Hot Shots 2024: Heather Cruickshank

Many producers are said to be willing to go to the ends of the earth for the sake of good TV, but Heather Cruickshank is one of the few who have literally done that.

For her current project, producing two episodes of Talesmith’s three-episode series Secrets Of The Penguins for National Geographic, she has spent a total of 24 weeks on location in Antarctica – including two New Years and one Christmas on the ice.

Cruickshank has developed something of a niche for herself in polar filming. After seven years working on science and geology series for Discovery, Nat Geo and PBS, in 2019 she decided to switch back to her academic roots in zoology, starting off with a natural history and conservation one-off, Heroes Of The Ocean for Nat Geo, at BBC Science.

The project demanded ambitious dive expedition shoots around the world and, in early 2020, she found herself stuck on a ship sailing back from Antarctica as the world went into lockdown. The experience might have put o other producers from making polar expeditions, but for Cruickshank, it proved pivotal.

She signed up for BBC Science’s Netflix series Our Universe, under producer director Naomi Austin, returning to the sub-Antarctic. The show was nominated for an Emmy.

Cruickshank’s determination to put everything into setting up ambitious and complex expedition shoots in remote locations around the world has paid off, as she has been able to lead teams to successfully capture never-before-filmed behaviours.

Secrets Of The Penguins showrunner Serena Davies says: “Heather joined us as a field producer but quickly went on to become an indispensable member of the team across the series.

“She has set up and directed ambitious shoots for us in challenging locations. She was instrumental in setting up and directing the natural history on an eight-week shoot in a remote field camp in Antarctica.”

The aim of the shoot, Davies explains, was to capture emperor penguins jumping into the water for the first time – something that is exceptionally tricky to achieve as the sea ice on which the penguins live is breaking up into the Southern Ocean.

“Heather put together a world-leading safety team that allowed the crew to operate on the sea ice and enter the water,” she says. “During the shoot, Heather and the team managed to capture penguin chicks jumping o a 50ft cliff and surviving – this has never been filmed for TV before.”

Footage of the death-defying baby birds formed the basis of Nat Geo’s best performing social media content ever, securing 59 million views on TikTok, 2.2 million views on YouTube shorts, 11 million views on Facebook, and more than 55 million views on Instagram.

All in all, Davies concludes: “Heather has gone above and beyond expectations to deliver for the series.”