National Media Market Attendees
You’re invited to come to our screening room #1664 for a live demonstration of Journey of the Loggerhead -- an interactive DVD on marine turtles.

Creating Journey
of the Loggerhead:
A behind the scenes interview with
Environmental Media’s production team

A female turtle lays her eggs.

Environmental Media has produced media to support the work of environmental and education organizations for more than fifteen years, yet until we began working on Journey of the Loggerhead, we had not come in contact with so many people with such passion for one goal: the worldwide conservation of marine turtles.

Our crew designed and filmed this interactive DVD in the company of countless staff and volunteers of local nesting beach monitoring programs, domestic and international agencies, colleges and universities, aquaria, nature centers, and rehabilitation programs. The sum of our work is an interactive DVD containing a 30-minute documentary about the loggerhead and other marine turtle species, special video segments, curriculum correlations, teachers’ guides, maps and GIS data, still image library, interview transcripts, and website links. (For full program information visit: http://www.envmedia.com/production/loggerhead/index.htm)

The interview

Director of Science Content Katy Garland on the scene with a nesting green turtle. Using the latest navigational tools, eMedia’s cub reporter tracked down Environmental Media’s peripatetic production team to get the latest news about Journey of the Loggerhead.

Director/Producer Bill Pendergraft and Director of Science Content Katy Garland have been traveling around the southeastern and Pacific coasts filming and designing Journey of the Loggerhead for the past 18 months. Looking a little sunburned and salty around the edges, the intrepid production team was happy to take off their Tevas and share some thoughts on the production.

eMedia: What motivated you to undertake the development of Journey of the Loggerhead?

Bill Pendergraft: When we started Environmental Media fifteen years ago, our first projects were Oceans Alive! and Seahouse, two marine education series that have been used in schools and homes worldwide. When Katy Garland joined our company 18 months ago, her passion and knowledge about marine turtles led us to consider a return to our roots, and the Journey project was launched.

eMedia: What was your original vision for the program and how did that change over the 18 months you spent filming and working with the turtle community?

Bill Pendergraft: Making Journey of the Loggerhead was unique in several ways. We began the project with what we imagined was a figurative little paddle in the river, and the river expanded to bay and then ocean, and I consciously allowed the project to expand beyond my original concept. Secondly, the project morphed fairly quickly into an interactive DVD. Seeing the wealth of content that was developing as part of the core video project, it seemed a shame not to include more of the content we were collecting, and to offer it in a menu-driven format. Finally, having worked with a variety of people in the environmental community, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such a selfless and committed group. Without their help and support, there would be no Journey of the Loggerhead project, and when our project is completed, they’ll still be out on the beach. In spite of eighteen months of work on the DVD, its content does not begin to capture the devotion, intelligence, and passion of those with whom we worked.

eMedia: Katy, before you joined Environmental Media you spent several years working with marine turtles. Can you tell us about your experiences?

Katy Garland: After my sophomore year in college (at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) I had a summer internship at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota, Florida working with the sea turtle rehabilitation/exhibit area and assisting with research. It was an amazing experience and it reaffirmed my belief that I wanted to work in marine science. I will never forget the first time I saw a nesting turtle -- it brought tears to my eyes. Everyone should see a sea turtle nesting; the experience changes you.

The following summer I assisted a friend who was focusing her graduate work on leatherback turtle nests in Tortuguero, Costa Rica, where Archie Carr, Jr., conducted his research. Just the flight into Tortuguero is memorable – from the air you can see turtle tracks lining the black sand beaches and hundreds of turtles in the ocean. On this project I had the opportunity to work with nesting greens, leatherbacks, and hawksbills.

After I graduated in May 2001 I was hired by the University of South Carolina in Beaufort, South Carolina, to work on a loggerhead project on Pritchards Island. USCB owns this uninhabited barrier island and manages it strictly for research, conservation, and education. The 20-year-old study involved a great deal of environmental education, beach monitoring, and personal research goals. One of the most exciting aspects of the project was conducting my own (mini) research study and participating in the initial turtle tagging efforts on the island.

In 2002, I traveled to St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, to work with the National Park Service on the Buck Island Sea Turtle Research Project. We worked from sunset to sunrise with nesting hawksbill and green sea turtles. It was wonderful ...what a beautiful place! Once the nesting season slowed down, we began the in-water study and spent our days boating and snorkeling in the Buck Island reef area to capture juvenile hawksbills. I will never forget catching my first turtle, or diving down 30 feet in my snorkel gear to catch a resting hawksbill.

I returned to Pritchards to work the following summer and stayed on as the island’s Environmental Educator until February 2003, when I joined Environmental Media.

eMedia: What’s a typical day like when you’re on a beach or in a boat filming turtles and turtle researchers?

Katy Garland: One of the things I love about working with sea turtles is that there is rarely a “typical” day. You never know what might happen. On the beach, it’s great to meet the different volunteers and project coordinators that are working so hard to save this species. Whether you’re on a night walk searching for nesting turtles or hatchlings boiling out of a nest, or on a morning patrol looking at last night’s tracks and protecting the new nests, being on the beach doing sea turtle work is wonderful. It’s hard work, but the hope that you will catch a glimpse of a turtle always gets my adrenaline pumping!

eMedia: Can you describe some of the most memorable experiences you had while filming Journey of the Loggerhead?

Katy Garland: Well, that’s hard to say because the entire experience was so memorable. I think most of all, it was getting to spend time with friends and previous co-workers, but also getting to meet and spend time with all the sea turtle researchers, conservationists, and volunteers that I have admired for so long.

My most memorable trip during the production of the DVD was when I went to Puerto Lopez Mateos in Baja California Sur to visit the Blue Ocean Institute’s (then under WiLDCOAST) community conservation and research project. I was lucky to work with the research team led by Hoyt Peckham. Going out in the panga (fishing boat) to rodeo turtles, seeing the unbelievable bykill on the beach at Bahia Magdalena, seeing villagers with live turtles on their porch (belly-up, soon to be that evening’s meal), and spending time with the people working on this amazing project was an experience I will never forget.

eMedia: What are some things you learned about sea turtles while working on this program that you did not know beforehand?

Bill Pendergraft: We first filmed a boil (turtles hatching) on Hammocks Beach in North Carolina ten years ago. No matter how many times you encounter a nesting female or see hatchlings exploding from a nest, it is equally exciting. Most impressive to me is just how relentless these animals are ... they never give up, they never stop, but they are no match for fishing nets, propellers, and rampant coastal development.

eMedia: What were some of the challenges you faced in filming Journey of the Loggerhead?

Bill Pendergraft: People know something about marine turtles and even feel compelled to help them because they encounter them on nesting beaches. The rest of the time. . most of the time ... marine turtles are invisible to us. I guess they call them the lost years, not because the turtles are lost, but because they are lost to us; another sign of our human-centric way of looking at other life on earth. A difficult aspect of building a project around a central character that you seldom see is finding someone who will be willing to share footage. We were fortunate to find agencies and individuals like Peter and Ursula Bennett, Hoyt Peckham, USFWS, and NOAA (to name a few) who had great footage and were willing to share.

Perhaps the most difficult part of the project for me was stopping. This project could continue with many species on many shores.

eMedia: What is your ultimate goal for Journey of the Loggerhead?

Katy Garland: My dream is that conservation groups and the general public will be able to use the program to spread the word about the plight of marine turtles. Many people are not aware of the precarious state of our oceans and marine life. I hope that educational projects like this DVD will help people understand that everyone can actively participate in the conservation movement. I have met so many people who want to become more involved in helping save the planet, but they are not sure what they can do as an individual. Just making a small change in our actions can make a difference.

Bill Pendergraft: A touchstone I continue to come back to in my work is a line from an Emily Dickinson poem about a snake. Describing animals she encounters in the wild, she said that she feels for them “a transport of cordiality.” Of course the Journey of the Loggerhead DVD is chock full of science content, but I also hope that people feel moved by these animals; moved to help them survive.

In closing:
Journey of the Loggerhead will be available in October 2004. Visit http://www.envmedia.com/production/loggerhead/index.htm for full program and ordering information.