Bill Lovin, Founder, Marine Grafics and OceanArchives.com, Filmmaker, Writer
Educational filmmaker Bill Lovin has worked professionally in television and film production since 1968. Initially working in sports, he has traveled to forty-six countries for CBS, NBC and ABC. Assignments have included Olympic Games, skiing, sailing and motorsports as well as numerous documentaries and commercials.
A diver since 1965, he successfully combined diving and filmmaking in the early 1970’s, shooting network assignments and eventually producing his own films. Assignments have included whales in Patagonia, an award-winning special on scuba diving children for PBS, spots for GMA with Geraldo Rivera and CBS News. Lovin also shot much of the background footage for the MGM/UA remake of Sea Hunt and shot a number of shows for explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau. Lovin’s company, Marine Grafics, maintained one of the nation’s largest libraries of natural science, marine and underwater footage during the 1990s.
He was on-camera host and producer of a series of science programs for the 1991-1993 public television seasons. His series, Return to the Sea, featured real people from all walks of life, exploring the marine environment. Most recently, he produced Oceans Alive! and Seahouse, two award-winning educational series for K-2 and middle/high school students. These series featured over 100 single concept shows designed to support science curricula in schools. These shows remain among the most successful science series ever produced in the US.
Lovin is founder of the EstuaryLIVE internet event begun at the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve in 1997 and he continued to produce the event for NOAA for many years. EstuaryLIVE has brought hundreds of scientists and researchers into classrooms, live and interactively via the internet, reaching students across the United States and around the world. In 2008 Lovin created Estuarylive.TV for NOAA, editing the dozens of broadcast programs into short, single concept science videos for use in K-12.
In 2003 he was named an Intel Tech Laureate for his work in devising the concept for the interactive web fieldtrip.
In 2007 Lovin took the idea of the interactive internet event a step further by creating environments for education and professional development for teachers in on-line virtual worlds. He created large installations for United Star Distance Learning Consortium (USDLC), North Carolina Virtual Public Schools and NC State University in the virtual world of Second Life.
In 2020, Lovin created OceanArchives.com in order to make his films and videos available as a free resource for educators and students who can use them to create their own projects and to learn more about the marine environment.
Lovin has received many awards and recognitions, most notable are:
- 1997 PBS Children’s Programming Award for Lovin’s film, Underwater Kids. The film follows a science teacher and her students from a rural classroom in North Carolina to the Florida Keys as they learn to dive and through this odyessy, learn more about the sea and themselves.
- The Our World Underwater Award was presented in1994 for helping people “understand and appreciate the ocean environment through the magic of video imaging”.
- In 2000, the Underwater Club of Boston presented Lovin with the Paul Revere Spike from the sunken wreck U.S.F. New Hampshire.
Bill Lovin holds degrees in Journalism and Film Production from the University of North Carolina.
Click here for a PDF version of Bill’s Biography.