Fighter Jets Help Capture America The Beautiful

Greg Wilson and His Cinematography Team Used Unprecedented Techniques to Bring the Latest Disney+ Nature Documentary to Viewers.

- By Aron Vaughan

Cinematographer Greg Wilson has been a part of some major projects in the last few years, including the award-winning documentary Zion, and the Netflix film Amateur. Most recently, he took to the skies as the aerial cinematographer for the National Geographic series, America the Beautiful, a six-part documentary series streaming now on Disney+.

Wilson captured the diverse and mesmerizing landscape of North America from thousands of feet in the air to help viewers get an unprecedented look at the vast ecosystems, flora and fauna of the continent. Narrated by Michael B. Jordan of Creed and Black Panther fame, the documentary series rolled out just in time for Independence Day.

America the Beautiful is the first natural history series to place cinema-grade cameras on fighter jets, revealing rich and textured worlds that are unique to the continent. The jet-mounted cameras show how America’s landscapes fit together and shape one another: a single shot can reveal how the Sierra mountains made the Mojave Desert or the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon.

The same aerial system proved a revelation for filming wild weather, enabling footage of supercells and tornados from close range. For the series, National Geographic purchased carbon credits from projects that reduce emissions, benefit communities, and support biodiversity to compensate for production emissions, including the emissions of the aircraft used in filming.

Innovation & Tech Today spoke with Wilson preceding America the Beautiful’s release about the novel approach to making the documentary and what it felt like to capture the natural beauty of North America’s landscape from several different aircraft.