Leaning into murk

The producers of Blue Planet III have chosen to keep footage that looks less than polished - murkier water, boats and buoys left in shot - so audiences can be sure what they are watching is real photography rather than AI-generated imagery. Executive producer Elizabeth White said AI "makes us want to be even more authentic".

In the past, she said, the team would have framed out a boat or a buoy or murky water; now those elements stay in the frame. She added that the deep-ocean creatures filmed for the series "are probably more remarkable than AI could imagine and it's completely real". As AI booms, she said, the producers will probably lean more into the more organic, murkier footage.

No AI, says the BBC

At a press screening, BBC specialist factual commissioning head Jack Bootle told journalists: "No gen AI was used in this series. Not a single frame. It's all real photography."

Bootle also said the series is "bursting with novel behaviour", describing the present as a golden age of natural history-making at a time when people sometimes feel they have seen it all before. The David Attenborough-narrated series is made by BBC Studios' natural history unit.

New cameras and new behaviour

Filming lasted four years across five oceans, with series producer Lara Bickerton saying BBC Studios continually innovated along the way. The kit developed for the shoot included:

• The world's first underwater CCTV camera, dubbed "stonefish" cam, developed by producer and director Yoland Bosiger
• A "mini-dome" camera to follow an octopus and a "deep-sea selfie stick"
• Leg-mounted scooters for TikTok-style diving footage and lasers to film deep-sea creatures

That equipment captured behaviour including dolphins using sea sponges to block holes in coral to trap fish, grouper communicating with another fish species, 200,000 crabs lining up to feed, and sea urchins using shells as sun hats. The series also includes footage involving penguins that echoes the Planet Earth II 'iguana v snakes' sequence.

Ten years on

Blue Planet III arrives nearly a decade after Blue Planet II shone a light on plastic pollution, and 25 years after the first Blue Planet aired. White said the series addresses ocean threats and resilience, including the climate crisis killing off the sea where anemone clown fish live, as well as pollutants and forever chemicals.

Attenborough, who is 100 years old, was "very much involved" in the series and made changes to scripts, Bosiger said. White added: "What's wonderful is he hasn't lost his curiosity", noting he still gets excited seeing new footage.

Blue Planet III starts Sunday 1 November on BBC1 and iPlayer.