{"id":557713,"date":"2026-04-01T06:38:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T06:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557713\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T06:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T06:38:16","slug":"a-closer-look-at-the-beautiful-macro-cinematography-in-secrets-of-the-bees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/557713\/","title":{"rendered":"A Closer Look at the Beautiful Macro Cinematography in ‘Secrets of the Bees’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\u2028As its name suggests, National Geographic\u2018s new two-part documentary series, \u201cSecrets of the Bees,\u201d turns the lens toward one of Earth\u2019s most important inhabitants: bees. The series is fascinating, full of interesting information and science about bees, but also replete with exceptional cinematography. The miniseries has many fantastic close-up shots of bees, unlike anything captured before.<\/p>\n

The Cinematography of \u2018Secrets of the Bees\u2019 <\/p>\n

PetaPixel sat down with wildlife filmmaker John Brown<\/a>, who is also an outstanding photographer<\/a>, to discuss Brown\u2019s work on \u201cSecrets of the Bees.\u201d The series features two principal photographers, Brown and the esteemed and influential wildlife filmmaker Alastair MacEwen. Sadly, MacEwen recently passed away, but his impact is felt through \u201cSecrets of the Bees\u201d and a very impressive filmography<\/a> of great nature documentaries. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAlastair did most of the honeybee filming, and I did most of the overseas, other bees,\u201d Brown tells PetaPixel. This means Brown shot the Japanese hornet and honeybees, fire bees, vulture bees, and Dawson\u2019s burrowing bee. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of my heroes,\u201d Brown says of his late friend and colleague, Alastair MacEwen. \u201cI think he was a hero to everyone in the industry. I mean, he set standards to which we all aspire. He was extremely passionate and intelligent and curious and just that sort of sense of wonder that never stopped. So he never stopped developing new bits of equipment. He never sat back on his laurels and all intrinsically driven.\u201d <\/p>\n

While MacEwen\u2019s passing is very sad, Brown remarks that the outpouring of love and support for MacEwen and his lifetime of work has been wonderful. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just an extraordinary person, a wonderful, extraordinary person,\u201d Brown says. <\/p>\n

\"AJohn Brown, camera operator, filming fire bee (Oxytrigona tataira)sequence. (credit: National Geographic\/Javier Aznar Gonz\u00e1lez de Rueda) Multiple \u2018World\u2019s Firsts\u2019 <\/p>\n

For his part on \u201cSecrets of the Bees,\u201d Brown captured many incredible shots, including rare and rarely discussed bees, such as vulture bees in South America. Also known as carrion bees, this group of just three stingless bees feeds on rotting meat. <\/p>\n

\"Close-upA Varroa mite latched onto the back of a young honeybee worker. (credit: National Geographic) <\/p>\n

Brown is particularly proud of his work capturing Japanese bees defending their hive against a relatively massive, deadly Asian giant hornet, also known as a Japanese giant hornet. It\u2019s a spectacular visual sequence and one of numerous scientific world\u2019s firsts featured in \u201cSecrets of the Bees,\u201d which also includes the world\u2019s first footage of a broomstick bee in flight, the first shot of a vulture bee nest, and the world\u2019s first footage of honeybees defending themselves against a varroa mite invasion. <\/p>\n

\"Close-upA Varroa mite parasite viewed from underneath waiting for a bee to latch on. (credit: National Geographic) <\/p>\n

The spectacular shots showcased in \u201cSecrets of the Bees\u201d required significant time and effort to capture. As Brown explains, when doing macro video work, everything must be very precise. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny because I\u2019ve made films about tigers and chimpanzees and the kind of filming day where you\u2019d be out from three in the morning to 10 o\u2019clock at night, carrying half your body weight, but nothing is more tiring than trying to do this kind of macro work. It\u2019s this kind of mental drain. It\u2019s like doing neurosurgery. It\u2019s that sort of incredible focus for just hours on end with a subject that doesn\u2019t take direction that it\u2019s going to do what it\u2019s going to do,\u201d Brown says. <\/p>\n

\"Close-upAsian Honeybee bee worker smears the front of the hive with leaf fragment. (credit: National Geographic) \"Close-upAlert Asian honeybee workers at the entrance of their hive. (credit: National Geographic) \"AAsian giant Hornet portait at the entrance of an Asian honeybee hive. (credit: National Geographic) Macro Wildlife Filmmaking Is the Domain of Extreme Precision <\/p>\n

He developed a special system that lets him control his camera in three-dimensional space with extreme precision, which he says he used for about 90% of his shots in \u201cSecrets of the Bees.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you are looking at a screen, you are moving the camera in two axes and panning and tilting and then focusing with your left hand. It\u2019s almost like your entire processing bandwidth is being deployed to try and just keep these subjects in focus,\u201d Brown explains. <\/p>\n

\"AMale Dawson\u2019s bees waiting for a female Dawson bee to come out of the burrow. (credit: National Geographic)<\/p>\n

The filmmaker continues, saying that beyond the technical challenges, there are also significant artistic ones. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re always having to think two or three shots in advance because you\u2019re trying to tell a story. It\u2019s not enough just to get one beautiful shot. You have to think what is going to be sufficient for the editor to tell a compelling story out of this sort of behavior that you\u2019re seeing in front of you,\u201d Brown says. <\/p>\n

\"AQueen Honeybee surrounded by busy workers. (credit: National Geographic) <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I absolutely love it, but you\u2019re so trashed at the end of the day, even though you\u2019ve done nothing physical,\u201d he laughs. <\/p>\n

For the vulture bee shots in particular, Brown was \u201csitting in a swamp for three weeks and getting bitten by stuff.\u201d It was also raining the entire time. While the biggest challenges may be mental, there is also a significant physical strain to wildlife cinematography. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I find it really rewarding,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n

\"Close-upJapanese honey bees (Apis cerana japonica) flying towards bee hive. (credit: National Geographic\/Alex Wickens)<\/p>\n

His favorite sequence from \u201cSecrets of the Bees,\u201d which comprised about eight months of shooting spread out over a year and a half, was filming Japanese honeybees fighting off a Japanese giant hornet. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think it worked really well. I think everything about the grade, it looked beautiful, the lighting worked, the behavior is just fantastic,\u201d Brown says of the Japanese bee sequence. \u201cYou\u2019re just there at the right time and the behavior plays out. It\u2019s beautiful. And then this particular behavior of the bees going off and grabbing aromatic plant leaves and rubbing out the pheromone marks of the Hornets, which we\u2019d read about, but no one had filmed it before. So just to be there and see that was just \u2014 and I love Japan, and it was just a great team. It was a deeply satisfying sort of process that when you have shoots like that, it\u2019s just magic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA Male Wool Carder bee hovering in amongst lamb\u2019s ears plants. (credit: National Geographic) Scale in Macro Filmmaking <\/p>\n

Given Brown\u2019s extensive experience filming large animals, it\u2019s interesting to hear how his approach to macro filmmaking differs. Or, rather, how similar it can be, even when the subjects are a tiny fraction of the size of a tiger or chimpanzee. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really try and avoid the kind of bug\u2019s eye view perspective,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI want the bees, or whatever it is, ants, etc., to feel as engaging as if I was filming a human character. I really want to aesthetically be as respectful to these tiny subjects as I would be to something larger, and that really informs a lot of how I approach things. So it\u2019s often not about really dramatic camera moves. It\u2019s about the kind of subtle moves that you would see in a feature film.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Close-upDetail of honey in cells on honeycomb. (credit: National Geographic) \"AHoney bee helping another honey bee emerge from a honeycomb hole. (credit: National Geographic\/Bertie Gregory)
\n \"ABumble bee passes nectar from her fore legs to hind legs. (credit: National Geographic) <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think the big challenge is if you\u2019re filming something the scale of a chimpanzee, similar to a human, you don\u2019t really have to worry about depth of field issues. You\u2019re not really fighting physics, but when you\u2019re filming something like the vulture bees, the entire bee was about the size of a honeybee\u2019s head. So you\u2019re working with something that\u2019s two or three millimeters long, absolutely tiny, but you still want to get the character of that creature across,\u201d Brown says. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re really fighting against physics. You\u2019re fighting against just the way that photons move through glass. And I think that\u2019s one of the biggest, is knowing that sweet spot where you\u2019re getting enough magnification so you can see detail, but you\u2019re not pushing it too far that things feel a bit distorted and soft, if that makes sense.\u201d <\/p>\n

For many macro shots, Brown\u2019s go-to lenses are the latest Laowa Pro2be macro lenses, including the 24mm and 35mm macro probe lenses. <\/p>\n

\"ThreeCredit: Venus Optics <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really fantastic,\u201d Brown says. <\/p>\n

These wide-angle macro lenses deliver a very different look than more traditional, longer macro lenses. With a wide-angle field of view, Brown can preserve a strong sense of scale so that tiny subjects really are small in the frame, allowing the viewer to see their environment while the subject remains detailed. He estimates that about 60 to 70 percent of what he shot was using Laowa Macro Probe lenses. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a filmmaker, you\u2019re trying to create these \u2018aha\u2019 moments in the viewer\u2019s mind. And if you come quite wide and the viewers had to work a bit to find the subject in the frame, I think that\u2019s just a nice viewing sort of sensation, if that makes sense.\u201d <\/p>\n

Although it may seem strange at first, Brown believes it\u2019s important that even macro shots don\u2019t get too close. <\/p>\n

\"AAn Asian honeybee swarm balling a Giant Hornet that has managed to get inside their hive. (credit: National Geographic) <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re telling a character-driven story, the close-up can break the spell slightly because that\u2019s not how we see the world as humans. We\u2019re kind of reading a bigger picture of what\u2019s in front of us. It\u2019s slightly counterintuitive because I think macro is often seen as a discipline that\u2019s all about the closeup. But over the years, I\u2019ve realized that actually it\u2019s a discipline about wide shots.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018Secrets of the Bees\u2019 Premieres Tonight, March 31 <\/p>\n

\u201cSecrets of the Bees\u201d premieres tonight, March 31, on National Geographic at 8 PM, 7 PM central. It will be available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ starting tomorrow, April 1. <\/p>\n

While this is not a review, the two-part series is a fantastic watch for all nature fans. For even more Emmy Award-winning enjoyment, prior installments in the \u201cSecrets of\u201d franchise, including \u201cSecrets of the Whales,\u201d \u201cSecrets of the Elephants,\u201d and \u201cSecrets of the Octopus,\u201d are available to stream now. <\/p>\n

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