IMAX movie delves into deep caves
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 9, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 MacGillivray Freeman Films "Journey into Amazing Caves"
is a new IMAX film about the mysterious world of underground
passages and labyrinths.
By Jacqueline Maar
Daily Bruin Contributor
Going where no man has gone before, cavers explore unknown, and
often uncharted, territories, hidden deep within earth’s
crevices.
“Journey into Amazing Caves,” a new IMAX film
produced by MacGillivray-Freeman films, explores caves around the
world, allowing the audience to look into the mysterious and often
unexplored realm that only cavers enter.
“It’s just the sense of curiosity, what’s
around the shadow, where does that passage lead to, what organisms
are we going to find that are here,” said Nancy Aulenbach,
one of the expedition leaders in the film, in a phone interview
from her home in Georgia. “So it’s not only a
physically demanding challenge but also an intellectual
challenge.”
The film follows the journey of two female cavers, Aulenbach and
Dr. Hazel Barton, as they search for the microorganisms found only
in the extreme conditions of the caves. Extremophiles, as these
microorganisms are called, are used to find cures for diseases such
as cancer in humans.
The film takes audiences on adventures around the world. From
rappelling off of a cliff to scuba diving into underwater caves,
“Journey into Amazing Caves” looks into the exciting
and dangerous world of caving.
 MacGillivray Freeman Films Underwater caves are just one
of the many regions explored in the new IMAX film "Journey into
Amazing Caves." “This movie shows that science is a really
cool thing,” Aulenbach said. “It’s not anything
boring where people wear lab coats and see through glasses with
their hair tied up in a bun; you can actually do some really
exciting research in the field, and girls can do it, too, just as
much as guys can.”
As MacGillivray-Freeman’s 25th IMAX film, “Journey
into Amazing Caves” carries a lot of experience with it. Part
of the adventure series of films produced by MacGillivray-Freeman
films, “Journey into Amazing Caves” is produced by the
same company that created the award-winning and critically
acclaimed IMAX films “Everest” and
“Dolphins.”
The film is directed by Stephen Judson, one of the most
experienced editors of large-format films, who has been involved in
numerous other IMAX films as a writer, producer and director.
IMAX screens, which can reach to about five stories tall, use
large-format film that provides a larger viewing area than regular
format film does, allowing more of the scene to be seen by the
audience.
“We use very wide lenses, a lot of fish-eye lenses to take
a 180-degree field of view,” Judson said. “That
fish-eye lens is a wonderful effect on the dome screen because it
gives you a sense of reality, of actually being there, so the wide
lenses work better than regular telephoto lenses, to give you the
feeling of actually being there on location.”
Getting the shots for the movie in the harsh, tight conditions
that the locations of the caves caused, was a difficult task on the
filmmakers part.
“It was such an adventure that even though it was
uncomfortable sleeping out on the glacier (in Greenland), it was
still an unforgettable experience,” Judson said.
“It’s the kind of thing that I would never do on my own
for vacation, but one of the great things about working on these
films is that I get to go places that I wouldn’t otherwise
go.”
To find exhibition leaders for the film, Judson conducted a
search for the best women cavers through the National Speleological
Society, and narrowed down the search from over a thousand possible
cavers to the two finalists, Aulenbach and Barton.
Judson said that although science is a field usually dominated
by men, it is slowly becoming more and more populated by women.
MacGillivray-Freeman films, led by president Greg MacGillivray, try
to spread this message to young girls through the films it
produces.
“Greg is very interested in the idea of making young women
aware of the fact that science is an exciting, intriguing and
adventurous career that is very accessible to women, because there
are far too few women going into science, and Greg has sort of this
mission to correct that imbalance,” Judson said.
“Journey into Amazing Caves” tells the story of the
two women cavers, Aulenbach and Barton, and their exploits around
the world, while delivering the message of cave conservation and
preservation.
“I’m just really proud to be part of the film
because MacGillivray-Freeman films are always really conscientious
about making movies that are conservation-oriented (and) about the
environment,” Aulenbach said.
“They certainly emphasize the importance of needing to
preserve the cave environment because it’s a non-renewable
resource, and I thought they did a great job with that.”
FILM: MacGillivray-Freeman IMAX film
“Journey into Amazing Caves” is now playing at the
California Science Center located at 700 State Drive in Exposition
Park. For more information call (323) 724-3623.
