Netflix launches science series filmed in Brazil

Sep 10, 2020

Connected is a brand new Netflix science series, conceived and presented by Latif Nasser. US production team Zero Point Zero Production Inc shot the series in countries around the world including Brazil, deep in the Amazon Rainforest

Presenting science on screen in a way that’s fun, engaging and also cinematic is no mean feat. Nutopia and Darren Aranofsky had a go at it two years back with One Strange Rock, narrated by none other than Will Smith. Netflix is also stepping up to the challenge with its new series "Connected: The Hidden Science of Everything”, which launched on August 2, 2020. Instead of Hollywood royalty, it is presented by the engaging, excitable and very watchable Latif Nasser, a science journalist whose voice will be familiar to many thanks to his work at New York Public Radio show Radiolab.
Story Productions films in the Amazon Rainforest at ATTO

Nasser created the concept with Zero Point Zero Production Inc,  presenting the series which explores the intricate ways we are connected to each other and the universe. Covering a range of topics from surveillance to nukes, clouds, and technology, the series features six episodes filmed in far-flung part parts of the world. In episode three, entitled ‘Dust’, Nasser investigates how the Amazon Rainforest, the Sahara Desert, and the Atlantic Ocean are all interconnected.


For this episode, New York production company Zero Point Zero Production Inc. hired Story Productions to provide logistical support for the Amazon shoot, which took a crew of more than ten to ATTO (the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory) in the heart of the rainforest in Brazil. Watch out for a separate post coming soon about the technical and logistical challenges of the Amazon shoot. But transforming Nasser’s series concept and episode research into a viable shooting script that would produce beautiful imagery and cinematic sequences was a challenge that fell to the Zero Point Zero Production Inc team. 

“Latif is an incredibly smart guy who comes up with very creative ways to talk about science” explains ‘Dust’ episode director Alyse Walsh. “But doing this as a film was incredibly challenging. And very expensive to move crews to different locations.”


Watch our interview with Alyse Walsh and Christoper Gill to find out how they rose to this challenge. 


Walsh directed two of the series episodes, on a tight deadline that involved moving from one challenging location to another for two months straight, with few breaks between shoots.

Filming in Chad at 112ºF

Before the shoot in Brazil for the ‘Dust’ episode, the  Zero Point Zero crew filmed in Chad, in the middle of the Sahara Desert, a long way from any civilization, in temperatures reaching 112ºF. “It was an extreme filming experience,” says Walsh. The Chad shoot involved a large crew as there were no local fixers and the crew had to camp in the desert.

The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory shoot

Filming in the Amazon - Connected with Latif Nasser

The logistics for the Amazon shoot were also far from simple, but this time Zero Point Zero had Story Productions on hand to help with pre-production planning and local Brazilian fixers. We arranged detailed scouting reports, Brazilian visas for the visiting crew, local filming permits, transport for both crew and equipment across air, land and water, as well as trilingual fixers on hand throughout the shoot. 


The Amazon is predictable only in its unpredictability, meaning that planning is key. The crew spent three days and nights at the ATTO Tower, the top of which is 1,066 feet (325 meters) up above the forest canopy, often enveloped in cloud. It was there that the crew spent three days and nights, with no internet access and an experience of disconnection from civilization not unlike the Chad shoot.

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