‘Dolphins’ tale makes splash as Oscar nominee

Jennifer K Mahal

When the Academy Awards are announced March 25, locals will have one

of their own to cheer on.

Corona del Mar native Greg MacGillivray, along with co-producer Alec

Lorimore, is among the nominees for best documentary short subject for

the Imax film “Dolphins.” It is the second time MacGillivray, owner of

MacGillivray Freeman Films in Laguna Beach, has been nominated for an

Oscar.

“I didn’t really expect it,” said MacGillivray, speaking from a studio

in Los Angeles where he was wrapping up sound production on his company’s

latest film, “Journey Into Amazing Caves.” “You enter the film, but

you’re entering with 300 other films that are very good. It’s surprising

and shocking to be nominated. It’s been a very strong year for

documentary shorts.”

Steve Judson, who co-wrote “Dolphins,” said getting nominated was not

even on his radar screen.

“I heard the news from Greg,” Judson said. “He phoned me at home early

in the morning -- I was awake, luckily -- he called around 7. I was

delighted.”

MacGillivray, who lives in Laguna Beach, grew up in Corona del Mar. He

remembers delivering the Daily Pilot from 1955 to 1960 on his bicycle

around Corona Highlands and Shorecliff.

“I got really good at slinging the paper under the doorstep,” he said.

His first introduction to filmmaking came at Newport Harbor High

School. He said he was inspired to continue in the field by the late

Robert Wentz, who taught drama there.

“He was one of those teachers that every year wins the favorite

teacher contest,” MacGillivray recalled. “He was a very good friend to so

many kids and really kind of pushed me to follow this thing that I really

wanted to do, which was making film.”

MacGillivray went to UC Santa Barbara and made a surfing film while he

was there. It was 1964, and the film -- a “very esoteric,” “almost

beatnik kind of movie” called “A Cool Wave of Color” -- made a profit.

MacGillivray remembers traveling from place to place, narrating the film

live.

“People would actually follow from one screening to the next,” he

said. “I just found a summer of ’64 photo where my dad and my girlfriend,

now my wife, were selling tickets at one of the first screenings.”

It was around that time that MacGillivray met fellow surfing filmmaker

Jim Freeman. They became partners, achieving success by lensing such

films as “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” and doing the aerial work on

“Towering Inferno.” In the mid-’70s, the Smithsonian Institution’s

National Air and Space Museum asked them to produce a film for the

museum’s new Imax theater. The film, “To Fly!,” still plays at the museum

to this day and is the first large-format film to be inducted into the

film archives at the National Library of Congress.

Just two days before the premiere of “To Fly!” in 1976, Freeman died

in a helicopter accident. However, his name has remained on the film

company, which with MacGillivray at the head has produced such Imax

experiences as “Everest” and “Chronos.”

“Dolphins,” which in part explores whether the marine mammals have

emotions, is the second in MacGillivray’s series of films about the

ocean. The first, “The Living Sea,” was also nominated for an Academy

Award.

“I’ve got kind of a mission as a surfer and a scuba diver to make a

series of films about the ocean and the importance of the ocean to

everyone on land,” MacGillivray said, adding that he feels a sense of

validation that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chose to

nominate this film.

When asked what he thinks the chances of winning are, MacGillivray

said he put their odds at 50-50.

“It’s a really hard category to win with a film about animals, because

generally documentaries that win are about social causes,” MacGillivray

said. “It’s just a little tougher when you come in with a film that

celebrates joys and wonders of an animal. If I had dolphins voting, I’m

sure I’d be in better shape.”