Gavin Garrison (born March 14, 1987) is a director and reality television show producer who produced the long-running Discovery series "Whale Wars.[1]" Garrison, a graduate of the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts[2][3] and UC Santa Barbara used his travels to become an author on adventure conservation.[4] His projects have taken him from his home in Los Angeles, CA to filming in China's remote Mongolian plains, the icy waters off the coast of Antarctica,[5] the Romanian highlands, and the jungles of Costa Rica.
Garrison got his start in Hollywood working as a production assistant on the set of the Fox television show "The OC".[6]" He then went on to work on other hit shows "Mad Men" and "Entourage" as a technical consultant. He has produced two seasons of the Emmy-nominated reality show "Whale Wars",[7] and he set up and runs the Hollywood-based commercial production company, Red Apple Production.[8][9]
In 2015, he shot the first-ever recorded aerial footage of a Blue whale and her calf nursing near the coast of Antarctica.[10] The footage went on to spark a conversation about the role of drones[11] in modern conservation efforts[12][13] and has become a topic in the world of unmanned aircraft.[14] A new term for the movement was coined in a November 2015 interview with Garrison as "Conservation 2.0.[15]". Garrison now speaks on the topic worldwide.[16] He produced six episodes of "Whale Wars," which includes four major specials[6] and four documentary films.[6]
Gavin Garrison has written over a dozen articles on the use of unmanned aircraft for filmmaking[17] and conservation,[4] and has become a special contributor to drone publications like RotorDrone magazine.[18]