A Grand Adventure

For many kids last Friday, it was the first time they had ever viewed anything in 3D.

For many of their classmates, it was the first time they had ever been in a movie theater.

During a daylong film screening at the Irvine Spectrum last Friday, about 1,000 kids from underserved school districts were bused in to view MacGillivray Freeman Films’ newest offering, “Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk 3D.”

Laguna Beach resident Greg MacGillivray described the students’ enthusiastic reception of the film; they laughed and listened at the right times, leaving tears in his eyes and those of many of his staff.

“For me, it was probably the most outstanding thing that I’ve seen happen at one of my films,” he said.

The film is narrated by Robert Redford, and discusses water conservation while Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and author Wade Davis take a trip down the Colorado River with their teenage daughters and a Native America river guide, Shana Watahomigie.

Dave Matthews Band provided the film’s music; band bassist Stefan Lessard, a Laguna Beach resident, also attended the screening.

The movie was MacGillivray’s first 3D venture. The IMAX pioneer and his crew carried a massive 3D camera through the river and its shores, filming many one-take sequences that create the effect of being there with the Kennedys, the Davises and their guides.

Viewers got a taste of running rapids, while the group navigated their way in boats, as the film painted a stark picture of the world’s water supply.

Statistics about the dwindling water supply in places as diverse as Lake Chad and Lake Powell are presented in between brilliantly realized vistas of the Colorado River and an Anasazi village.

Only 8% of the Colorado River’s flow ever reaches Mexico, the film said.

The rest is sucked up by metropolitan areas like Las Vegas, and farmers who pay little for it and therefore aren’t driven to use anything but the ancient and inefficient method of flood irrigation.

The film also touches on invasive plant species and the plight of a Native American tribe whose homeland was saved following the threat of a dam installation.

In the river rapid scenes, water droplets fly toward viewers, many of whom reached out to touch them during the 3D experience Friday.

“Nothing is better in 3D than the Grand Canyon,” MacGillivray said.

The film took in more than $1 million in gross ticket sales in North America after just three weeks of exhibition, making it the first IMAX documentary of 2008 to cross the million-dollar mark.

In addition to their new film’s call to action, MacGillivray Freeman Films has gotten directly involved in the cause: the organization has raised about $80,000 in donations and matching funds to dig up to 20 wells for African schools.

For more information, visit www.macfreefilms.com.