WHY SHOULD YOU WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY?
Like all my wildlife productions, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park: A Biophysical Overview (Prairie Creek) offers entertainment, pleasing imagery, soothing natural sounds, exciting orchestral music, education, and a greater appreciation for all life (including your own). If you’re a fan of wildlife films, a teacher looking for a unique biology video to show your class, or you want to escape life’s stress by journeying to a remote, scenic sector of California, Prairie Creek might be for you.

RECOGNITION
Prairie Creek has received broad recognition with a nomination for a research project award at Humboldt State University (HSU) and airings on PBS stations in two states. I was invited by university faculty to present Prairie Creek at HSU’s Geography Department Alumni Reunion in April 2009. The documentary was also screened in front of a massive audience at the first annual Sundial Film Festival in Redding, CA.

FEATURES & UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES
Prairie Creek chronicles an extraordinarily unique portion of North America’s West Coast: Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (PCRSP). The documentary shows you prehistoric redwood forests and their bizarre banana slug inhabitants. It lets you relax by a gurgling creek in the emerald splendor of internationally famous Fern Canyon. Prairie Creek also takes you on a stroll through grasslands to see the dramatic rutting activity of regal Roosevelt elk. You also get a trip to the beach. There, you can see gulls, cormorants, bobbing harbor seals, and brown pelicans with their amazing aerial maneuvers and diving tactics.

HOW/WHEN WAS THIS DOCUMENTARY MADE?
Prairie Creek started as a project for my Senior Field Research geography class at HSU during my fall 2008 semester. HSU is located in Arcata, CA near the coast of the Pacific Ocean and is about ten miles north of Eureka. PCRSP is about thirty miles north of Arcata.

I was in a great position to make my documentary because in a previous course, I’d written a lengthy research paper about PCRSP. Plus, I’d been there numerous times, including camping trip visits I took with my family as far back as when I was about two or three years old. My earliest memories of camping are from PCRSP.

I love the park, but rarely visited while at HSU because college was demanding. With academic, artistic, and emotional motivation to visit PCRSP, I worked on my documentary from sunrise to sunset on several weekends. I dedicatedly juggled cinematography, sound recording, research, script writing, and my other classes until I finished editing Prairie Creek in January 2009.

PARTING MESSAGE
The result of my work is one of the few videos about PCRSP and as far as I know, the only production to specifically and holistically focus on the park’s biophysical elements. I’m happy to share my work and hope you’ll enjoy watching Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park: A Biophysical Overview as much as I enjoyed making it.