Greg MacGillivray

Greg has been producing and directing award-winning films for more than 50 years. He started making films when he was just 13 and later partnered with Jim Freeman to form MacGillivray Freeman Films in 1966. He loves the continual chess game of making a film, where each move affects every element. Today, he has more than 60 films to his credit, including over 40 IMAX productions.

Since the 1976 production of his first IMAX film, To Fly!, Greg has produced some of the most enduring films in the giant-screen genre. He has shot more 70mm film than anyone in cinema history and is the first documentary filmmaker to reach the $1 billion benchmark in worldwide ticket sales. Greg has received two Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Short Subject: first in 1995 for The Living Sea, and then in 2000 for Dolphins. In 2002, the Giant Screen Theater Association honored Greg as one of the five most important contributors to the success of the industry. That same year, Greg accepted the Bradford Washburn Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Museum of Science in Boston, for his contribution to science education.

One of the best parts of his job is that it has allowed him to spend his life sharing filming adventures with his family and film team. He’s been everywhere, but among the coolest places he’s travelled are Tibet in 1980, which he describes as “rough and raw,” like the old west; Irian Jaya (New Guinea) in 1984 where he experienced the stone-age cultures; and Costa Rica, for the amazing surfing (except when Shaun was bitten by a shark!).

A passionate ocean conservationist, Greg and his wife Barbara founded the MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation, a non-profit public charity dedicated to educating and inspiring the public through giant-screen films and science education programming about the need to take action to protect the world’s ocean. Greg also serves on the Board of Directors for The Great Park in Orange County and Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue, as well as the Laguna Playhouse and Laguna Art Museum.