Greg MacGillivray
Greg MacGillivray is one of the world’s foremost producers and directors of giant-screen films with a film career that spans more than 40 years. He is President of MacGillivray Freeman Films and Chairman of the non-profit MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation, a public charity. With more than 30 giant-screen films to his credit, Greg has shot more 70mm film than anyone in cinema history—more than two million feet. His California-based company has been dedicated to the giant-screen motion picture format since the production of his first IMAX® Theatre film, To Fly!, in 1976. Twenty years later, To Fly! was selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Archives as one of the most important films in the first 100 years of American filmmaking. Early in his filmmaking career, Greg worked in Hollywood, directing and photographing for Stanley Kubrick on The Shining and filming for the Oscar®-nominated Jonathan Livingston Seagull and the Oscar-winning Sentinels of Silence. Greg received his own first Academy Award® nomination in 1995 for his ocean classic, The Living Sea, which was nominated for Best Documentary Short Subject. He was nominated a second time in the same category for Dolphins in 2000. In 1998, his blockbuster film Everest achieved unprecedented critical acclaim and box office success and is currently the highest grossing IMAX Theatre film in history. Greg is the only producer to have three films—To Fly!, The Living Sea and Everest—inducted into the IMAX Hall of Fame.
Greg MacGillivray is well-known in the industry for his artistic and technical innovations in the giant-screen format. He initiated the development of three cameras for the IMAX format—the high-speed (slow-motion) camera, the industry’s first lightweight camera, and the “all-weather” camera used during filming on Mt. Everest. In 2002, the Giant Screen Theater Association recognized Greg as one of five of the most important contributors to the success of the large format industry over the last twenty-five years. Later that year, MacGillivray accepted the Bradford Washburn Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Museum of Science, Boston, for his contribution to science education, where he joined an illustrious group of previous honorees that includes Jacques Cousteau, Walter Cronkite, Sylvia Earle, Jane Goodall and Carl Sagan. In 2004, Greg and his wife Barbara founded the MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation, a non-profit 501© (3) public charity whose aim is to contribute to the conservation of our natural and cultural heritage through giant-screen films and companion educational programming. Greg’s personal mission is to produce at least 10 films that promote ocean and freshwater conservation. Six of the films have already been released, earning two Academy Award nominations and great critical acclaim.
Radio Shows featuring Greg MacGillivray
Oscar-nominated Directors: Greg MacGillivray & Robert Bilheimer
Academy Award-nominated director Robert Bilheimer continues his conversation with World Footprints about his background in theatre and filmmaking, decision to focus on socially conscious messages
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