Suddenly a bigger splash crashed out like a shot. The children looked around, froze, and then scrambled, terrified, for the edge of the pool.
For a moment they stood there, dripping. But their attention was drawn by a quiet, British-accented male voice.
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The speaker was freelance film producer and director Martin Morrison of Bristol, England, son of Coastside singer/songwriter Mo Robinson, outlining a scene in his 60-minute documentary. Tentatively titled “Sea Lion Mystery,” it is being produced by Bristol-based Tigress Productions for the National Geographic channel.
Touching on not just sea lions but marine life worldwide, the documentary looks into what Morrison depicted as a rise in toxins in the marine environment and surveys potential causes. One likely source, he said, is a marine algae that became toxic and is in the food chain.
Crew from the British production company, with Morrison, traveled to California to shoot the film because the story is based on the West Coast. “We film everywhere,” Morrison said.
That story, he continued, began with a 1998 incident in which around 70 sea lions became ill and were stranded on central California beaches near Sausalito. That number grew, and eventually included other forms of sea life. “The thing that affected sea lions affected other marine life,” he said.
But the children, temporarily setting aside the gravity of the subject matter, laughed as they cannonballed back into the heated 30,000-gallon pool belonging to David Minton and wife Claudine Schwartz-Minton.
On one side of it, sound man James Thomson angled an oversized microphone. On the other, cameraman Simon Niblett fiddled with his camera under an umbrella held by assistant producer Nadine Tayar. She had just fished up the big plastic bucket, filled with water, that she tossed into the pool to make the big splash noise representing a pelican falling into the pool.
The scene, Morrison explained, dramatized an actual event in which pelicans, having ingested anchovies exposed to the toxic algae, suffered seizures while flying and plummeted, dying, to earth.
As it probes reasons the marine life was stricken, possibly including manmade toxins, the film “sort of illustrates a range of views” with an Agatha Christie mystery element, he said.
“It’s kind of a what-done-it instead of a whodunit,” he said.
Morrison encouraged Grace Cameron, 6, of Montara, Callum Bodington, 8, of Montara and Erika Bautista, 10, of El Granada to turn when they heard the big splash, freeze, and then scramble out of the pool.
The fallen “birds” were two stuffed animals lashed together, supplemented with footage of actual pelicans that had died of natural causes, filmed at the International Bird Rescue and Research Center in Fairfield.
The kids were glad to oblige.
“It was fun,” said Bautista, peeling a tangerine from a bag passed around by Schwartz-Minton. “It was a hard scene in parts but we finally got it.”
“A pool and beach ball,” said Bodington. “It’s cool, being in this. Right, guys?”
“It was fun playing in the pool,” said Cameron.
Weeks earlier, Robinson had helped by tapping online connections to find the pool and kids.
Tigress Productions retained Morrison to direct and produce the documentary for the National Geographic “Wild” series. With freelancers Tayar, Thomson and Niblett, he was working a 14-day shooting schedule, hopscotching from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing to El Granada to Santa Cruz.
The segment should air in the worldwide in the fall. “It’s going well. Everyone here is incredibly helpful,” he said. “We’ve got a community of scientists and oceanographers doing good work we’re able to get access to.”
The homeowner was also pleased. “Anything that can serve as a vehicle of communication for environmental stewardship is something I’m happy to support,” said Minton, also a folk singer who has joined Robinson onstage a local open mikes. “The film is in sync with my philosophy” in support of environmental awareness.
The debate over contributing factors of environmental toxins should trigger discussion, said Morrison. “That’s the Agatha Christie element — it could be this, it could be that,” he said. “At the end, you’ve got an overview and the audience comes away informed about a subject they may not have tuned into if the program were not done in a particular way, as a watch-able mystery.”
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