OM DENNE EPISODE
It's Shark Week season again, and Andrew Lewin and Dr. David Ebert are joined for the third year running by Jesse Colaizzi, an award-winning television documentary producer, senior editor, and director of photography who works closely with Forrest Galante. Jesse pulls back the curtain on how a Shark Week episode actually comes together, from scouting locations to the final cut.
Jesse joins the show remotely from Gujarat, India, where he is showrunning and editing Vantara's Sanctuary Stories, before turning to his newest project, Alien Sharks: Untamed America, premiering Wednesday, July 29th on Discovery. Built around America's 250th anniversary, the episode traces a journey across the country in search of cryptic and lesser known sharks, including white sharks off Diablo Canyon, a California horn shark, a swell shark located after months of searching, a guitar fish, bonnethead sharks, a swarm of blacktip sharks, a rediscovered tagged sawfish with researcher Dean Grubbs, and a basking shark in Cape Cod Harbor.
Along the way, Jesse and the hosts dig into what editors notice that scientists and viewers often miss: coordinated hunting behavior in sharks, how white sharks react to a drone's shadow on the water, the technical tricks used to slow down fast-moving animals on camera, and how years of watching raw footage trained Jesse to read animal behavior the way a birder reads bird behavior. Jesse also shares stories from filming rescued and rehabilitated animals in India, the discipline it takes to run multiple shows at once, and why this year's episode leans into American wildlife, from bison to elk to the Statue of Liberty, rather than the usual landmarks.
Key Takeaways- Jesse Colaizzi is an award-winning producer, senior editor, and director of photography who works with Forrest Galante on Shark Week and Discovery Channel programming, including Extinct or Alive and Alien Sharks.
- Alien Sharks: Untamed America premieres Wednesday, July 29th and is built around an America 250 theme, spotlighting cryptic and lesser-known native sharks across the country.
- The team tracked white sharks, a California horn shark, leopard sharks, a swell shark, a guitar fish, bonnethead sharks, blacktip sharks, a sawfish tagged in partnership with researcher Dean Grubbs, and a basking shark in Cape Cod Harbor.
- Editors and camera crews rely on subtle behavioral cues, frame rate tricks, and instinct to capture usable footage of fast-moving, unpredictable animals in the wild.
- White sharks have been observed reacting to the shadow of a filming drone, a small but telling example of how visual and behavioral cues shape what ends up on screen.
- Sharks display coordinated group behavior when hunting, echoing patterns Dr. David Ebert has documented in his own research on pack hunting.
- Jesse is currently based in Gujarat, India, working on Vantara's Sanctuary Stories, a series focused on rescued and rehabilitated animals and the conditioning process used to care for them.
- This year's episode centers the Statue of Liberty and iconic American wildlife such as bison and elk instead of typical landmark imagery, offering a nature-first take on the America 250 theme.
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