Nate Dappen and Neil Losin are the founding duo behind Day’s Edge Productions, a science and nature documentary production company based out of San Diego, CA. As biologists-turned-filmmakers, they bring their understanding and passion for the natural world to the heart of their films, while the technical skills they’ve developed have brought them to the forefront of the industry. We connected with Nate and Neil and they took us through their humble beginnings as grad students to where they are now—producing the 6-hour PBS series Human Footprint—taking it from concept to primetime broadcast.
WMJ: You two founded Day’s Edge Productions almost 12 years ago. How did your partnership begin? How did you transition from studying evolutionary biology to making science and nature documentaries?
Neil: Nate and I met in Costa Rica on the OTS Tropical Biology field course in 2008. Nate had just started his Ph.D. at the University of Miami, and I was one year into my Ph.D. at UCLA. We were both serious photographers, both studying evolution, and both loved finding and capturing cool creatures, so we just clicked (no pun intended). Soon we were collaborating on research projects, photo projects, and eventually video projects.
It was a technological coincidence that turned us into filmmakers. Shortly after we met, we each bought a new camera: the Canon 5D Mark II. It was the first SLR to shoot Full HD video – so we suddenly had a tool in our bags that opened up this whole new creative world for us. Once we started making videos, we were hooked (even though our first videos sucked big time).
By the time we finished grad school, we were ready to take the plunge and start a production company together rather than stay on the academic track and apply to postdoc positions. That was in 2012… the rest is history!
WMJ: Congratulations to the Day’s Edge team on Human Footprint, a new six-part series on PBS, hosted by Shane Campbell-Staton. From invasive species to cotton farming to hunting, you guys cover some important yet controversial topics. How did you approach telling these stories authentically while also humanizing the characters?
Nate: We modeled this show after Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown – a food show that’s really about human history and culture. Human Footprint is a science show that is really about human history and culture.
Unlike many science shows, we shaped the narrative around conversations between our host, Shane Campbell-Staton, and other people entwined in the issues we were exploring. Shane is a singular talent. He’s a brilliant Princeton biologist publishing in top scientific journals, and is incredibly charismatic. But instead of having him play the expert, as most science hosts do, our goal was to present Shane as a curious and empathetic student of the world, formulating his own opinions along the way. The characters he met and the stories he learned were a journey of personal discovery, rather than a fact collecting mission.
As for addressing controversial topics, we went out of our way to avoid pointing fingers. Our show lives the nuance of these complicated issues and we rarely present solutions or take sides. People often value-signal by taking sides on issues – it’s us against them. We wanted to avoid that. As such, Shane treats everyone fairly, asks genuine questions and tries to understand their point of view, even when they might be different from his own. We think this both humanizes the issues and the people connected to them, and sets the stage for conversations about the challenges we all face.
WMJ: Tell us about the production team you put together to make the Human Footprint series a reality! How did you divide up the work?
Nate: Unlike a traditional production company, where most staff specialize, Day’s Edge is a team of multi-talented people – folks who can easily switch roles as needed during the production process. For Human Footprint, we hired David Hutchinson, Georgia Krause, Andy Laub, Page Buono, and Elliott Kennerson – technically, they were all hired as producers, but most of them could also shoot, edit, write, do sound, research/develop/pre-produce. We did hire some specialists – Angel Morris was one of the editors on the show, as was Adam Moffat, and Sami Van Praet was hired as an assistant editor. Kori Price is our legendary Production Manager and Assistant Producer. In the field, Neil and I directed, produced, and shot B-roll. Our DP was the very talented Rick Smith. This show wouldn’t be what it is without the tireless effort and talent from our team.
Production for this series was an intense, endless series of adventures. Every shoot was a transformative experience – from hunting seals with sled dogs in the Arctic, to hunting rats in the alleys of DC. From the insanity of the redneck fishing tournament to catching Burmese pythons in the Everglades. We spent more than 120 days in the field during which we visited 44 different cities and slept in more than 80 beds. Most days were long. We muscled through so many grueling situations, tough conversations, and logistical nightmares. We didn’t get much sleep, but we had a year full of unforgettable experiences.
Director Nate Dappen and DP Rick Smith film host Shane Campbell-Staton in Singapore for Human Footprint. 
Director Nate Dappen pilots an FPV drone for Human Footprint in Mexico City. 
Director Nate Dappen, DP Rick Smith, and host Shane Campbell-Staton participate in the “Redneck Fishing Tournament” in Bath, Illinois for Human Footprint.
WMJ: At this point, Day’s Edge has made many beautiful films, including shorts and features. What pieces felt like milestones in your career? How did these serve as stepping stones to next projects, and eventually winning broadcast contracts? Give us some insight into pitching and the business side of filmmaking.
Neil: We got our start making short films (and we still love making shorts), but I think we always knew we wanted to make TV. The longer run time, bigger budgets, and larger audiences – it’s an opportunity to tell more beautiful, more challenging, and more impactful stories. But it’s hard to get broadcast commissioners to take you seriously when you’ve never made a TV show before. So getting there was a multi-step process.
At the end of grad school, we wrote a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant with Dr. Al Uy, an evolutionary biologist who studies how new species originate. NSF funded us to accompany Al to the Solomon Islands to create a broadcast documentary – something we’d never done before. I guess we sounded confident enough in our grant proposal that NSF didn’t flag that as a problem! It wasn’t a lot of funding, and we spent most of it in production, leaving us to find a partner to fund post-production and distribution. We edited a sizzle reel and pitched it, to no avail. But Smithsonian Channel said they’d consider it – *if* they could see a full rough cut. So… we edited a full 50-minute rough cut in our spare time. When they saw it, they said YES. They brought the film in-house to be finished by their writers and editors, with our consultation. And Islands of Creation (2015) was our first broadcast documentary.
With one broadcast doc under our belts, we got funding from the Templeton Foundation to create a series of short films about Anolis lizards, in collaboration with Dr. Jonathan Losos. Our real motivation was to create another broadcast documentary, but a TV special all about finger-sized lizards is a tough sell. So we shot everything we needed for the short film series, and stretched our resources to film additional scenes needed for a broadcast doc. Along the way, we pulled in some other funders (bioGraphic supported an extra web short, and HHMI BioInteractive supported a classroom video). Eventually, we were ready to make the pitch. We edited a 15-minute demo of some key scenes in the film, and once again, the Smithsonian Channel came through for us. This time, they didn’t need to see a full rough cut before they committed – we got a co-production agreement based on our pitch and demo, and they supported the post-production of the show in-house at Day’s Edge. Nate and I edited the film, worked with a music composer and animator, and delivered the finished film to the Smithsonian Channel. The film, Laws of the Lizard, ended up winning the Grand Helix Award at the 2018 Science Media Awards.
With two broadcast specials to our names, we pitched our first-ever natural history special. It was going to be an urban wildlife doc filmed entirely in Miami (eventually entitled Miami Wild, narrated by Gloria Estefan, whom Nate and I got to direct in the studio… definitely not something I ever saw in my future as a science filmmaker!), and it premiered on Smithsonian Channel in 2022. Initially, PBS Nature passed on it, but Smithsonian Channel was ready to give us a chance with our first full commission, with Terra Mater Studios as a co-production partner. In other words, they greenlit the project before we shot any of it… that’s the way these things are supposed to work, but it took us a while – and a LOT of trust-building – to get there.
WMJ: Your commitment to nurturing aspiring and emerging creatives shines through initiatives like the Jackson Wild Media Lab. What are some highlights from running these workshops and what do you think the impact has been?
Neil: We started teaching workshops in 2013, soon after we launched Day’s Edge. Initially, we were mostly teaching other scientists how to be better communicators (running workshops for field stations, academic departments, research institutions, etc.) and we still do some of that. But our flagship professional training experience has, for the last several years, been a “Media Lab” program: first the IWFF Filmmaker Labs in 2017 and 2018, then the Jackson Wild Media Lab each year since.
For us, running the Jackson Wild Media Lab is one of the most rewarding things we do each year. It’s a lot of work but it also gives us so much energy to spend time with talented early-career filmmakers, science communicators, and scientists. There’s been so much positive feedback from past Fellows over the years, I feel like the program is really having a positive impact. We’ve collaborated with former Fellows on many occasions, and have even hired a couple as Day’s Edge employees.
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We’ve seen many of the Fellows go on to build very successful careers of their own. One especially gratifying aspect of it has been seeing Fellows collaborating with each other on their projects. Fellows get to network with an amazing group of industry-leading mentors during the Media Lab, but in many ways I think it’s the peer-to-peer networking that proves the most valuable to these early-career creatives trying to break through in a competitive industry.
WMJ: Neil, you have a 5-year-old son, and Nate, you have three little girls, all under 5 – including twins! What’s it like and how do you balance everything to make it all ‘work’?
Nate: It’s very hard and very stressful. You pull in a lot of favors and need tons of support. You spend all your money on childcare. You apologize to your partner and try to make up for being gone so much. Traveling as much as we do takes a toll on everyone. As we’ve gotten busier, I’ve had to adapt to keep up, and I’ve had to give up most of my free time.
There was a good year or two when my average wake up time was 4am, even on weekends (and plenty of weekends with full days of work). I was pulling at least one all-nighter a month. It was the only way to get all the work done and still be present for the kids in the morning and evenings. I don’t think that kind of schedule is sustainable, but it felt necessary at the time. As Neil mentions, having a supportive partner is key. This kind of work doesn’t work with kids if you don’t have that support.
Neil: It’s hard! I honestly don’t know how Nate does it with 3 kids at home. Even with just one, it’s a whole different calculus weighing the merits of leaving home… Do I really need to go on that shoot? Is that an industry event I really need to attend? In the last few years, between the pandemic and parenting, we’ve gotten an education in how to get a surprising amount of work done without actually being there in-person.
But we still travel a lot. It definitely wouldn’t work without a supportive partner, and I think both Nate and I are fortunate in that regard. I’ve found that shouldering some extra child care responsibilities when I am around is key. Nate and I also both try to send lots of photos and videos home to our kids when we’re traveling, so they can see what we’re up to and (hopefully) understand a bit better why we have to be away.
WMJ: How can aspiring/emerging storytellers get started in the wildlife filmmaking industry or find opportunities to make wildlife films?
Neil: A lot of folks reach out to us looking for an opportunity to get into the industry. Don’t get me wrong – I love that the work we do inspires people. But if you’re waiting for an opportunity to make wildlife films, you’re probably going to be waiting a long time.
“Filmmaking is a career that you don’t need anyone’s permission to do… It’s not like being a licensed electrician or a board-certified heart surgeon – there’s no professional accreditation required. You can just do it.”
Neil Losin, Ph.D.
Biologist, Filmmaker, Co-Founder
Day’s Edge Productions
This is one of those careers that you don’t need anyone’s permission to do. (Yes, you DEFINITELY do need permission to film certain things or people or locations – but you don’t need permission to BE a filmmaker.) It’s not like being a licensed electrician or a board-certified heart surgeon – there’s no professional accreditation required. You can just do it.
I really believe that the only way to get good at it is to do it. Go through the whole process, from development to delivery – and do it a lot. When you’re just getting started, you’re going to do a lot of work on your own time, for no money. (By the end of grad school, Nate and I had made about a dozen short films between us – total budget = $0.) But that’s the work that will eventually get you noticed and help build towards the career you want.
🎥 Follow along with Neil & Nate’s work at daysedge.com and on Instagram @daysedge.
