NOW PLAYING AT IMAX® AND GIANT SCREEN THEATRES
© 2014 MacGillivray Freeman Films and Pacific Life |
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Narrated by two-time Golden Globe® nominee Ewan McGregor,
Humpback Whales is an extraordinary journey into the mysterious
world of one of nature’s most awe-inspiring marine mammals.
Set in the spectacular waters of Alaska, Hawaii and the remote
islands of Tonga, this ocean adventure offers audiences an up-close
look at how these whales communicate, sing, feed, play and take
care of their young. Captured for the first time with IMAX® 3D
cameras, and found in every ocean on earth, humpbacks were
early driven to extinction 50 years ago, but today are making a slow
but remarkable recovery. Join a team of researchers as they unlock
the secrets of the humpback and find out why humpbacks are the most acrobatic of all whales, why they sing their haunting songs, and why these intelligent 55-foot, 50-ton animals migrate up to 10,000 miles round-trip every year.
A MacGillivray Freeman film presented by Pacific Life, Humpback Whales is directed by Greg MacGillivray (The Living Sea, Dolphins, Everest) and produced by Shaun MacGillivray (To The Arctic, Grand Canyon Adventure). Filmed with 15perf / 65mm IMAX® cameras, Humpback Whales is written and edited by Stephen Judson (Everest, To The Arctic) with a musical score by Steve Wood (Journey to the South Pacific, To The Arctic). A One World One Ocean production.
Ewan McGregor
Often hailed as one of the finest actors of his
generation, Ewan McGregor consistently
captivates audiences with a diverse line-up of
roles across a multitude of genres, styles and
scope. From his breakthrough role as the
heroin-addicted Mark Renton in Irvine Welsh's
Trainspotting, to the legendary “Obi-Wan Kenobi”
in Star Wars Episode I: The Phanton Menace, to starring as “Christian” opposite Nicole Kidman in the Oscar and BAFTA award-winning musical Moulin Rouge, McGregor's career has been highlighted by a continuous string of bold and daring performances. McGregor can currently be seen on stage, making his Broadway debut as “Henry” in Tom Stoppard's Tony® Award-winning play “The Real Thing," directed by Sam Gold, opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal. The play opened on October 30, 2014 and will run until January 4th, 2015 at the American Airlines Theatre in New York.
McGregor's upcoming film roles include Mortdecai the film adaptation of Kyril Bonfiglioli’s book “The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery," opposite Johnny Depp. Lionsgate is set to release the film on January 23rd, 2015. He is upcoming in Rodrigo Garcia's Last Days in the Desert which is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. He will also star in Gavin O'Connor's Jane Got a Gun, out September 4, 2015, where he plays the leader of an outlaw gang. The film also stars Natalie Portman and Joel Edgerton. Among McGregor's additional upcoming film roles are the action crime-drama Son of a Gun where he plays a notorious criminal who has escaped from prison, and the political thriller Our Kind of Traitor opposite Stellan Skarsgard as well as Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic. McGregor is a devoted and influential philanthropist, and serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF UK, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing long-term humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries.
Greg MacGillivray
(Director) is a giant-screen
documentary filmmaker
who has produced and
directed many of the most
successful films shown in
IMAX® theatres, including
the box-office hit Everest
and the Academy Award®-nominated films The Living Sea and Dolphins. His 2012 film, To The Arctic, received the Best Film of the Year award from the Giant Screen Cinema Association, and he most recently directed Journey To The South Pacific.
With 37 giant-screen films to his credit, MacGillivray has shot more 70mm film than anyone in cinema history—more than two million feet. He is the first documentary filmmaker to reach the $1 billion benchmark in worldwide ticket sales.
An ardent ocean conservationist, MacGillivray and his wife Barbara founded the One World One Ocean Foundation, a non-profit public charity devoted to ocean science education through giant-screen films and companion programming. Humpback Whales is the third film that MacGillivray Freeman Films has produced in association with the One World One Ocean Foundation, following To The Arctic and Journey To The South Pacific.
Academy Award® is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Steve Judson
(Writer/Editor) has directed
five films for IMAX® theatres,
including most recently
The Alps and Journey into
Amazing Caves. He served
as a producer, director,
writer and editor on the
giant-screen blockbuster Everest. Since 1982, Judson has edited all but two of MacGillivray Freeman’s giant-screen films, making him the most experienced editor in the giant-screen field. He has written or co-written many MacGillivray Freeman films, including the Oscar®-nominated Dolphins. He also serves as the company’s Vice President for Production and Post Production.
Before joining the MacGillivray Freeman team, Judson worked as a writer/director/editor in Hollywood, including long stints at ABC and Universal Studios. A graduate of Yale University with an M.A. from the USC cinema school, Judson is a member of the Writer's Guild of America, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Oscar® is a registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Shaun MacGillivray
(Producer) is Producer and
President of MacGillivray
Freeman Films and
Managing Director of the
company’s One World One
Ocean Campaign, a multi-
year, multi-platform ocean
media initiative aimed at inspiring greater public awareness about the world’s oceans.
Producer of the award-winning 3D giant-screen films Journey To The South Pacific, To The Arctic and Grand Canyon Adventure, MacGillivray is also producing the company’s forthcoming films: America Wild: U.S. National Parks and Everest: Conquering Thin Air (both working titles).
The son of Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Greg MacGillivray, Shaun grew up on film locations all around the world. To capture the breath-taking footage seen in Humpback Whales, he and the crew travelled to Alaska, Hawaii and the remote islands of Tonga.
Brad Ohlund
(Director of Photography)
has worked in the giant-
screen industry for 25 years.
His projects with
MacGillivray Freeman Films
include the giant-screen
films Dolphins, Adventures
in Wild California, Journey Into Amazing Caves, Coral Reef Adventure, Mystery of the Nile, Greece: Secrets of the Past, Hurricane on the Bayou, Grand Canyon Adventure, Arabia, To The Arctic and Journey to the South Pacific.
After attending Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, Ohlund began his career with the classic giant-screen film To Fly! Since then, his broad and varied assignments have included filming underwater reefs in the South Pacific and primitive tribes in New Guinea and Borneo. He has filmed from a plane through the eye of a hurricane and captured the fury of an approaching tornado with an IMAX camera.
Howard Hall
(Director of Underwater
Photography) is a pioneer
of underwater IMAX® films.
In 1994, he directed the very
first underwater IMAX® 3D
feature, Into the Deep. He
then went on to direct the
IMAX® feature Island of the Sharks and in 2005, he returned to IMAX 3D® films with Deep Sea 3D, which was awarded Best Picture at the Giant Screen Cinema Association Conference and Best Large Format Film at Wildscreen. This was followed in 2009 by Under the Sea 3D, winner of Best Cinematography at the Giant Screen Cinema Association Conference and Best Documentary at the International 3D Society.
Hall's credits as director of underwater cinematography for giant-screen films include Lost Worlds, MacGillivray Freeman's The Living Sea and Hubble. In 2002, he was underwater sequence director for MacGillivray Freeman's Coral Reef Adventure, a film in which both he and his wife and partner Michele are featured on-camera. Most recently, Hall served as director of underwater cinematography on MacGillivray Freeman’s Journey to the South Pacific.
A multiple Emmy Award winner, Hall has produced and/or directed many award winning natural history television films including a National Geographic Special and three episodes of the PBS series “Nature.” He also directed the award winning, five-hour series “Secrets of the Ocean Realm” for PBS.
Steve Wood
(Composer) has been scoring
films with Greg MacGillivray
since MacGillivray’s surfing
cult classic Five Summer
Stories in 1975. Since then,
Wood has worked on more
than 20 giant-screen films,
including The Living Sea, To Fly!, The Magic of Flight, Everest, Dolphins, Greece: Secrets of the Past, Hurricane on the Bayou, The Alps, Arabia, To The Arctic, Journey to The South Pacific and Grand Canyon Adventure with Dave Matthews Band. He worked with Sting on both The Living Sea and Dolphins, and with George Harrison on Everest.
Wood has been honored with six GSCA Film Achievement Awards for Best Soundtrack, presented by the Giant Screen Cinema Association.
Greg MacGillivray
Steve Judson
Shaun MacGillivray
Brad Ohlund
Howard Hall
Steve Wood
At Pacific Life, the humpback whale is more than just part of our logo. For
more than 17 years, Pacific Life has advocated for the education, research
and conservation of the humpback whale through the Pacific Life Foundation.
The partnership with MacGillivray Freeman Films, who shares our commitment to marine mammals and ocean sustainability, is an amazing opportunity to showcase the beauty and magnificence of the humpback whale. For more information on Pacific Life Foundation’s commitment to humpback whales, marine mammals and healthy oceans click here.
Offering insurance since 1868, Pacific Life provides a wide range of life insurance products, annuities, and mutual funds, and offers a variety of investment products and services to individuals, businesses, and pension plans. Pacific Life counts more than half of the 100 largest U.S. companies as its clients. For additional company information, including current financial strength ratings, visit www.PacificLife.com.
One World One Ocean Foundation
Established by long-time ocean conservationists and filmmakers Greg
and Barbara MacGillivray, One World One Ocean Foundation uses the
power of giant screen films to educate and inspire people globally to protect the world’s ocean. The cornerstone of the Foundation’s philosophy is the belief that eco-literacy and lifelong learning are critical to an individual’s development and important to inspiring people to become bold, passionate ocean ambassadors. One World One Ocean aims for a world of educated people who appreciate and advocate for the ocean, and who realize that the world’s one ocean needs our protection.
MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation
MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit
501(c)(3) organization established to fund and produce educational
giant screen films and companion educational programming focusing on science, the environment and world cultures. The organization is dedicated to inspiring people of all ages to explore, discover and appreciate anew the natural world and the cultural histories that shape our world. The cornerstone of the Foundation’s philosophy is the belief that lifelong learning is critical to an individual’s development and important to all our future. The Educational Foundation helped fund the film Humpback Whales and, with a generous grant from Orange County Community Foundation, was able to provide educational programs and materials for the museums and science centers where the film will play, as well as for the students, teachers and families who are our audiences. Learn more at mffeducation.org.
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