Chelsea Turner - Lead Producer
Chelsea Turner is an Emmy-nominated director and producer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, whose work in natural history filmmaking has earned international acclaim.
Over the past thirteen years, she has built a longstanding creative partnership with CBC Television’s “The Nature of Things” - spanning twenty-three films and five landmark series - “Wild Canada”, “Wild Canadian Year” (winner of Best Science / Nature Series at the Canadian Screen Awards), “Wild Canadian Weather”, “Shared Planet” and the upcoming “Wild Canadian Waters”.
Her work as a director on Netflix’s hit wildlife series Island of the Sea Wolves was honoured with a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2023 for Outstanding Directing for a Non-Fiction Program. Chelsea’s direction helped innovate the series’ immersive style and character-focused, episodic storytelling.
Chelsea has also worked in the world of giant-screen cinema, as the assistant producer of IMAX feature film Great Bear Rainforest, narrated by Ryan Reynolds and scored by Hans Zimmer. The film won Best Youth Film at Jackson Wild and Best Cinematography at the Giant Screen Cinema Association Awards in 2019, and received a worldwide theatrical release.
Chelsea is committed to supporting new voices in the industry through meaningful, long-term mentorship and capacity building initiatives. Chelsea has produced two films for CBC operating in a mentorship capacity for emerging directors, and has led a master class for emerging filmmakers at CBC’s The Nature of Things Science & Nature Filmmaking Workshop.
She is also an experienced outdoorsperson. As a director, she has spent over 450 days on location, covering wildlife subjects from pocket mice to elephants. She has worked in a wide variety of landscapes from filming sparring polar bears above the Arctic Circle to lions hunting in the moonlight in the Maasai Mara to millions of bats emerging from underground caves on the border of Mexico and Guatemala. Chelsea has also directed stories about people from all walks of life - from athletes to farmers to world-famous conservationists.
“I feel incredibly privileged to do the work that I do. I hope to inspire audiences to reimagine their relationship with nature - not as distant observers, but as active participants in a shared ecosystem.”
“I acknowledge that I live and work on sacred and unceded land which belongs to the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.”