Travis Cooper, left, and Wayne Van Burger sit in their office at Beaver Hill Productions near Coquille on Monday. The two are holding their Telly awards. World Photo by Madeline Steege

COQUILLE - Thanks to modern technology, an award-winning, cutting-edge television studio can be located just about anywhere.

Even a Coquille garage.

It's here that Beaver Hill Productions, formed in March 2006, produced two videos that won Telly awards, which honor programming outside the scope of the Emmys.

One of the awards was for the pilot episode of “The Joy of Fishing,” a series the company expects will premiere on the Outdoor Channel in 2008.

“It's a non-redneck fishing show,” said Travis Cooper, 33, at the Beaver Hill studio Monday. “It's like Mr. Rogers takes you fishing.”

In this case, Mr. Rogers is Wayne Van Burger, 58, the other half of Beaver Hill Productions, who began a new career after teaching and coaching for 32 years at Marshfield High School. Van Burger is the star of the unscripted series that will take viewers on fishing trips around Oregon, the Northwest and eventually the world, in high-definition.

“It is a huge jump (from teaching),” Van Burger said, adding that old friends wonder what he knows about TV production.

Though technology allows small companies like Beaver Hill to compete, it still requires specialized knowledge to operate it. That's where Cooper, who has worked in production on programs for the History Channel and the Discovery Channel, comes in.

Van Burger was boating during the floods of winter 2006 when he ran into neighbor Bill Grami and mentioned that he'd always wanted to do a fishing show. Grami introduced him to Cooper, who had been studying photography with him, and the two formed the company with the fishing show as its purpose.

But television production - not to mention world travel - costs money, and Cooper and Van Burger wanted to maintain a documentary style, independent of sponsors. So to finance the venture, they decided to do additional video production work for corporate clients.

To attract business, they made a four-and-a-half minute sample video promoting tourism in Coos County - a video that won them their other Telly award, a statuette made by the same company that makes the Oscars and Emmys. Except for brief introductory and closing remarks, the video consists mainly of stunning nature photography and music.

Beaver Hill has since made videos - for companies including Freeman Marine of Gold Beach - which have funded production of the first season of “The Joy of Fishing.” Cooper and Van Burger are halfway through the first 13 episodes, which they expect to finish by the end of the year.

“We want to do it on our own for the first season or two,” said Cooper, who shows his enthusiasm for TV work in rapid, detailed speech. “It's a show that's entertainment, but we want it to have a journalistic feel, without having Wayne put Pennzoil in his car every five minutes. It's a challenge for outdoors programming, which is so sponsorship-driven.”

Though the show won't reach cable for a year, the company is building a fan base through a Web site (www.thejoyoffishing.tv), where viewers can watch the first episode, which highlights salmon fishing on the Columbia River in the Scappoose area. Other trips planned for the series include the Rogue and McKenzie rivers in Oregon, Elfin Cove in Alaska, trout fishing in Argentina and ocean fly fishing in the Seychelles.

“We're going to be traveling worldwide,” Van Burger said. “We're like what the Army has - we're the quick strike force for HD production.”

Among the equipment that allows the company to film with high quality in wilderness locations - where tripods aren't very useful - with a one-man crew is Cooper's Steadycam brace stabilizer, a contraption that supports a very heavy camera but feels like a backpack much lighter than that of the typical middle schooler.

“I've gone as long as 12 hours straight with that on,” Cooper said. “When Wayne's in the boat fishing, I'm on another boat trying to balance for dear life.”

The streamlined equipment and digital production also allow the company to be environmentally friendly. “It's low impact,” Cooper said. “We're not dragging a crew of 20 people into the woods.”

But ultimately, the success of the show will depend on how viewers respond to Van Burger, whom Cooper describes as a natural interviewer on par with 󈬬 Minutes.” He'll have to hold an audience's attention while communicating each episode's lesson.

Maybe it's not such a big jump from teaching after all.