Vanessa Serrao, a 1998 alumna of the University of Delaware, will walk the red carpet at the Emmys in September. Serrao and co-producer Will Johnson have been nominated for an episode of the Discovery Channel’s “Deadliest Catch” (“The Real Dutch”) in the Outstanding Special Class (short-format nonfiction) Category.
The series of videos was produced for Discovery Digital Media, encompassing Discovery.com Video on Demand, and Discovery Mobile.
Serrao – who grew up in Tobyhanna, Penn. – also directed and edited the particular episode that was nominated. “The series profiled the town of Unalaska/Dutch Harbor on the Aleutian Islands, where the ships from the series ‘The Deadliest Catch’ port. We wanted to show what the town is really like and feature the people who live there,” said Serrao.
Work on the series began with Serrao and her co-producer, Johnson, planning from her office in Silver Spring, Md. Then, the pair and their crew “went to Alaska to Dutch Harbor and were there for about four or five days.” Once there, Serrao directed the shoot, conducted interviews, and directed the crew. When they returned, she was responsible for editing all of the pieces and compiling them for the web.
The episode can be viewed online at by visiting the Deadliest Catch Web site and clicking on the link for 'Watch Video.' Serrao’s pieces are on the tab for Dutch and are labeled the “Deadliest Catch: The Real Dutch.”
After graduating from the University of Delaware with her bachelor’s degree in entomology with a concentration in wildlife conservation, Serrao went on to pursue her master’s of fine arts from Montana State University, Bozeman in science and natural history filmmaking. She said, “I always knew that I wanted to focus on the communications and education angles of wildlife and when I found the grad program in Montana I thought it sounded like an amazing thing to do.”
While in graduate school, Serrao took advantage of an internship program at Discovery Health Channel. She worked on a show called “Birth Day Live,” where she assisted with “everything from in house production to broadcasting live from hospital delivery rooms.”
That internship was the start of a line of positions that eventually set her on the dock of the Deadliest Catch. After the internship at Discovery Health, Serrao did some freelance work for production companies, doing science education videos. That job led to an opportunity at the Science Channel and then a freelance position for an Animal Planet series called Ms. Adventure.
Serrao is still in the program at Montana, working towards her masters, but the series of fortunate job opportunities has kept her working and completing requirements from Silver Spring, Md. where Discovery Communications is headquartered.
Her position there is in the digital media department with a production group that does all of the ‘short-form’ content. Serrao said that her work appears online, on demand, and on video mobile “using a lot of original footage and content that you won’t see on the TV series itself.”
The 2008 Creative Arts Emmy Awards air Saturday, September 13, at 8 p.m. on E!, live from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
“I’m just happy to be nominated. But now that it’s getting closer, I really want to win,” Serrao said. She chuckled, adding, “Wish me luck. I’m up against Jay Leno and the History Channel.”
