Deadliest Catch, Discovery Channel

On January 29, 2010, as Original Productions' crews shot footage for season 6 of the Cornelia Marie offloading C. opilio crab at St. Paul Island, Phil Harris—who had complained of pain and "strange sensations" prior to arrival at St. Paul—retired to his stateroom to rest until the offload was completed. Hours later, after completion of the offload, crew member Steve Ross found Harris on the floor of his stateroom, conscious but paralyzed on the left side of his body; Ross quickly determined Harris had suffered a stroke and called for paramedics. According to Thom Beers, producer and creator of Deadliest Catch, Harris insisted that the camera crews continue to film him. "We want to remember Phil as who he was," Beers told Zap2it.com writer Kate O'Hare. "We want to remember all the dynamics. But at the same time, the guy was insistent, when we were doing this, saying, 'Dude, you've got to. We've got to have an end to the story (about the strength and resiliency of familial bonds, especially the father/son bond). You want to film this, film this.'" Beers said he honored Harris' wishes and continued to shoot as Harris was airlifted to Anchorage, Alaska, where doctors performed emergency brain surgery to relieve the pressure building up in the cranial vault and avoid further brain damage. Harris spent eleven days in ICU before succumbing to complications from his stroke on February 9, 2010.
Some shots that would be difficult to capture with cameras are computer-generated imagery (CGI):
CGI was used in the first two seasons, and again in season 5 after the sinking of the Katmai, to demonstrate how the severely cold water of the Bering Sea causes men without survival suits to drown within minutes, showing the decrease in blood flow and the gradual failure of vital organs.
In the second episode of the first season, CGI was used to show how a crab trap works.