Can you believe it’s been 40 years since the first IMAX movie was shown at the Grand Canyon in 1983, the same year the water level at Glen Canyon Dam rose? “Grand Canyon: Hidden Secrets was filmed and released. The film’s original river scenes show the drama of high water levels and some of the organic debris left by the flood on the tamarisk trees along the river. It was not well received by locals, who found the story (if it can be called a story at all) to be a bit simplistic and fantastical, a mere faithful recreation of historical events. But the general public must have liked it, as 40 million viewers saw the film over the course of 40 years.
On March 30th of this year, IMAX premiered a new Grand Canyon movie at a theater in Tusayan. The new movie is called “Grand Canyon: River of Time” This new version is the result of comments made by viewers of the original film asking for more substantial information about the canyon. Luckily, the new version contains a lot more science, and Voilá! is a new movie.
**Don’t watch this post yet, there is a short video clip attached at the end of this post from the new film, which includes a spectacular time-lapse sequence of the canyon and the entire geology portion of the film.**All still images used in this post were provided by A.Visual effects producer Ran Markowitz shared a PowerPoint presentation with me about the film’s production process. He gave a PowerPoint presentation to delegates in attendance at the Giant Screen Cinema Association (GSCA) Film Expo, held in March 2023 at Universal CityWalk in Los Angeles.
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| Poster “Grand Canyon: River of Time” |
In early 2020, just as the pandemic was beginning, I was contacted by Rick Gordon of RPG Productions in Los Angeles, California. He asked a simple question: “How can you tell the story of 2 billion years of geology of the Grand Canyon in just 2 minutes!” At first I thought he was joking. But Rick was serious, as the owners of the film and theater franchise were tasked with including geology in the new version of the film. I was hired as a geological consultant. Work on the project began in March 2020, but unfortunately the pandemic caused production work to be halted for two years. The project resumed in March 2022.
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| 2 billion years of Earth’s history in 2 minutes! The conclusion here is clear Alan himself acknowledged the task was difficult. |
One of the biggest challenges geologists face when asked to contribute isThe biggest challenge in making a documentary or popular film is finding enough airtime to fully explain its subject. Other subjects are also featured in these types of productions, and geologists must share their precious few seconds of airtime with fascinating wildlife, extreme sports action, and other spine-tingling footage. Furthermore, to those looking for action in their films, or those unfamiliar with the fun and rewards of earth science, geology may seem too static or unchanging. A tendency to downplay the underlying importance of geology can take hold. For Rick, who was tasked with including the geological story, this was not a concern.
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| On the geology portion I worked closely with Rick Gordon, Alan Markowitz, and Mario Kourasis. I was involved in the production of the film, conceiving the images and footage, and writing the script. |
Going back to the question posed by Rick: “Can you tell the 2 billion year geological story of the Grand Canyon in 2 minutes? I have some experience distilling complex geological ideas into more easily understood phrases and images, but this is a particularly difficult challenge. Nevertheless, I told his team, “Yes, you can.” Of course, I was worried that we would have to cut out some of the story, so I gently suggested adding another 30 seconds or even a minute to the final 40 minute film. The answer was, “No way,” because this second version of the film reuses 70% of the original work.
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| slide Markowitz’s A PowerPoint showing the storyline and some of the pre-production ideas. If you look at the bottom right, you can see that they referenced some of my lectures on YouTube. |
For me, the first decision I had to make was how much of the story should (or could) I tell in just two minutes. Should I mention the Grand Canyon Supergroup (a complex and sometimes confusing body of deposits found in only one part of the canyon)? Would it be worth including, or would it downplay other parts of the story? What about the Mesozoic rocks that once covered the canyon landscape but have now been largely eroded away? Should I mention those, too? All of this had to be carefully considered, so I sent Rick a short description of the entire story.
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| These are some of the web-based images the group found to better understand different sides of the story. Please note that they went into the production with no basic knowledge of the geology of the Grand Canyon. And I had to learn what to convey in images and words to the narrator. |
It was a great collaboration between me and the group, and eventually the script was written and accepted. At this stage, Alan and Marios began developing the visual elements of the story. One of the biggest challenges was to explain to the animators, who have no training in geology, how a chain of island-arc volcanoes formed by subduction over 1.75 billion years ago and was then carried into an ocean trench where sedimentary and volcanic rocks were compressed, metamorphosed, and melted to become Vishnu Schist and Zoroastrian granite. This is a complex process that involves several different steps. But they came up with the idea to leave the large surface images as they are and create inset boxes that show concepts in cross sections. They used this technique in other subchapters of the story and found it very effective (see the inset boxes in the next image and the final video).
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| Panel animation of two time slices. On the left is a depiction of an island arc approaching a continent (Precambrian). On the right is a depiction of a desert and eolian sand deposits. Note the inset box. Each one shows what was happening underground at different times. |
Despite the two minute time limit (1/20th of the entire film!), we were able to include information about a lot of events in the final product, including:
1) Location and geographical size of the canyon
2) A succession of volcanic arcs that eventually produced the Vishnu Schist and Zoroastrian Granite.
3) Thirteen miles of crust will be eroded down to a low lying plain.
4) The 2.5 mile thick Grand Canyon Formation.
5) Deformation, faulting, and tilting of supergroup blocks
6) Erosion of hills near sea level
7) Paleozoic strata in the canyons are deposited in oceans, rivers, and deserts.
8) Deposition of Mesozoic layers (rocks from the dinosaur era)
9) The almost complete erosion of the Mesozoic strata. And finally,
10) The uplift and carving of the Grand Canyon.
Kudos to the production team: when they started production, they never imagined that all of these momentous events that shaped the Grand Canyon landscape would be compressed into two minutes.
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| Not all of these concepts were ultimately used, but they gave us an idea of the possibilities. |
So enjoy this 4 minute clip introducing the new IMAX film and telling the story of geology. “Grand Canyon: River of Time”Please forgive the low resolution limit when uploading.
4 minute clip “Grand Canyon: River of Time”
Be sure to see the new movie the next time you’re at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. If you’re pressed for time, imagine watching it on a giant six-story IMAX perforated screen with surround sound reaching your ears from all directions, including from behind the perforated screen. Thanks to Rick, Alan, Marios, and everyone at IMAX for bringing the geological story of the Grand Canyon to life in this film that will share the geology of the canyon with millions of viewers for decades to come.
