The 50th annual Daytime Emmy awards were just held in LA (Dec 16th, 2023) and ‘Island of the Sea Wolves’ took home 4 Emmys!
Getting a chance to go to the Emmy Awards is a really unique opportunity, and most of us who worked on the series never had the chance to go before. The award ceremony was originally scheduled for June 16th but due to the writers strike it had been postponed. This actually worked out in favour for a lot of the team because we were almost all busy filming in June, and productions tend to wind down before the Christmas Holidays. About 20 of us from Canada went to the event, bringing along our fancy apparel and loved ones. It was quite the experience! The series was nominated for seven Emmy’s so we knew we had a good chance of at least winning one or two. I was thrilled to be included in the cinematography category.
The series won: Outstanding Cinematography, Outstanding Single Camera Editing, Outstanding Sound Mixing and Outstanding Writing Team for a Daytime Non-Fiction Program.
It’s an absolute dream come true. It was an incredible team to be part of and having the opportunity to spend almost a year filming wildlife that surrounds my home on Vancouver Island was an amazing experience that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. A huge thank you to the team at River Road Films and Wild Space Productions for bringing me onto the series and a massive congratulations to the entire team for their hard work and dedication and to my fellow cinematographers: Matt Hood, Sam Ellis, James Frystak, Dave Pearson, Robin Smith, Darren West, Kieran O'Donovan, Russell Clark and Adam Ravetch.
I also wanted to say a huge thank you to the AC's (camera assistants), it really does require a ton of team work when working in the field and having an extra set of hands to help lug hundreds of pounds of gear around and set up in remote locations really requires many helpful hands. Shout out to my good friend Russell Clark who assisted me on nearly every shoot. Thanks for putting up with the crazy hours and schedules that come with filming wildlife! Big thank you to Tynan Callesen, Casey Dubois, Kai Meyer, Beau Llewellyn, Ryan Tidman, Shane Craver, Mark McGovern, Hamish Tweed, Cam Scott-Trask, and Jack Gawthrop!
Big thank you to the River Road Films production team including producers, directors, production coordinators, mangers and editors! Jeff Turner, Chelsea Turner, Lynn Fuhr, Alex Burr, Lou Ferguson, Armen Evrensel, Matthew Muncaster, Jacques Russo, Erin Cumming, Steven Hays and Jeanne Slater.
