Audubon Nature Institute - Executive Producer

Glen Pitre - Writer, Co-Director, Line Producer

Audubon Nature Institute (Executive Producer) operates a family of museums and parks based in New Orleans and dedicated to celebrating the wonders of nature. Through innovative live animal exhibits, education programs, and scientific discovery, Audubon makes a meaningful contribution to preserving wildlife for the future. Audubon Nature Institute’s flagships include Audubon Park, Audubon Zoo, Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, Entergy IMAX Theatre, Audubon Louisiana Nature Center, Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species, Freeport-Mc MoRan Audubon Species Survival Center, Woldenberg Riverfront Park and Audubon Wilderness Park. The Institute’s mission includes preserving native Louisiana habitats, exhibiting the diversity of wildlife, educating a diverse audience about the natural world and enhancing the care and survival of wildlife through research and conservation.  Audubon Nature Institute is also focused on using quality entertainment to further enhance their mission. 

Glen Pitre  (Writer, Co-Director, Line Producer)  is a native of Cut Off, Louisiana and worked his way through Harvard by fishing shrimp each summer. At age 25, American Film magazine dubbed him “father of the Cajun film” as his local dialect “gumbo westerns” broke house records in bayou country cinemas. With the help of the Sundance Institute, his internationally lauded 1986 film Belizaire the Cajun became his first English-language production. Since then, Pitre's movies, books, and museum design, frequently in collaboration with wife Michelle Benoit, often about life in his native Louisiana wetlands, have earned him numerous awards, including an honorary doctorate and a knighthood from France. In 2003, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert acclaimed Pitre “a legendary American regional director.” He previously wrote the MacGillivray Freeman film Top Speed. 

Brad Ohlund (Director of Photography) has worked in the large format industry for 25 years and his films with MacGillivray Freeman include Dolphins, Adventures in Wild California, Journey Into Amazing Caves, Coral Reef Adventure, Mystery of the Nile and Greece: Secrets of the Past.  After attending Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California Olhund began his career with the classic film To Fly!  Since then, his broad and varied assignments have included filming underwater reefs in the South Pacific and primitive tribes in New Guinea and Borneo.  He has filmed from a plane through the eye of a hurricane and captured on IMAX film the fury of an approaching tornado.

In 1996 Ohlund was a key member of the MacGillivray Freeman Films Everest expedition.  During that three-month expedition, he served as the Photographic and Technical Consultant to the climbing camera team.  He was also responsible for filming numerous scenes including the exciting and dramatic avalanche and blizzard sequences – and was directly involved in the rescue efforts during those tragic and historic days in May.

Jim Foster (Editor) has worked in the film industry for over 30 years as a successful editor and writer of feature and special venue films, including the large-format films Adventures in Wild California, To Be An Astronaut and Flower Planet, the first large-format animated film.  Other projects include his work as editor and co-writer of The Firing Room, a reenactment of the launch of Apollo 8 produced for Kennedy Space Center.  A talented editor of feature movie trailers, music videos, and multi-media presentations, Foster has contributed his talents to films produced by The Walt Disney Studios, Universal Studios, and BRC Imagination Arts.  Hurricane on the Bayou marks the fourth IMAX theatre film he has worked on with MacGillivray Freeman Films.

Neguine Sanani (Editor) was born in Tehran, Iran and raised in Buffalo, New York.  At the age of nine, Neguine’s family moved to Los Angeles, where her increasing exposure to the film industry enhanced her passion for film and visual communication. She was accepted at USC’s prestigious School of Cinema-Television and, after graduation, was one of a select group of filmmakers chosen as a graduate fellow in directing at the American Film Institute.  At AFI, she honed her distinctive visual style, creating a series of evocative, moody films.  After receiving her MFA, Neguine served as producer’s assistant and apprentice editor on the 1998 film The Joyriders starring Martin Landau and Shawn Hatosy. 

In 1998, Neguine edited her first short film, Mrs. Sobel.  She went on to edit a documentary segment on women and suicide entitled Dark Visions, which was awarded the Los Angeles Roy Dean Video Grant. She then cut Father X-Mas, was awarded Best Short Film at the First Glance Film Festival in Los Angeles. Neguine edited her first feature film, The Healer’s Son, in 2000.  She won additional praise for editing the dramatic feature The Grey, awarded the American Perspectives Jury Prize at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2003. Since 2001, Neguine has maintained a working relationship with Lionsgate Films, working as an additional editor on films including: Romasanta starring Julian Sands and Eulogy with Debra Winger and Ray Romano.  She recently finished the feature Flip the Script starring Robin Givens and Miguel Nunez.  Currently, Neguine is editing Love And Other 4 Letter Words starring Tangi Miller and Flex Alexander for Olivia Entertainment. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband Carl and dog (and editing companion), Luna.

Steve Wood (Music By) has been scoring films with Greg MacGillivray since Greg's surfing cult classic Five Summer Stories in 1975. Since then, he has worked on over a dozen IMAX theatre films including The Living Sea, Discoverers, To Fly!, The Magic of Flight, Everest, Dolphins, Adventures in Wild California and most recently, Greece: Secrets of the Past.  Steve worked with Sting on both The Living Sea and Dolphins and worked with George Harrison on Everest.  

Wood was Kenny Loggins' musical director for 9 years and has written many songs with Loggins including "If You Believe." He composed the instrumental interludes for Loggins' "Return to Pooh Corner." He has played with artists such as The Pointer Sisters, Michael McDonald, David Crosby, and Graham Nash. Woods' music has also appeared in other films such as Why Me? starring Christopher Lloyd, Boiling Point starring Wesley Snipes and Dennis Hopper, and Greedy starring Kirk Douglas. He also worked with Stevie Wonder on a Clio-award winning television spot for Hansen's Soda.   

Scoring giant screen films has allowed Wood to develop his interest in and knowledge of diverse ethnic music including Indonesian, Caribbean, Chinese, Tibetan, and Irish styles. He has also recorded folk music in Fijian locations. He recently completed production of a CD for Mario Frangoulis on Sony Classical and is currently working on a CD featuring Salvatore Licitra and Marcelo Alverez.

Alan Markowitz (VFX) has more than 29 years of film production experience and has spent nearly 16 years specializing in large format cinema.   As a Producer for his company, Visceral Image Productions, Alan specializes in visual effects, titles, graphics, and animation for a wide variety of special venues.  Alan's previous works can be seen in over 300 large format film projects on IMAX theatre screens, destination cinemas, in theme parks, and special venues around the world. Alan has contributed to over a dozen MacGillivray Freeman Films titles over the past 12 years.  His most recent credits include producing computer animated title sequences for MacGillivray Freeman’s Greece: Secrets of the Past and Mystery of the Nile.  Other credits include Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D for IMAX, Walt Disney Pictures' Roving Mars, Wired to Win: Surviving the Tour de France, Roar: Lions of the Kalihari, Forces of Nature, Bugs! 3D, and Mystic India. Theme-park ride films include Spiderman 3D, T2-3D, and Back to the Future: The Ride for Universal Studios.

Meryl Streep (Narrator) has portrayed an astonishing array of characters in a career that has cut its own unique path from the theater through television and film. A two-time Academy Award® winner and a recipient of a record-breaking 13 Oscar® nominations, Streep had never acted in a drama before her Sophomore year at Vassar College, when she won the title role in Strindberg’s “Miss Julie.” After graduating cum laude from Vassar, she won a scholarship to the Yale School of Drama where she received an M.F.A. degree and the Carol Dye Acting Award. 

After a Tony nomination for Tennessee William’s “27 Wagons Full of Cotton” and an Emmy for Best Actress for her portrayal of a devastated German wife in the miniseries “Holocaust,” Streep began her feature film career as Jane Fonda’s society friend in Julia.  She then starred opposite Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter, receiving her first Oscar® nomination. She went on to The Seduction of Joe Tynan, with Alan Alda, Manhattanfor Woody Allen and Kramer vs. Kramer with Dustin Hoffman, garnering her first Academy Award® for Best Supporting Actress.  She won her third Oscar® nomination and the British Academy Award for The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The following year, she won the Academy Award® for Best Actress for her extraordinary performance in the title role of Sophie’s Choice. She was nominated again the next year, for her portrayal of Karen Silkwood, the heroine of Mike Nichols’ Silkwood. Reuniting with Robert De Niro in her next film, Falling in Love, she won the David Award, the Italian equivalent of the Oscar®.

Streep’s films also include Fred Schepisi’s Plenty; Sydney Pollack’s Out of Africa, for which she received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Actress; Mike Nichols’ Heartburn; and Ironweed, directed by Hector Babenco, for which she received her seventh Oscar® nomination. For Schepisi’s A Cry in the Dark, in which she played the infamous, unfairly maligned Lindy Chamberlain, Streep won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, The New York Film Critics Circle, the AFI Award and another Oscar® nomination.  She won Golden Globe nominations for her work in She-Devil and Postcards From the Edge; starred with Albert Brooks in Defending Your Life and with Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her; filmed Bille August’s The House of the Spirits, from Isabel Allende’s novel; and tackled an action movie with The River Wild, directed by Curtis Hanson, co-starring Kevin Bacon.

Her work in Clint Eastwood’s The Bridges of Madison County won widespread acclaim and Screen Actor’s Guild, Golden Globe and Oscar® nominations. The following year she was seen opposite Liam Neeson in Barbet Schroeder’s Before and After, and opposite Diane Keaton and Leonardo DiCaprio in Marvin’s Room, for which she received another Golden Globe nomination.  Returning to television, she won an Emmy for the real-life drama “First Do No Harm,” then teamed with Renee Zellweger in One True Thing, winning SAG, Golden Globe and Oscar® nominations. In 1999, Streep learned to play the violin for Wes Craven’s Music of the Heart, earning her 12th Academy Award® nomination.

Streep’s recent work includes The Hours, which won her Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival, along with her co-stars Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore, as well as SAG and Golden Globe nominations; Spike Jonze’s Adaptation which was recognized with a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and BAFTA and Oscar® nominations; and the HBO epic “Angels in America.” Playing four characters, she won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Best Actress Awards for this work. 

She was recently seen in The Manchurian Candidate, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events and Prime.  This summer she was seen in A Prairie Home Companion and The Devil Wears Prada.  Her upcoming projects include providing the voice of the Queen Ant in The Ant Bully.  Also forthcoming are Dark Matter directed by Chen Shi-Zheng and the New York Public Theatre production of “Mother Courage” in an adaptation by Tony Kushner, directed by George C. Wolfe.