"California Coast" on PBS.

CALIFORNIA COAST: WITHIN SIGHT, SCENT AND SOUND OF THE OCEAN.  

Thomas Rigler, Writer / Director. Deborah Zeitman, Editor. 

60-minute special presentation celebrating the most beautiful and most visited coastline in the world. One of the Golden State’s best-kept secrets, the 1100-mile California Coastal Trail follows the coastline in its entirety, a magnificent once-in-a-century planning and construction effort. 

5 years in the making, the multiple Emmy-winning film team at Rigler Creative (Lost LA & City Walk on PBS) visited all 15 counties along the California coastline between Mexico and Oregon to capture material for 60 short films portraying an equal amount of communities. These shorts were archived on California’s PBS affiliate, KCET / PBS SoCal. 

This brand-new special compiles new interviews and the cinematic highlights from all 15 counties to explore the questions and most pressing topics currently dominating the national conversation:  Sea Level Rise, Coastal Access, Diversity, Cultural Barriers, Ocean Preservation, and the legacy of the Coastal Act.

A result of the landmark 1972 voter initiative ‘Proposition 20,’ the California Coastal Act established  visionary legislature in order to protect and conserve the California coastline, regulate development and construction in the Coastal Zone Boundary and guarantee public access to the ocean for all, a complete novelty among the states in the union.

As part of the Coastal Act, the state was tasked to design and construct an uninterrupted trail, to be ‘Within Sight, Sound and Scent of the Ocean’, thereby effectively creating an 1100-mile linear park along the entire California coast. The statewide impact on tourism, local commerce and the California lifestyle for generations to come cannot be overstated.