Behind the lens with Andy Casagrande

Great white sharks have been getting a bad rep of late, with a reported increase in attacks around the beaches of South Africa causing many a surfer to take up skateboarding. So why would anyone want to get out of a perfectly good cage and voluntarily free-dive with man’s most feared adversary? For award-winning National Geographic cinematographer Andy Casagrande, it is just another day at the office.

The likeable American has done it all: filming the great migrations, close encounters with deadly predators – taking him from the freezer of the Arctic to the sauna of the Serengeti, going face to face with king cobras and crocs, and hanging out of helicopters.

For National Geographic Channel’s Great Migrations series, he was instrumental in telling the compelling stories of the migrations of zebra and his beloved great white shark.

Casagrande’s outstanding work can be seen in numerous National Geographic television programmes and series including Africa’s Lost Eden, Superpride, Hunter Hunted, Planet Carnivore, National Geographic Explorer: Ultimate Shark, Wild: Serpent King, Darwin’s Secret Notebooks, and Killer Shots.

Love at first sight

He was born with a love for great white sharks, growing up watching his favourite predators on television, which opened his eyes to the world of wildlife. All he could think about at that stage were toothy sharks – not like the rest of humanity, who viewed these predators as animals to avoid at all costs, particularly after the movie, Jaws.

Casagrande tells Leadership: “I was kind of born this way: ever since I was a kid, I was always fascinated with sharks on the television. I went to college and studied biology and physiology, ending up getting a job in Silicon Valley; the money was good, but the lifestyle was crap.

“All I was doing at my desk was Googling about great whites and interesting shark behaviour. I ended up finding a research team out here in South Africa.

“Because I was so passionate about the sharks, I ended up writing ‘The Great White Shark Song’, and sent that to research teams all over the world, but the only one that seemed interested was the White Shark Trust in South Africa, which said the song was funny and educational – offering me an unpaid position as a photographer. So that’s how I got my start with wildlife photography,” he adds.

(For anyone who has not heard Casagrande’s song, it is well worth checking out on YouTube.)

It did not take long for the multi-talented maverick to start making waves in the tightly knit wildlife community.

National Geographic break

Casagrande continues, “After two years of that, we were doing dorsal fin identification to find out how many sharks were left in South Africa. After a while, National Geographic came out to see what we were doing with the White Shark Trust. After the filming, they were so impressed with my passion for the sharks that they offered me a staff position in Washington, DC.

“So I moved back to DC, but wasn’t a big fan of the US capital – politician central. The real land sharks live there, but my ones were back in South Africa. Thankfully, National Geographic continued to send me around the world to film all the apex predators like lions, crocs, cheetahs, hyenas in Africa, polar bears in the Arctic, king cobras in India and orcas in Patagonia – you name it, any top predator.

“I don’t really like working with people,” admits Casagrande, who is more than comfortable in his own company. Which is probably a good thing, considering he spends up to three months at a time filming in uncharted places.

Landing a job at National Geographic made Casagrande’s boyhood dreams come true – far from the 9-to-5 of the urban grind. He explains, “It’s unreal. Geographic is renowned as the top cinematographer group in the world, particularly with wildlife, and the opportunities they presented to me were a fairy tale. I mean, really, ‘You want to send me to the Falkland Islands to film elephant seals fighting and albatross mating, and the orcas stranding themselves on the beach, trying to catch sea lions
in Patagonia?’”

You need big stones to do what Casagrande does. He does not sit atop a hill with a long lens, simply hoping for the best. He is normally no more than seven metres away from the killing zone – a feat requiring military stealth and camouflage. He explains, “As a cameraman, you want to be as undetected as possible without disturbing their natural behaviour, especially during hunting. You’re literally right down on the beach, seven metres from impact zone. You wear neutral colour tones, like a military commando hanging out. The only difference is I have swopped an AK-47 for a camera.”

Critical acclaim

He was nominated for a prestigious Emmy Award this year for his work on the Great Migrations series. So what separates him from the pack, when it comes to the best of the best in the cinematography world?

Casagrande says, “I wouldn’t consider myself to be the best cameraman in the world, but I have the most passion for predators. I hate to see the greed and neglect of wildlife by humans – shark fin soup and all these horrible things. Being so passionate, I’m able to take new technology and show different sides of these predators.

“The coolest thing for me is sitting in a Land Rover for three months and filming things that no one else will see unless I capture it. I can broadcast that to the world, to some little kid or adult who will never leave their hometown, and let them live vicariously through me.”

That which you see on the 60-minute episode of his creation is a mere drop in the ocean of the time and effort that goes into each instalment.

“It’s not as glamorous as it seems,” he insists. “When you’re sitting in a Land Rover, sweating bullets in 40-degree heat, with flies biting you, looking at a small LCD that’s an inch big, it’s tough. You can’t just sit back and watch; you need to focus all the time to get the best possible image for the folks at home.”

Hunger for the chase

Being so close to the action, with life and death happening right in front of his eyes, in the early days it took a while for even the ice-cool American to drop his heart rate for the optimal shooting experience. “My biggest challenge when I first got into filming was to not become emotionally involved. When I saw a lion taking down a buffalo, my hands would literally be shaking, and the camera starts shaking. I realised that I needed to remain calm to capture the epic sequence.”

True to his childhood bond with great whites, Casagrande has a most intrinsic mutual understanding with the fiercest killers of the deep.

“The great white sharks are a favourite of mine; and since I’ve studied them for so long, I feel like we have a common agreement that if I don’t bite you, you won’t eat me. Having said that, all sharks have different personalities, so if I’m in the water with an aggressive shark, I normally get back into the boat,” he says.

“Other times, I get in the water with a big five-metre female, and all she wants to do is rub up against my camera, swim around me.

“Some people may think I’m crazy, but I’ve done over 100 free dives in California, Mexico and South Africa – they’re amazing. I’m more scared of crazy people than I am of sharks,” Casagrande jokes.

Beware the brawler

The likable Yank compares great white sharks to a night at the pub: “If you see a guy walking into a pub with a black eye and bloody knuckles, you won’t go shove a camera in his face. It’s the same with sharks: if it looks like a fighter, with scars on the face and body, then you want to leave it well alone.

“They’re intelligent creatures, so they automatically know that you are not something they’d normally eat.” Having said that, Cape Town has some of the murkiest waters, with two- to three-metre visibility at the best of times. No wonder humans are mistaken for prey.

“If the visibility is bad, then it’s a different story”, Casagrande clarifies, “because if you’re swimming in an area that they hunt in, they may mistake you for a seal or turtle. You can’t fault the shark; it sees a silhouette and thinks you’re prey. It bites first and asks questions later, so you really don’t want to let the shark get that first bite because sometimes that’ll be the last!

“Amazingly, the bigger the shark, the more easier it is to film outside of the cage. The small sharks are almost like little puppy dogs – new to the world. Not necessarily aggressive, but in an inquisitive way,” he insists.

The holy grail

One would think Casagrande has seen it all, with a lifetime of study into the behaviour of sharks. But there is a holy grail in all professions. French rugby players dream of an elusive World Cup winner’s medal, while scientists search for a cancer cure. For a wildlife cinematographer, it would be witnessing a shark mating or giving birth.

He admits, “That is the holy grail, the cream of the crop for any cameraman. Hopefully within my lifetime, but that’s really far-fetched. These creatures are so perfect that they’ve not needed to evolve for millions of years, so they’re very secretive about their lifestyle, and prefer to ‘pull the curtains’.”

Casagrande’s family was sceptical of his career choice early on, after leaving a lucrative job in Silicon Valley for a then unpaid research position in South Africa. He would be entering a seemingly deadly profession, leaving them to wonder if he would return after every shoot.

He reflects, “At first, they didn’t know if I’d be coming back. When I went to shoot a king cobra or grizzly bear, they thought that’d be the last time they’d see me. Over the years, they’ve realised I’ve learnt a lot about these predators: how to get close without getting eaten.”

With years of top-class filmmaking behind him, what stands out as Casagrande’s favourite sequence of shots? Surprisingly, it was not the famed great white devouring a seal, nor the polar bear creeping up on an unsuspecting prey.

He relates: “A big zebra in Serengeti was trying to trample a cheetah cub, which I shot in slow motion. Usually I’m trying to get the kill and want the predator to take down the prey and get an epic sequence. This was the opposite, and an amazing sequence where the cheetah escaped and survived. Then you realise how fragile even the predators are. It wasn’t the big kill moment that I’m used to, but a moment of survival.”

Shifting migration patterns

On a more serious note, Casagrande is perfectly placed to comment on changes in migration patterns that have been caused by global warming, deforestation and human mismanagement. For him, it is his business to know exactly when to expect each particular animal at a particular location.

“Migration patterns, especially with wildlife, have changed over the past decade because of climate change, habitat destruction and the general mayhem that humans create. Filming Great Migrations was a big challenge because traditional migration seasons, routes and elements were turned on their head. There were times when the wildebeest were supposed to be crossing the Mara (River, in the Serengeti) at this time, but went back; or the butterfly migration in Mexico was totally off the calendar.”

On a more positive note, the seasoned vet rates South Africa as his favourite filming destination, with a mix of apex predators and high-class talent available here. “South Africa is my favourite country in the world to film wildlife because you have plenty of sharks, lions and hyenas, together with a bunch of filmmakers who are eager to get out there, and hip to the new technology.”

Recently, the camera was turned in the other direction when Casagrande hosted National Geographic’s Killer Shots. “Killer Shots is a behind-the-scenes look at a wildlife filmmaker’s life – the good and bad – and the fact that it’s not as glamorous as you think; but if you’re patient, you can get that killer shot.

“It was a bit weird having the camera swung around on me, but I had a lot of fun,” he adds.

Survival tips

Finally, the question that Casagrande gets asked the most: what is the best thing to do if you come face to face with a great white shark?

“It really depends on the species, but remain calm,” he says. “If you act like prey, it will treat you like prey.

“If it does come in aggressively, the most vulnerable place is the eyes and gills. Many people think punching a shark in the nose is the best thing to do. But right under the nose is its teeth, and under water it’s magnified – so if you swing at its nose, it’s really easy to misjudge, ending up sticking your hand right in its mouth!

“If sharks really viewed humans as a viable food source, we’d be f****d. They’d be eating us every day. Less than five people a year die from shark attacks. Thousands of people are dying from other things like faulty toasters and chairs,” concludes Casagrande. 

Gregory Simpson

Photographs: Andy Casagrande IV, National Geographic