p.m. Et), and Emmy-winning wildlife cameraman and apex predator expert Andy Casagrande, who’s worked on 13 Shark Week specials, will have been involved in at least two of them. Here, he tells us how he’s able to free-dive with great whites, what we should do if we find ourselves swimming with a curious one (swim toward it?!), and the story of why he was once chased to the surface by a 10-footer.

Entertainment Weekly: You’re known for getting outside the cage with great whites so you can capture...

After his final Olympic swim, Michael Phelps said his retirement plans include perfecting his golf game — which he’s since signed a deal to do on-camera with the help of Tiger Woods’ former swing coach Hank Haney for the Golf Channel reality series The Haney Project — and swimming with great white sharks in South Africa. If you were thinking Shark Week 2013, you weren’t the only one. “We’d love to get the two most powerful water superstars together,” Eileen O’Neill, group president of Discovery and TLC, tells EW. And there’s at least one veteran Shark Week filmmaker...