The Monterey Bay has made a dramatic comeback in recent decades ever since it was designated a National Marine Sanctuary back in 1992. That’s what inspired the BBC and PBS to showcase the Monterey Bay in a three day live special that begins tonight on PBS. I recently spoke with one of the producers of Big Blue Live, Bill Margol of PBS. He took me on a tour of Big Blue Live’s home base at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
In the Aquarium’s gated parking lot there are satellite trucks, generators and a truck filled with edit rooms. Then out on the water there are boats with 360-degree cameras and underwater cameras for reporters to do live shots. The production also has a helicopter ready to capture whales migrating live.
The crew just wrapped up three live shows for the BBC and will now do it all again for US viewers on PBS, once for east coast viewers and again for viewers on the west coast. In the end, the crew will produce nine live shows.
“I don’t think anybody’s done this in the US for natural history, ever. In fact, I know it hasn’t been done. People are used to seeing this for sports and concerts and things like that. But think about this with sports you know exactly where the game is going to happen,” says Margol.
Not so with this program. And as we settle in on one of the main sets for Big Blue Live, a balcony at the Aquarium overlooking the bay, I ask him that question.
KA: I understand live television with people, but when you are dealing with the ocean and dealing with nature... How do you plan it as a live event when you really don’t know what’s going to be out there?
BM: Well we have a floor manager in the ocean who says, ‘cue the whales!’ and they show up on cue. No, I wish it was that easy. So first of all, our thought was, people have seen a lot of great blue chip documentaries over the years with whales and all of the species that we’re going to show, but to truly put people in the moment here the only way to do it is to do it live. When you come here and you visit it’s unpredictable what you’ll see, so it’s unpredictable what we’ll see during, during our broadcasts and that’s the fun of it.
There is this incredible happening in the Bay and were going to bring it to you live. Whatever it brings, we’re going to bring it to you live. And of course like great story tellers there’s certain species we know we can get. We know we can get sea otters and we know we’ll get sea lions and we know we’ll get elephant seals just based on the incredible history here in the Monterey Bay. We have a real chance of getting humpback whales and dolphins. Of course, we all shoot for the big guy for the Blue Whale and we’re hoping to get those live, but it’s less about whether we capture that particular moment on camera. I mean that’s the holy grail, we hope for it. And more about brining viewers here live to experience the happening.
And so what we’ll do, we’ll be out there looking for humpbacks live, but we’ll also be able to say just an hour ago we saw this or right before air we saw that.
KA: Beyond the entertainment aspect is there a takeaway?
BM: The takeaway for me and the takeaway for PBS is that yes, it’s an incredible spectacle. It will be amazing to watch, but the message we want to sink in is this idea that: this is an amazing thing that’s happened here. 50, 60, 70 years ago, this Bay was dead. It was species were gone, it was over fished. And a decision was made to stop over fishing, to stop using the Bay as a resource and let it recover, and it has, to a remarkable degree. And so the takeaway is, if it can happen here, it can happen where you are. It can happen in your Bay, it can happen in your ocean. It can happen in your lake. It can happen in your river. All of these ecosystems and repair themselves if we stop messing with them.
Big Blue Live airs at 8:00pm today, tomorrow and Wednesday on PBS.