Interview with Greg MacGillivray
The filmmaker – a lifelong surfer – talks about making IMAX movies, Hollywood's surfing infatuation and what it's like working with his son.
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Laguna Beach’s Greg MacGillivray is considered the Spielberg of the IMAX film world; he is hands-down the biggest influence and the most prolific of the really, really big screen. But personally, the soft-spoken, mild-mannered MacGillivray couldn’t be more different from his giant cinematic spectacles. He is a family man and a humble surfer who got his start in Hollywood in a very unassuming way: by making a surf film that he had to narrate live since he couldn’t afford sound.
This was back in the ’60s, when surf films showed in high school auditoriums to a shirtless crowd that was considered a fringe element. Nonetheless, he enjoyed full family support – literally. His father and mother (and sometimes even his grandmother) traveled the California coast with him, helping to put up posters, sell tickets and work screenings. “They were so supportive,” says MacGillivray. “And they worked cheap, so it was perfect.” The public thought so, too. That first film, The Performers, shot for $3,000, generated $35,000, a lot of great reviews and one dedicated filmmaker.
But MacGillivray has never been in it for the money or the accolades. A humble man, his thrill has always been the art and the potent messages films can convey. And his dedication is unquestionable. Twice Academy Award-nominated, he’s taken the audiences to the roof of the world in Everest and the depths of the sea in Coral Reef. All the more incredible when you consider that the IMAX camera he took to the world’s rooftop weighed 42 pounds. That was feather light, however, compared to the 300-pound behemoth used to shoot Coral Reef. For that film, MacGillivray’s friend and expert diver Howard Hall made two dives to 365 feet (suffering a life-threatening case of the bends after one of the dives) to get one short sequence in the film. Because of the limited film capacity and the more than three hours of decompression time per dive, Hall “went down, shot three minutes of film, and that was the day,” says MacGillivray. The result was a groundbreaking film of beauty that helped alert the world to the plight of the world’s oceans and reefs. It also represented MacGillivray’s dedication to making films with a cause: At $10 million, it came in at more than twice the cost of all other IMAX films.
MacGillivray’s next IMAX film proves to be just as idealistic and altruistic. Arabia 3D, which will hit IMAX theaters in February 2010, will take an up-close and larger-than-life look at one of the most intriguing, rich and wrongly feared cultures on earth.
But for all his super big screen endeavors, MacGillivray still has a spot in his heart for his roots, surfing, and is working on a documentary about Hollywood’s bittersweet relationship with the sport. Not one to do anything small, however, that film will feature Hollywood greats such as Francis Ford Coppola, John Milius and yes, even Steven Spielberg.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Corona del Mar. I had an older and younger sister and everyone in my family was very athletic. We did a lot of outdoor activities, including going surfing as a family. It was just a great childhood.
But you weren’t exactly well off.
My dad was a building contractor, after being a school teacher. He built houses in Laguna and then sold them, but that was a tough job back then. A lot of times the houses would go unsold and we’d be eating beans and rice for a year. Literally. As a kid, I didn’t really notice. But that taught me a lot about being economical, and that taking risks has downsides as well as upsides. I actually think it was a good way to grow up.
How did your parents react when you decided you wanted to make surf films?
My folks were always very optimistic and so when I turned to film they were all-encouraging. I had to do it all on my own savings but they were right behind me. They both went to college and did see that as a main goal, but they never really pushed me, so that allowed me to spend 95% of my time making movies.
And though you were an honors student, you chose a college based on surf.
I was three-and-half years into making this surfing film and I still didn’t think it was good enough to bring out, so I knew I had to go to a college that was near surfing. It was either UC Santa Barbara or UC San Diego, and I liked the waves at Santa Barbara better. I finished my movie my freshman year. It showed up and down the California coast, got good reviews and actually made a profit. That blew me away. So I dropped out of school for a year to make a second film and that produced an even bigger profit.
This was in the day when you had to narrate your films live, right?
Yes, and I was a very quiet kid, so being on stage was terrifying. Basically, I had to be a stand-up comedian and try to make it regionally poignant in front of a pretty rowdy crowd.
Is that when film became more than just a hobby?
It was the start. It showed me that I could actually make a career out of making films. Until then I was going to either be a physicist or a physics teacher. That was my direction. But then I thought maybe I could turn my hobby into a career. I went to my parents and they just said, “Well, you can’t starve in Southern California and you can’t freeze, so what are you worried about? Just try it.”
It sounds like a wonderful era of innocence.
It was great. Basically, it was me driving with some teenage assistant who would help put up posters and run the projector up and down the West and East Coasts. We’d meet all kinds of people and girls, and surf waves we’d never surfed before, get into trouble, get out of trouble. All of the things that go with being young and free.
Your third film, Free and Easy, was your most ambitious up to that point.
I made my third film with my [new business] partner Jim Freeman and we spent six months in South America with three surfers. After that I knew that my filmmaking skills were far better because we were both pushing each other. And the film was shown all around the world. For two years that was the big surfing film. So when that turned out really great, we started MacGillivray Freeman Films.
And that solidified you as a filmmaker?
Free and Easy got some attention in Hollywood, and especially with advertising agencies, as a really beautiful film. They thought, “Hey, these guys are young, artistic and we could probably get them really cheap.” So we got jobs for commercials and even movie sequences.
What was your big break?
We did a bunch of other films besides surfing, like dune buggies, skateboarding, hang gliding. So a producer at KCET did an hour-long special about us called “Catch the Joy” with [film critic] Charles Champlin. It was all packaged as a look into the lives of these strange guys doing movies about all this different stuff, sort of the action sports of the era. It became a big hit and every time they’d show it, we’d get a call from United Artists or Fox or another studio offering us work. Then the show got an Emmy and the producer did another special and it got rerun. So for about three years it was like a free infomercial for our company.
What drove your transition to IMAX?
We got an offer from the Smithsonian Institution. They saw our films about hang gliding and such and asked us to do an IMAX film about flying. We had read about IMAX and we were jazzed because we saw it as the most technically advanced filmmaking medium. The film was to come out with the opening of the new National Air and Space Museum in Washington.
So you made the groundbreaking To Fly.
Yes. Within the first year, the IMAX theater became the most well-attended theater in the world. They sold out every show. In the first year, 1.5 million people saw the movie. More than anything, To Fly established the commercial viability of this new thing called an IMAX theater. So after the wonderful experience I had making that film, I decided I would bend my career to make more IMAX films.
What’s the most challenging aspect of making an IMAX film?
Understanding the medium, because it’s different than regular film. The audience sits very close to the screen and they’re there for an experience more than a story. It’s more akin to going to an opera than going to a movie, as a special event. So as a filmmaker you have to look at it in a completely new fashion; it’s not what you learned in film school. You have to do something imaginative and totally different every time.
That requirement has forced you to take the big, cumbersome IMAX cameras to the most extreme places on earth. Did you ever think, “This film may not get made”?
A number of times. That’s why I think every filmmaker needs to have a sense of optimism and a willingness to push ahead no matter how bad it gets. Because a lot of times out of the weirdest and worst struggle will come the best film. I’m always focused on making a film that’s different than all the rest that I’ve done and is better than all the rest. That’s what I love about what I do; that’s what motivates me. I want to entertain people in a new way every time. That gets me through those challenging times.
Your films are not just entertainment, however. They usually carry a strong message about environmentalism, cultural understanding, tolerance...
Any entertainer can be a message giver and move his or her audience in the direction they want to see the world go. And ever since my first surfing films, I’ve had the desire to educate people about the need to sustain the health of the ocean. That’s why I’ve dedicated myself to doing at least 10 films about ocean conservation. We’re working on our seventh film now, called To the Arctic.
And your upcoming film, Arabia 3D, is definitely provocative.
Yes. [It is] a film about Arabia after 9/11. After all this fear that we’ve been led to believe, it is worthwhile and needed, I think. What we’re trying to do with the film is communicate what Islam is, what Arabia is, what an Arab is, so people don’t just have that knee-jerk reaction of fear. It’s just staggering to think that a billion-and-a-half people are feared merely because they’re Muslim. It’s just the extremists that [warrant] fear; 99% of Muslims are just like you and me. It’s been convenient to make enemies out of other cultures and religions but it’s just not right. I believe cultural films are important and that an understanding of culture, geography and societies is important, because if you close yourself off you’re missing out on so much of the richness of life.
Another movie in the works is not an IMAX, but a documentary on Hollywood’s hot and cold relationship with surfing. So, how has Hollywood treated surfing?
Hollywood has exploited surfers and surfing for obvious reasons. Particularly back in the early ’60s, [film] rebels sold tickets, whether it was Hells Angels or crazy hippies or surfers. But surfers actually sold more tickets, because there was something sexy about them. The girls wore bikinis and guys were buff on the beach. It was attractive to young people, so a slew of 40 or so beach party movies were made. They cost very little to make and did fairly well.
But none of them really communicated that true surfer’s feeling. Then came Big Wednesday, a classic that you worked on.
Big Wednesday was a chance for not only Hollywood to get it right but for surfers to get it right. But even though we had a sizable budget from Warner Brothers and a great director, it was very difficult to convey to people the beauty and feeling of surfing. It’s something that’s very difficult to talk about, let alone write a script about. So I don’t think any film has gotten it right, including Big Wednesday, though it did come closer than most. But explaining that feeling is such an elusive thing.
Why is surfing so much more than a sport?
In the early ’60s it was kind of a rebellious thing. The beaches were where people who didn’t have a job hung out. And surfers embraced that as sort of a badge of honor. It turned out to be an almost anti-societal statement. And I think surfers like that, being on the fringe, sort of like a rock-n-roller would. When I was in high school and a surfer, but also on the honor role and on a college track, people just wouldn’t get it. They just didn’t get the fact that not all surfers are stupid.
So what will your currently untitled Hollywood surfing film try to do?
It will have some history and the audience will definitely learn a lot, but it’s more or less a comedy. I want to do a film that has the fun of the ’60s and early ’70s, with the music and the pure innocence of that era, but is also truly comical. I want to try to get the pure joy of surfing through.
Your son, Shaun, is following in your footsteps. Do you encourage that?
Yes. He graduated from USC film school and came out actually knowing how to make films. In fact, he did a beautiful, heart-breaking but inspiring short film about a local boy who had a degenerative skin disease. It played at Cannes this year. So I gave him a job here producing To the Arctic. I wanted to give him one of the tougher jobs, so his is a 20-hour day of problems coming at him right and left. He’s slogging through all the bad stuff of filmmaking, because you’ve got to learn producing in order to make films. It’s a requirement.
