(muffled speaking)

(laughing)

>>Our guest today has
spent the past 15 years

making award-winning natural
history and science programs

for National Geographic.

He travels all over the
world but he and his family

make their home right
here in Albemarle County.

Join us as we catch up
with filmmaker, producer

and director Geoff
Luck, come on!

So you started out
as a professor, an
art professor, right?

>>Yeah, 15 years.

>>15 Years,

so how did you find
your way to filmmaking?

>>You know, I had
studied film in college

and that's what I
had been teaching

and then when my wife got
into grad school in New York

I realized that it was
going to be really hard

to try to be a teaching
guy in New York again,

I had tried that before
so I started freelancing.

Mostly as an editor
at that point.

I was a cameraman and an editor
and then I started editing

and that sort of targeted
places like Geographic

or Discovery is where
I wanted to end up.

>>And then you did.

>>And then I did.

>>And you did.

And you all started in
New York, went to DC

and you could really
probably live anywhere.

Why are you here
in Charlottesville?

>>There was no reason
for us to live here,

it was kind of--
(Terri laughs)

we've had to actually make a
lot of sacrifices to do it.

We just loved it
and thought it would

be a great place to raise kids.

We had just had a little baby.

I mean we had this
little baby girl

who was born in Brooklyn.

And we were like, no.

We thought we'd have a
little hipster, downtown baby

and then we were like,
no we want to get out

to the woods and
then to, you know.

>>All right, let's
talk about your work.

What is your focus?

What would you say
is your main theme?

>>Well I mean, since
I've been at Geographic

and beyond for the past
12, 15 years it's mostly

in natural sciences, and
science and natural history.

Animals, the environment,
evolution, biology,

but I've also done
things on topics

from nuclear physics
to Afghanistan,

but most of the stuff I do is
wildlife, wildlife related.

>>Give us a few examples of
some of the more interesting

projects you've
done over the years.

Favorites or what you
think other people

would find interesting.

>>For me personally, some of
it has to do with where you go,

some of it is just the
personal satisfaction of that,

and some of it is
the subject matter.

I think those two came
together for me in a way

that was pretty special, I got
to make an hour long special

about Darwin about the
"Origin of Species".

That was amazing.

Just to read the
original Darwin.

To then go where he went
through South America,

and Galapagos, Tahiti
and New Zealand

and see what were
the many influences,

not just the finches that led
this young 23 year old guy

to figure this out.

>>Right.

>>Probably the hardest
shoot I've ever done,

and one of the films
I'm most proud of

we did on Easter Island
where we followed

a caving expedition
that was looking,

it's a volcanic island so
there's all these caves

throughout, giant lava tubes
and all of this crazy stuff

inside and they were
looking for signs

of past civilizations
and so we followed them

and told the history
of the island

which was basically
"The Lorax" on steroids.

>>Right, right.

Give us a little
taste for our viewers.

>>Oh, the long story short
is that the Polynesians

who are these incredible
seafarers found their way

to what was still is the most
remote inhabited spot on Earth

and then they started
chopping down the trees

to help make these giant
moai, these massive statues

the heads of which we see

but actually two-thirds of
which are below the ground now,

most of them, they're
giant, and moved them around

and by the time they kind of
realized it, they had chopped

down or lost all of the trees
to rats that they brought,

and they marooned themselves.

>>Right.

>>And they got
stuck on the island.

And they started like
having, they fought

and had cannibalism and
then they figured out

a way to make that, to survive.

It's just this incredible story.

So, it's being able
to kind of dig in

as a professional neophyte.

I'm not an expert on
any of this stuff.

I either get assigned something
or I come up with an idea

and then you get to research it.

You call people up,
you read all the books,

you learn about it and then
you get to go to these places

and learn about something new.

And since the world is
so vastly inexhaustible

in terms of how
interesting it is.

>>That's an understatement!

Wow.

>>You know there's
always something new.

(gentle music)

>>You wear a lot
of different hats,

you have throughout the years.

You've worn the hat of
filmmaker, producer, director,

writer, talk about
those different roles

and what you like best and
sort of the evolution for you

of how you've gone through,

where you started
and what you do now.

>>For me, I kind of went
from the academic realm

where I kept working
primarily with the camera

as an editor to then becoming
a director and a producer

to then actually
executive-producing

where I was overseeing
25, 30 hours of TV a year

and looking at it strategically
as part a network.

And now I've come
full-circle and I'm directing

but I'm also shooting
again, I'm editing again.

>>That's great.

>>And my hands are dirty
in the projects again

and I'm happiest this way.

I really like doing fewer
things and just focusing on it

for a year or two if it takes

and just kind of doing
with my hands again.

I can find a way to feel
energized by what I do

as opposed to having that
energy pulled out of me.

And that happens sometimes.

That happens with everybody.

>>Right.

And in the arts there
are different projects

that you do that, you did
one on urban wildlife,

which is really interesting,
but it was tricky too because--

>>Yeah, it was tricky.

Well it was tricky because
I'd wanted to do it

for many years, I had
been pretty astonished

to see how wild creatures
have been making their homes

in suburbia and in
the heart of cities.

We followed coyotes in the
middle of the polar vortex,

if you remember that from
a couple of years ago,

40 below zero in
downtown Chicago,

there's no part of Chicago

that doesn't have
coyotes living in it.

Not passing through,
but living there.

Some of them never leaving the
loop, you know the downtown.

And we're filming them hunting
rabbits at 40 below zero

with the streets empty with
the sirens going you know.

And so I wanted to celebrate
this and then was given

an edict to make it scary.

And we tried to walk the
line between letting people

go "What's going on?"

and trying to be celebratory.

But that was frustrating
when you face

some of the politics
that can come up.

>>Talk about the great
project that you did in Africa

on African elephants, that
story, talk about that.

>>I mean this is
where my whole family

we uprooted ourselves,
we moved to Amsterdam

where the production
company was based,

so that was an
adventure in itself.

And then I spent probably
a quarter of the year

in Botswana filming this
incredible herd of elephants

and the men who look after them,

this group of basically
misfits and orphans

that have been rescued, and
then given a second chance;

circus elephants.

You know the calves from
culls when they used to think

that the elephant
population was a problem

they'd go out and
kill all of the adults

and these are the calves that
were left over 20 years ago.

So there's this camp
where they rescue them

and they help them
to rewild eventually.

And so this little baby
elephant was born there

and tragically her
mother passed away

from natural causes about
six weeks after she was born

so it fell to these men
to try to save her life.

And that's the
story of the film;

these incredible guys
who are just to this day

are feeding her,
looking after her

24 hours a day,
seven days a week.

(emotional music)

>>We have to save our
elephants one at a time.

Every elephant counts.

>>It changed your perspective,

>>It did.
>>Talk about that.

>>I've been very lucky to meet
a lot of different creatures,

chimps, wolves, great
white sharks over the years

and I've been moved by them
and see them all as being

a lot smarter and a lot more
as individuals and variegated;

that's a nice shark,
that's a troublesome shark,

that wolf is kind of timid
but to experience that

with elephants the
way I was able to,

to be so close to them and
to experience their sentience

and that's really the
best word I could use.

They are thinking, feeling
beings with a society

that I frankly think is
every bit as complex as ours.

It's astonishing what
they're able to do.

They could peg us based
on the language we speak

and which language means
you're more dangerous

or whether you're male or female

or whether you're old or young.

They're watching us, and
they're responding to us

and they're reacting
to us all the time

to try to survive
because they have to.

>>See now people are
sitting here thinking,

"Oh, he has a dream job.

"This is the dream job."

And you would probably
say, "Yes". (laughs)

>>Absolutely, it's my dream job.

It wasn't something I thought
I would do when I was a kid,

you know when I was a little
kid I would have loved to do it

and then I kind of
forgot about it.

And it certainly has
become a dream job for me.

But that's not by accident and
that's also not without cost.

You know what I mean?
>>That's what I want

to talk about too, because you
have this beautiful family.

When you go away, how long
are you gone, usually?

>>I tend to be gone for
maybe three weeks at a time

a couple of times a year.

With "Naledi" and those
films it was more.

For the Darwin film I
was probably gone overall

for about a month and a half.

But it's trying to find that
balance and work together

as a family so that I can
be there to support her

when she's directing a show
at Live Arts or something

or that then she
can take the ball

when I've got to
go off on a trip.

And the kids they step up
too to handle themselves.

>>Well, and how
do you transition?

You must feel for a few
days like "Who am I?

"Where am I?".

>>I think part of it is

that I simply feel
home at this point.

I've lived here
longer than any place

I've ever lived in my life.

I mean when Bree and I met I
pretty much lived out of my car

so I settled down.
(Terri laughing)

So, I--
>>Things have changed.

>>Yeah, things have changed

So I think there's also
feeling part of a community.

I mean I almost always
go straight to Dr. Ho's

and sort of just ground
here in the community

in the quietude of the
house for a couple of days,

just to the family itself.

And Bree's always
saying when I come back,

"Oh you I can tell you've
been hanging out with boys."

Evidently my energy--
>>You just throwing--

>>My cadence--
>>Everything on the floor.

>>Whatever it is I'm
just acting differently.

I kind of have to settle down
and get in the domestic groove

again after having been
out there being silly.

>>With the boys
and the elephants.

>>Not always boys.

>>So, what are you
working on now?

You've got some
exciting projects.

>>I'm really lucky, Geographic
has asked me to come back

and I'm working with them

on several different
film projects.

One is a film about the
impact of climate change

on the Inuit in
Nunavut and Greenland.

And this area that
40 years from now

scientists predict is
going to be the last area

in the Arctic with sea ice.

Where it's the last
place it's gonna be

and how they want to
protect that area now.

Because it's incredible.

It'll sort of be the
Serengeti of the North

where this is the one spot left
where narwhal and polar bear

and all those things

that depend on the ice
will be able to survive.

I'm prepping right
now to head to Gabon

because it's the
largest intact portion

of equatorial
rainforest in Africa

and it has the largest
population of forest elephants,

which are a separate species

than the savanna elephants
I've been filming.

All last year I did
savanna elephants

and now I get to go
do forest elephants

and we're profiling the people

who are trying to
save them there.

>>Oh, this is fascinating
hanging out with you.

Thank you.

>>Oh, it's awesome,
thanks so much,

it's so great to spend
some time with you.