About

mark challendeR

//

Producer/Director & EDIT PRODUCER

Mark is a highly skilled senior producer/director and edit producer who’s worked in broadcast television for twenty years, on everything from factual entertainment programmes to high end natural history series, specialist factual content, and documentaries.

For the last ten years he’s specialised in adventure and natural history programming, and he’s accustomed to leading and directing teams in far flung locations and remote areas of the world. He’s filmed across six continents… from isolated villages in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, to inaccessible homesteads in Alaska, to the depths of the Amazon jungle.

Having grown up playing with cameras and breeding poultry, his passions are the natural world, geography, science and travel and he’s filmed in almost every environment including shoots in mountains, deserts, jungles, the arctic, at altitude, at sea and underwater. Mark has filmed in helicopters, planes, on boats, in vehicles, on motorbikes - in fact, there aren’t many places he hasn’t used a camera.

He’s someone who thrives on story and has garnered a reputation as a producer/director who excels working across detailed editorial and complex logistics. He’s just as happy directing teams and operating as ‘A’ camera as he is working with large crews of 150 or more. In post production, he’s highly sought after - an experienced edit producer who is both considered and efficient. Whether it’s running a single suite or multiple edits, he’s a storyteller with great judgement, and drive.

Mark’s worked with many household names such as Bear Grylls, Ross Kemp, Steve Backshall, AJ Odudu and many more, as well as working with emerging on-screen talent. He’s produced and/or directed programmes for some of the world’s biggest broadcasters, both for the UK and the US, including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, NBC, National Geographic, Netflix, Animal Planet, Discovery and Sky Nature.

Credits include: Running Wild with Bear Grylls (NBC/Nat Geo), Shark with Steve Backshall (Sky Nature & NBC), Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold (National Geographic/Disney+) and SAS: Who Dares Wins (Channel 4).

With huge enthusiasm for exploring the world and meeting its inhabitants – both people and animals, Mark is a skilled self-shooter. From VTs, lit master interviews, to extensive actuality/verite and to self shooting entire programmes himself, Mark has filmed in almost every conceivable scenario over the years. He operates a range of the latest cameras and most recently self shot a one hour for National Geographic on behalf of the BBC Natural History Unit.

Mark is a photographer and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), to boot. His stills photography has featured in publications such as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal. His stills work can be seen here:

www.challenderphotography.com  

When he doesn’t have a camera in hand, Mark enjoys road cycling, bike packing, running, swimming, scuba diving and mountain climbing.