Katrina changed course of wetlands featurette
Thursday, October 4, 2007 3:55 AM
By Frank Gabrenya
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

A few months before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, director Greg MacGillivray and his crew were preparing an IMAX featurette about the potential threat to Louisiana, primarily New Orleans, of killer storms.

The focus of the project was the erosion of the natural wetlands, swamps and bayous that had protected New Orleans from hurricanes by weakening storms before they could reach the city. But the construction of levees throughout the city have prevented the Mississippi River from replenishing the wetlands, which are vanishing at a steady rate.

For his production, MacGillivray staged scenes of wind, rain and flooding. Then the real thing arrived.

After Katrina flooded and almost destroyed New Orleans, the crew returned to shoot sobering footage for what has become the IMAX film Hurricane on the Bayou , playing through March 9 at COSI Columbus.

The almost-accidental circumstances of the production split the featurette. The first half is largely what MacGillivray originally designed: an up-tempo nature documentary, propelled by a Cajun and gospel soundtrack, about the benefits of wetlands, with sweeping aerial photography of lush vegetation and close-ups of alligators.

When Katrina takes over, the film mixes computer-animated images with news footage; then the IMAX cameras return to glide over flooded neighborhoods.

At no time does the film address the political and social issues surrounding the response to the tragedy. There isn't enough time in a 40-minute film, and those aren't the issues that an IMAX audience spends its money to hear about.

As with all other IMAX featurettes, the brief length squeezes a complex subject into essentially the highlights and some decoration. Likewise, in the tradition of a family-oriented nature film, the ending is as upbeat as possible.