Team biographies

Michael Gunton, Creative Director of Factual and The Natural History Unit for BBC Studios
Michael Gunton is the Creative Director of Factual and The Natural History Unit for BBC Studios. Within this role, Mike works as an executive producer on many BBC titles, acts as an ambassador for BBC Studios internationally, and is responsible for bringing new and pioneering stories about the natural world to global audiences.

Mike has worked on many critically acclaimed series including Galapagos, Yellowstone, Madagascar, Life, Africa, Shark, Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur and Life Story, and speaks internationally at media and scientific gatherings as an ambassador for Natural History filmmaking, the BBC and the natural world. Mike’s most recent series include the record breaking Planet Earth II (winner of four Baftas and two Emmys and believed to have been viewed by around one billion people) and in 2018 the groundbreaking animal behaviour series Dynasties.

Rupert Barrington, Series Producer
After graduating from Bristol University with a degree in Zoology Rupert started work with the BBC in 1987. His programmes have won awards around the world, including Royal Television Society, Jackson Hole, Missoula and Wildscreen. He has a passion for storytelling and innovation in wildlife film-making. He has made programme for various wildlife series including Alien Empire, Wildlife On One(Butterfly - Bauty Or The Beast), Natural World (Metropolis), Tales From The Riverbank (Carp - The fish Of Your Dreams), Life (Reptiles and Amphibians and Insects) and Africa (Sahara). As Series Producer he ran the natural history unit’s series for the millennium year, State Of The Planet, presented by David Attenborough. He was also the series producer of Life Story and Dynasties.

Paul Williams, Producer of Tropical Worlds and Desert Worlds

Paul Williams is a producer and director at the BBC Natural History Unit. Over the past 20 years he has filmed in more than 30 countries for high profile BBC series including Big Cats, Wonders Of The Monsoon, Life, Blue Planet II, Life In Cold Blood. Most recently he produced the Tropical and Deserts episodes of Green Planet. He loves to shine a light on peculiar and less familiar members of the natural world, and is always looking for creative ways to hack and develop technology with which to capture new visual insights.

Peter Bassett, Producer of Water Worlds

Peter is an award-winning producer of wildlife documentaries. Over the years he has worked with David Attenborough on a number of major series for the BBC, including Life In the Undergrowth, Life Of Birds, Nature’s Great Events and Life In The Freezer. He was a series producer on the groundbreaking Predators and Animal Camera and producer of the highly innovative Lion Battlefields. Peter is also a successful public speaker on natural history film-making and is an ambassador for the Wildfilm History Project (based at the University of Bristol).

Rosie Thomas, Producer of Seasonal Worlds

Rosie is an award-winning producer/director, who has worked at BBC Studios Natural History Unit for over 15 years. After studying at the Natural History Museum in London, Rosie worked in a number of different genres before joining the BBC to work on the behavioural series, Life, where she first delved into the world of plant behaviour. She has since worked on other productions including Africa, Monkey Planet and most recently produced Dynasties: Chimpanzee.

She has travelled all over the world filming a wide range of different animals, from Forest Elephants in Central Africa to Emperor Tamarins in Peru. Her greatest passion lies in storytelling and finding new and innovative ways to do this. Bringing the stories of Plants to the screen for The Green Planet: Seasonal Worlds, has been the toughest and yet most rewarding challenge so far.

Lis Oakham, Producer of Human Worlds

Elisabeth Oakham is a natural history producer / director and dual citizen of the UK and Canada. Over the last ten years she has worked on nature documentaries in Canada, the US, and the UK for a variety of broadcasters, including National Geographic, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the BBC and Netflix. She’s travelled the globe filming a range of plants and animals, including wolves in the Arctic, fosa in Madagascar, and now, holokea in Hawaii.

Before making films, she bummed around in tents for a while, dabbled in acting, and got a degree in the History of Science and Technology, and Biology at the University of King’s College, Halifax Nova Scotia.

Credits

Presenter and narrator David Attenborough

Executive Producer: Michael Gunton

Series Producer: Rupert Barrington

Producer: Peter Bassett, Elisabeth Oakham, Rosie Thomas, Paul Williams

Assistant Producer: Louis Rummer-Downing, Joseph Russell, Alistair Tones, Joe Tuck

Additional directing: Matthew Clements, Emma Napper

Production Manager: Melanie Hoffman

Head of Production: Maria Norman

Production Executive: Caroline Cox

Director of timelapse photography: Tim Shepherd

Timelapse photography: Todd Kewley, Jessica Mitchell, Jacob Cross, Richard Mann

Visual Engineer: Chris Field

Commissioning Editor for BBC: Jack Bootle