| "You can’t just rent a video from Blockbuster." | |
| Gail Krueger, Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary |
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Being located 17-and-a-half nautical miles off Sapelo Island, Georgia, and submerged beneath 60 to 70 feet of water limits the number of visitors to Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary. Because the sanctuary’s staff members can’t easily bring visitors to the site, they have found an effective way to bring the sanctuary and ocean to the community.
The Gray’s Reef Ocean Film Festival has become the sanctuary’s primary outreach event, proving that in this case, movies are more valuable than a thousand pictures.
“This is one of the best ways to give the broadest possible perspective and interpretation of our ocean resources and the issues we face to the broadest number of people,” says Reed Bohne, manager of Gray’s Reef.
Over three nights and two days in September, more than 20 documentaries and art films about the ocean are shown for free at the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Trustees Theater in downtown Savannah. More than 2,000 people were expected to attend this year’s second annual event.
The festival’s evening programs include a presentation and question and answer session with a well-known producer or director. This year’s event featured pioneer underwater film producer and photographer Stan Waterman, whose Emmy-award-winning work includes The Deep and Blue Water, White Death.
Two-hour blocks of films, usually tied together by topic, are shown throughout the weekend. Additions to this year’s festival included a children’s film festival running concurrently at Tybee Island Marine Science Center and an essay and visual arts competition for students in area schools.
“An ocean film festival is somewhat of a novel concept and helps us get more interest locally,” Bohne says. The first year of the ocean film festival was ranked by the Savannah Morning News as one of the community’s top five events for the year.
While the first festival was more successful than the sanctuary staff expected, organizing such an event was time consuming and challenging, notes Gail Krueger, Gray’s Reef outreach coordinator and the festival’s planner.
“When we started, we didn’t know how to organize a film festival,” Krueger admits. “There was definitely a steep learning curve.”
Producing a film festival requires many of the same skills needed to organize any large event, she says, but also involves identifying and screening potential films, getting screen rights, and contracting with ocean-related filmmakers and directors.
“You can’t just rent a video from Blockbuster,” Krueger says. Still, all the effort is worth it.
“We have found the film festival to be very successful,” says Bohne. “It’s a great way to talk about the importance of marine conservation from many different perspectives and provide information about Gray’s Reef and the sanctuary program.”
He adds, “It’s helping us broaden our support regionally and within the community. Also, it’s just a whole lot of fun.”
For more information on the Gray’s Reef Ocean Film Festival, point your browser to www.graysreef.noaa.gov. You may also contact Reed Bohne or Gail Krueger at (912) 598-2345.
