Cinematographer Luke Cormack swims with the sharks to capture crazy “magic” moments on NatGeo’s David Blaine Do Not Attempt.
Like the man himself, NatGeo’s David Blaine Do Not Attempt is a pretty unique show, to say the least. Cinematographer Luke Cormack agrees. Blaine’s originality is why they’re doing the show in the first place.
“I just remember that moment where we were with the sisters diving off that bridge [in the “Brazil” episode], and he just turned and said, ‘What I’ve been wanting to do since I was a child is light myself on fire and jump off the bridge.’ Okay, man. Let’s do it.”
The series takes Blaine and his crew across 9 countries and was filmed over three calendar years, all in a search for “magic” moments like kissing a king cobra snake, and yes, jumping off a bridge with your head on fire.
Cormack says he uses his own trick to capture some of the best moments in the series.
“A lot of the time we would actually pretend to stop rolling, and then you just change your body language a little bit. Like, you look away from the viewfinder. You step away and everyone’s guard goes down. As soon as we did that, you’re like, that’s gold. So that’s what we’re doing is we’re trying to keep it spontaneous and then like a true intimate verite.”
However, with the “Brazil” scene where Blaine comes upon walker on the slack rope, he definitely had to make sure the camera was rolling for this one, as it required a lot of preparation and attention to detail, even if it still feels unprompted.
“I really wanted the shot of Bernardo and David silhouetted and then just this tiny little figure above the whole favela. But to coordinate that was nuts because you’re in the favela. You’re not stopping David. You just saying go.”
So they had one camera on Blaine and Bernardo, another to catch the primo angle of the silhouettes, and then another one and a drone on Rafael (the walker), all of it happening organically.
“And then we’ve got to know exactly when to cue Rafael, so he gets to that spot, and he can be there.”
Blaine walks up to Rafael and goes, “Wow,” but so many things went on behind the scenes to make that moment pop.
“I Do Underwater; Give Me Sharks Any Day”
Unsurprisingly, following around Blaine on these adventures is not for the faint of heart. Some DPs will jump out of planes with him (the one injured in the “Arctic Circle” episode), but Cormack prefers being underwater.
“I do underwater; give me sharks any day. No problem. Sharks are great. It’s just an incredibly different world down there. When you’re going with the sharks, we were doing it with Walter, who’s the sort of shark whisperer. He was trying, or he did put the sharks into a tonic immobility (where they are temporarily immobile or unresponsive).”
Cormack describes tonic immobility as almost like “shaking hands” with the sharks as they come through.
“You grab their pectoral fin, and depending on how they react to you, they either shake you off or they let you grab them, and then you can hold on to them and then you twist it, and then you reach over, and you grab the dorsal fin, and you flip them over.”
And then the shark basically “chills out” while they go in and remove stuff like fish and fishing hooks from their mouths.
“It’s a really important thing that he’s doing for the environment and for sharks.”
You Hit Record and Wait for the Moment
But Cormack draws the line at snakes. In the “Southeast Asia” episode, Blaine attempts to kiss a king Cobra, and Cormack wasn’t about to try it himself (“It’s some stupid headline. ‘Cameraman gets bit in the face'”). However, Cormack did manage to capture Blaine’s big smooch with the venomous creature.
“There is a trust that you have to have with that animal as well. You know, you’re letting yourself go and whatever’s going to happen is going to happen. I have to ride this out and go with my gut. When you’re up in that King Cobra’s face like that, it’s like, well now I cannot move. I cannot get away. That is the crazy part where you just have to totally trust. And that’s where you lean in for that kiss. You make sure you’re all good, and then you just, you know, hit record and you just wait for that moment.”
David Blaine Do Not Attempt is streaming on Disney+.
