reelblue, llc, is a media production company that specializes in stories about global health and the environment that seek to inspire social innovation and communicate the connections between people and the natural world. We serve as both a think tank and studio, from concept to distribution, for individuals, non-profit organizations and corporations who want to communicate their ideas and knowledge through mass media, including film, television, print and the internet. Using our backgrounds in environmental science, public health, journalism and filmmaking, our work is unique, educational and entertaining.

about us

 

Jennifer Galvin, ScD, MPH

Determined to drive societal progress and connect people with social and environmental challenges, Dr. Galvin combines three areas of deep expertise and accomplishment: science, media, and catalytic investment.  As an environmental health specialist, her investigations and communications have contributed to a greater understanding of global health and the environment, particularly for coastal populations.  She forged the discipline now known as “Ocean and Human Health”; her master's thesis at Yale became the founding paper for the world’s first International Center for Ocean and Human Health, she’s a contributing author to Oceans and Human Health: Risks and Remedies from the Seas, and she served in an advisory role for Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment. Galvin holds a Doctor of Science (ScD) in environmental health from the Harvard School of Public Health, a Master of Public Health (MPH) in environmental epidemiology from Yale University, and a Bachelor of Science (BS) in aquatic biology from Brown University.  As a founder of reelblue, LLC, she produces, directs, and shoots documentary and fiction films, and heads up the company’s social media outreach arm, reelgreen. Her award-winning feature documentary Free Swim, together with its companion book We, Sea and guide Free Swim Guide for Educators + Changemakers, has traveled the globe to reduce youth drowning, promote diversity in ocean-related sports, and ignite community coastal conservation.  For this work Galvin earned a top NYFA-NYSCA grant, won a Patagonia-sponsored award for relating sports stories to conservation, and graced the homepage of TakePart.com. From print to visual storytelling, her work has been internationally recognized for connecting art and science and inspiring social transformation.  Some of her work includes:  Heading North (in development); Elwha Unplugged (in production); Chores (2011); Eating The Ocean (2010); Contact Zone (2010); Free Swim (2009); La Transition (2009); Once Upon A Tide (2008); We, Sea:  Photographs and Words from the Children of South Eleuthera (2007); Caguayo (2006); Healthy Ocean, Healthy Humans (2005). She was selected to the American Film Institute's 2004 Catalyst Workshop for science storytelling and screenwriting, and to the 2006 Pan Caribbean Project for Environmental Film and Wildlife Documentaries Residency held at EICTV, Cuba.  Galvin also leads a charitable foundation that deploys catalytic investments to improve the planet. As program director and trustee of the Henry David Thoreau Foundation, she directs dollars to the next generation of environmental leaders through institutional programs and undergraduate scholarships. She is a member of New York Women in Film & Television, the Pleiades Women's Leadership Network, the ICAIC Muestra Itinerante de Cine del Caribe/Caribbean Travelling Film Showcase, and on the boards of the San Francisco Green Film Festival and Swim to Empower.

Sachi Cunningham, MJ

Sachi Cunningham is an Emmy and Webby award-winning journalist and filmmaker. In 2008 she was recruited to join the first video team at the Los Angeles Times, where she covered stories from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the historic El Nino big wave season of 2010. While at the Times, she also fostered co-productions with Current TV, the Center for Investigative Reporting and KQED’s California Report. Prior to the Times Cunningham worked on the staff of PBS’ FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World, where she produced the shows’ first multimedia online video report from the India-Pakistan “line of control.” She was also instrumental in the launch, programming and branding of FRONTLINE's online video and photo series “Rough Cuts” and “Flash Point,” which included stories about social entrepreneurs funded through a partnership with the Skoll Foundation. Cunningham developed her interest in media as a student at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design. She worked in film production and development for a decade in Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo assisting and managing staffs for talents that included Barry Levinson and Demi Moore. While shooting behind the scenes footage for Levinson used for the DVD of the film Bandits, she realized her interests laid in non-fiction storytelling. She soon found her first story, CRUTCH, a feature length documentary about a dancer with a debilitating hip disability. The video sketch for CRUTCH found Internet fame when it was selected as the top featured video on the home page of You Tube the day it was sold to Google. However, in producing the short, Cunningham realized that she didn't quite yet have the chops for a feature documentary. She subsequently attended the U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, studying under Jon Else and Bob Calo. Her reporting has since taken her around the globe, including Afghanistan during its first presidential election and the United Arab Emirates to investigate the sex trade in Dubai. In the water, she has swum with (and filmed) both Michael Phelps and a cage of full of 350 pound blue fin tuna. When not crafting documentary stories, Cunningham can be found with her husband bobbing in the Pacific, eyes trained on the horizon, waiting to paddle into her next wave.