Joel Hersch is a multimedia producer, creative director, and journalist with a passion for innovative storytelling across social platforms

His professional experience includes writing news, entertainment, and feature stories for journalistic organizations, as well as documentary film production, photography, and managing brand storytelling projects for a wide variety of clientele.




Documentary Host

In 2019, I investigated, produced, and hosted the film Cruise Ships in the Monterey Bay, which explored a controversy around cruise ships polluting the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The project was developed by Swan Dive Media in partnership with Santa Cruz Waves magazine. I also reported on the same subject for SC Waves magazine in the Spring of 2018—the article is called Floating Cities.

I’m a digital media producer with a strong writing, film production, and project management background. I am Spanish-English bilingual, and experienced in supporting social equity, diversity, and environmental projects.

As a lifelong sailor and 100-ton boat captain, I also train people in the fundamentals of sailing. I intend to bring the same qualities of team efficacy and cohesion that are required on the ocean into video production and corporate storytelling.

  • Scripting, storyboarding, interviews, coaching, editing, text overlays, budget management

  • Ideation, research, requirements gathering, project planning

  • Staging, lighting, contrast, perspective, composition, prop sourcing, strategic approach (angles, narratives, subject’s ego), brand goals, & formatting for social media.

  • Adobe Premiere Pro

    Adobe Lightroom

    Google Workspace

    Canva design platform

  • Advanced Spanish:

    Reading

    Writing

    Speaking

    (English: native)

EXPERIENCE SNAPSHOT:
Storytelling | 12-yrs
Journalism | 9-yrs
Photography | 10-yrs
Videography | 6-yrs


Cover art by Josh Becker

Whales off the California coast are becoming increasingly tangled in fishing gear. What’s being done about it?

All along the West Coast, the number of whales becoming entangled in commercial fishing gear is spiking. These entanglements can mean months of agony for the whale, in which time fishing gear can twist around their jaw, under and around their fins, or cinch tightly around their fluke. Without human intervention, these scenarios often lead to deep cuts, slow, excruciating amputations, and eventual death. The most common species of whale to fall victim to fishing gear entanglement, as well as the most complicated to liberate, is the highly migratory humpback, which weighs in at 50,000 to 80,000 pounds and grows up to 60 feet long.

Writing Samples