Behind the Scenes of Shark Week with Andy Casagrande

The phenomenon of Shark Week on The Discovery Channel is upon us! The annual event is one of the greatest weeks of television. Andy Casagrande, one of the principle cameramen relies on Hypercore battery packs in powering his cameras to acquire the footage for many of the shows aired.  We were lucky enough to get a glimpse into the production out in South Africa.

Andy has always been fascinated by sharks ever since he saw one as a kid, being first exposed to the creatures through television. He ended up moving to South Africa at 22 to join the White Shark Trust as a research cameraman. After a few years he was hired as a professional cameraman for Shark Week. Since then, he’s helped film and produce 33 different Shark Week specials from around the world. He’s been lucky to film a vast array of sharks in almost every ocean on the planet, but his favorite is the Great Whites in South Africa.

In order to get all of the footage needed, Andy always finds himself constantly traveling to different parts of the world; Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and more for weeks at a time. A typical day of filming starts before sunset, prime time to document Great White Sharks hunting seals.  He relies on the Phantom Flex 4K, RED Epics, and GoPro’s to capture the animals in their native habitat. To power those cameras, Andy uses Hypercore-98S with a hotswap adapter plate to make sure he never runs out of power. Once he goes underwater, he needs to make sure he has enough power to never miss a shot. Since he travels all over the world, it’s important to him that the batteries are air-travel friendly, reliable and rugged which are all characteristics of Hypercore 98s.
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Depending on the Shark Week project, the film crews vary from 3 people to 20 people. Andy prefers to have a “lean and mean” smaller crew to get the most out of his time filming in the field. His ideal crew is one underwater cameraman, one topside cameraman and logger who he refers to as a  “data-monkey.“:)

Even though sharks are dangerous creatures, they are simply just predators trying to survive. Andy has been shark diving for over a decade, both caged and uncaged, and has never been bit by a shark. He stated “sharks are very misunderstood and their bad reputation is unwarranted.” To help inspire people to care more about sharks and their survival, Shark Week is revamping their programming this year to include more science and conservation.

Make sure to tune in when Shark Week starts July 5th on Discovery Channel. We can’t wait!

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