Michael Hanrahan teaches Introduction to Environmental Media Production and Advanced Environmental Media Production for the Blue Horizons program. He has been involved with documentary film production for twenty five years. Hanrahan studied marine science and motion picture film at the University of Miami, combining his respect for the ocean with his desire to communicate the challenges it faced. Early in his career, Hanrahan worked as a lecturer and underwater camera operator for Jean-Michel Cousteau, traveling to every continent except Antarctica. Later, Hanrahan would work with underwater and natural history documentary legend Mike deGruy. Under Mike’s leadership, Hanrahan developed the filming strategy for the Discovery Channel production Search for the Giant Squid, allowing capture of the first video footage of a giant squid.
Hanrahan also collaborated with deGruy in the production of a series of short films on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the biological impacts in the Gulf of Mexico for the National Science Foundation. Their next project, a proposed five-year “environmental solutions” project called Ocean Challenge,was suspended indefinitely when Mike deGruy was killed in a helicopter accident while filming on location in Australia. As a tribute to his friend and mentor, Hanrahan integrates lessons learned from deGruy into his production work at Earth Media Lab, as well as the film courses he teaches at University of California, Santa Barbara. Each summer, Hanrahan presents a ‘soup to nuts’ class of production skills for the Blue Horizons program. In the fall term, he teaches a similar course at the Bren School for Environmental Science & Management.
Hanrahan is also the author of an environmental thriller titled The Last Extinction, an enhanced novel that tells the story of an ancient tablet uncovered in the heart of the Amazon.