Nutopia for National Geographic, Hulu and Disney+

Editors: Matt Lowe, Jayesh Lathia, Duncan Hill, Jamie Williams, Felix Black, Phil Bowman and Dom Lester.

Exciting! The Pole to Pole with Will Smith trailer has dropped!

This high-end natural history documentary series follows Will Smith as he leads viewers on an astounding journey from the bottom of the planet to its top covering 26,000 miles from the South Pole to the North Pole. From polar ice, desert, jungle, mountain, savannah and swamp, Smith and his film crew stay with local communities and experience first-hand what it is like to live in some of the most amazing and extreme landscapes on the planet. We spoke to some of the editors who worked on the series:

Jayesh Lathia told us ” It was eye opening to work on the Pole to Pole episode in which Will Smith travels to the pacific to learn about an island threatened by rising sea levels. Crafting Will’s empathy for the islanders was front and centre of the edit as well as his epic journey travelling around a spectacular island which was a visual feast!”.

Phil Bowman said “It was great to be back with the Nutopia team for Pole to Pole. Being a small part of this massive series was an exciting challenge, balancing the epic scope of the journey with the personal stories at its heart.”

Felix Black who edited episode 6 said “I’ve had the privilege to edit across two Will Smith series for Nutopia, and these projects are remarkable for where they take you as an editor. Will Smith has led us to fantastical worlds and characters through his movies, but now he leads us to explore places and elements of our planet that sometimes seem hidden or even unreal. And that pushes you as a storyteller within the edit even further, for these series not only challenge our understanding of our own world, but also us and our place within it. It’s an extraordinary feat from the whole team involved that the audience can witness Will Smith discovering both places and peoples that encourage him to look deep within himself not only as a fellow human being, but perhaps even into his very soul.”

Jamie Williams said ” Pole to Pole was a fascinating challenge. The episode I worked on – Papua New Guinea – focused on the lives of small island communities and the environmental dangers they face. The challenge in the edit was finding the delicate balance between the physical threats to these communities alongside the much deeper, nuanced danger to their history and way of being. I really enjoyed finding that tonal balance on one hand, the episode acts as an adventure across open waters on a tiny boat. But on the other, it unravels these complicated  and emotional threads about how our shared identity through tools like language make us who we truly are. On the whole, the episode ends up being a surprisingly moving insight into how the modern world effects every inch of life around the planet”.

Well done to the team of editors who helped shape this epic journey. Roll on 13th January so we can watch this incredible new series!

Pole to Pole with Will Smith premieres 13^th January on Nat Geo and streaming on Disney Plus  and Hulu the next day.