The Americas

The Americas

BBC One / NBC — Narrated by Tom Hanks

My Role

As an offline editor on The Americas, I worked on the episodes West Coast and Wild West, collaborating closely with fellow editors Robbie Garbett and Amy Fathers. The series demanded a balance between epic scale and intimate behavioural storytelling, shaping narratives that moved fluidly between vast landscapes and precise moments of animal life.

Working with producers Gillian Taylor and Matt Richards, and within the wider editorial team led by the series production, I contributed to story structure, sequence construction and emotional pacing, ensuring clarity of narrative while preserving the cinematic ambition of the project. The work involved refining character-driven moments, shaping dramatic arcs across long-form sequences, and supporting the broader editorial development of the series.

Editorial Approach

The editorial language of The Americas is defined by contrast: monumental geography set against finely observed behaviour, and moments of stillness punctuated by sudden intensity. Across West Coast and Wild West, the cutting focused on allowing landscapes to breathe while building tension through rhythm, performance and carefully judged restraint.

Structure and pacing were shaped to support Tom Hanks’ narration, giving space for reflection while maintaining forward momentum. The aim was always to let the images carry emotional weight first, using music and sound design to enhance rather than dictate, and allowing silence, scale and duration to become part of the storytelling grammar.

Why This Project Matters

The Americas represents a contemporary evolution of blue-chip natural history: technologically ambitious, narratively cinematic, and grounded in ecological relevance. By exploring the continent’s most extreme environments and the species that have adapted to them, the series connects spectacle with vulnerability, reinforcing the relationship between landscape, climate and survival.

For an editor, it is a rare opportunity to work at the intersection of science, cinema and authored storytelling, contributing to a body of work that will define how large-scale natural history is experienced by a global audience.

Credits Block

Broadcaster: BBC One / NBC
Production: BBC Natural History Unit
Narrator: Tom Hanks
Executive Producer: Mike Gunton
Series Producer: Steve Cole
Line Producer: Holly Spearing
Producers: Gillian Taylor, Matt Richards
Episodes: West Coast, Wild West
Role: Offline Editor
Software: Avid Media Composer
Year: 2024