UNDERDOGS, premiering June 15 on National Geographic and streaming June 16 on Disney+ and Hulu, is a new nature series narrated by Ryan Reynolds that offers a fresh, comedic perspective on the animal kingdom’s overlooked survivors. Field Director and Assistant Producer Douglas Parker, known for capturing rare wildlife moments in extreme environments, takes viewers deep into the hidden lives of nature’s most unconventional creatures.
We had the chance to interview Parker, who reveals the innovative filming techniques and storytelling approach that make UNDERDOGS a truly unique and immersive experience.
Innovation & Tech Today: While watching UNDERDOGS, I saw how it flipped the traditional wildlife documentary on its head. It’s not typically how nature films are approached. What was your initial reaction to the tone and concept of the series?
Douglas Parker: Yes, UNDERDOGS is definitely a new way of looking at wildlife. It’s a completely different spin on something we all love and know, and that comes about through this partnership between Maximum Effort, Ryan Reynolds’ comedy genius, and Wildstar’s natural history film pedigree. It’s very rare that I watch something this engaging but also genuinely laugh-out-loud funny. It shows these animals in a way they haven’t been shown before, and I hope it brings a much wider audience to a brilliant genre.
I&T Today: You just mentioned how it shows a different side of these animals. How do you strike the balance between capturing authentic animal behavior while also crafting a narrative that supports the show’s humorous tone?
Parker: Well, for me, I’m the field director. I’m the guy who’s sent to the middle of nowhere—the most remote corners of the natural world—to try and capture these things. With a series like this, everything is factually correct. All the behaviors you see are natural. Bringing in the comedy element and tech is key to that. Most importantly, it’s about getting down to the animals’ eye line, into their world, and immersing the viewer in that world. You do that with the tech.
Take the elephant seal sequence, for example. You’ve got a young male sneaking through a colony, trying to avoid being seen by the larger, dominant bull elephant seal. What we did was mount a RED cinema camera on an M1 gimbal—you usually see that kind of equipment hanging under a helicopter for a Hollywood film. We paired that with the ATO motion-control buggy, which is effectively an electric remote-controlled car that can carry immense weight over unstable terrain.
That meant we could operate our cinema camera from 100 to 150 meters away, at the eye level of our sneaky male moving through the colony. It really brings the viewer into that male’s world—you really feel like you’re avoiding being seen. So we use the tech to make the world as immersive as we can. That allows people to empathize with the character, allowing us to bring in the comedy.
I&T Today: You mentioned some of the tech already, which I want to explore more. Did you use any other emerging technology to help shape the storytelling in this series?
Parker: We did dive into low-light tech for the glowworm sequence. The glowworm is the larval form of a fungus gnat, and it’s a predatory worm that lives in total darkness and hunts via bioluminescence that comes from its butt—which draws in flies flying through the cave system into mucus threads it dangles from its slime hammock, effectively. It’s in the episode called “Total Grossout,” if you can believe it.
For that sequence, we were filming an animal that lives in pitch black. The only light source in that cave was the glowworms’ own bioluminescence. We used A7S cameras and time lapses to capture the spectacle—they gather in their thousands, and it’s one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen in the natural world. But we also wanted to film the hunting technique, which you can’t do in time-lapse.
We realized that any white light in the cave would cause the glowworms to turn off for hours. So, to light the scene in a way that allowed us to film in slightly slow motion, we found a very specific wavelength of blue light that mimicked the glowworms’ natural glow. At just 1% intensity, the worms didn’t react. That allowed us to film this slow-motion hunt underground, and the result is brilliant.
I&T Today: I was amazed by how many different locations and animals you covered. How did you decide which animals and environments to feature?
Parker: Traditional wildlife documentaries have always focused on the big animals—the more obvious ones. Effectively, 1% of what we know in the animal kingdom has hogged the spotlight. We were looking past them for the unsung heroes, the vilified, the bizarre, the weird. There are so many creatures that haven’t had the spotlight.
When you start looking into what makes an underdog an underdog, there are so many angles: Are they the lowest-ranking? The weirdest-looking? Do they smell the worst? We really covered the globe. Our hope is that, no matter where you are, people will resonate with this series. It’ll connect with people across countries and cultures. By covering such a wide range of wildlife, we hope to bring in an even greater audience than we might have otherwise.
I&T Today: How did you collaborate with the cinematographers and editors to maintain that cinematic, superhero-style vibe the series has?
Parker: It’s really interesting. With a series like this, Ryan and his team at Maximum Effort are integral from the very beginning. UNDERDOGS isn’t UNDERDOGS without Ryan’s voice. It’s that combination of Deadpool and wildlife.
We brought the cinematographers in early, and they all watched the film—they knew exactly the vibe we were going for. Across the board, we hired the camera operators we knew were right for the job. We storyboarded and looked at different types of humor that we knew Ryan was capable of. It’s been a journey. Normally, you’d bring people in later, but in this series, everyone was involved from the beginning through to the edit.
In post-production, we explored different editing techniques. It really opened up new possibilities. These are things you wouldn’t normally do in a wildlife series. Then you bring in Maximum Effort’s environmental spin, and it takes it all in a completely new direction. It’s evolved into something fresh and exciting—and I think everyone loves it.
I&T Today: What do you hope viewers will take away from this series?
Parker: That’s a great question. I hope viewers realize that many nature stories have already been told in a certain way, but there is still so much more to uncover in the natural world. You may think you’ve seen it all—but you haven’t.
There are countless untold stories—so many unsung heroes, bizarre and weird characters with fascinating behaviors. It’s never the obvious story that’s the best. By focusing on the underdogs, we’ve uncovered new stories we didn’t even know existed. So, I guess the takeaway is: there’s always more to discover—and always more to uncover.
