Brad Ohlund has worked in the large format industry for 25 years. Mr. Ohlund attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California and, beginning with the classic film To Fly!, has worked on 28 other large format films. His broad and varied assignments include 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 Mr. 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. He was directly involved in the rescue efforts during those tragic and historic days in May.

Mr. Ohlund recently completed filming Dolphins, Adventures in Wild California, and Journey Into Amazing Caves and is currently filming the MacGillivray Freeman Films project Coral Reef Adventure.

After spending fifteen years as a literary publisher and a professor of creative writing at such institutions as Loyola College and Johns Hopkins University, novelist and poet Jack Stephens embarked on a journey into mysterious screenplays. Now, Journey Into Amazing Caves is the second script Mr. Stephens has written for MacGillivray Freeman Films, having earned his wings with The Magic of Flight. These experiences he found "richly rewarding," even if during the writing of Caves he did find himself "occasionally groping in the dark."

Besides numerous poems, short stories, reviews and articles in such diverse publications as The Washington Post, Sports Afield, Travel & Leisure, and The American Poetry Review; Mr. Stephens novel, Triangulation (Crown, 1990) was called "everything you could want from a first novel" By the L.A. Times. He has also seen the publication of a poetry collection, Vector Love (Haw River Books), and a children's book, The Ballerina & The Gargoyle (The Galileo Press), and has heard his poems set to music by The Contemporary Music Forum of Washington, D.C.

Mr. Stephens earned a Master of Arts at Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars, and a Master of Fine Arts at The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, grants and awards-from the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. Currently, when he's not immersed in the structure of large format adventures, he is at work on an epic novel concerning the first encounters between the Spanish and the Maya of Central America.

Mr. Wood 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 films including The Living Sea, Discoverers, To Fly!, The Magic of Flight, Everest, Dolphins, and most recently Adventures in Wild California. Steve worked with Sting on both The Living Sea and Dolphins and worked with George Harrison on Everest.

Mr. 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 Mr. 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.

Wes Skiles is an internationally known film and video cameraman and photographer, specializing in cave and marine shoots. As an expedition cameraman, he has brought back images from some of the most challenging environments on the planet, including underwater caves in Mexico, Florida and Australia. As a producer, director and cameraman, Mr. Skiles’ work appears on major networks in the U.S. and around the world. His most recent films include: Wakulla 2 Project for National Geographic Explorer, segments for Ripley’s Believe It or Not, The Searchers, a CBS Special about cave diving exploration in the Yucatán; and Wild Things, a syndicated series about extreme wildlife encounters.

Howard Hall is a natural history film producer and cinematographer specializing in marine wildlife films. Mr. Hall has produced two large format films: Into the Deep (3D) and Island of the Sharks and he photographed for MacGillivray Freeman’s The Living Sea. Howard, a marine zoologist, has received six cinematography Emmys for films produced for television. He is an Editor-at-Large for International Wildlife Magazine and a Contributing Editor for Ocean Realm Magazine. In addition to the book, Secrets of the Ocean Realm, he has authored a text on underwater photography and three children’s books on marine life.

Hall and his wife Michele are working and starring in MacGillivray Freeman Films' Coral Reef Adventure, slated for release in March 2002.

Mr. Cowan's 40 credits as Director of Photography on features, television films and documentaries include six large format films. His work on the Yucatán sequence in Journey into Amazing Caves followed The Edge, Antarctica, and Africa's Elephant Kingdom. He's currently Director of Photography and 2nd Unit Director for the large format films China: The Panda Adventure and Director of Photography for Equus. Cowan has taught Cinematography at the Australian Film & Television School and directed workshops at the National Institute of Drama. Journey Among Women, a feature film he wrote and directed, received Most Creative Feature Film Award at the Australian Institute Awards.

Buddy Quattlebaum is an internationally known cave diver and explorer. Residing near Akumal, in Quintana Roo, Mexico, he has been exploring caves in this area for over 10 years. Recognized as one of the first cave divers to extensively explore the Dos Ojos cave system at Hidden Worlds, Mr. Quattlebaum remains the foremost authority on the Hidden Worlds caves. Among his many credits, Mr. Quattlebaum organized, in 1996, the Ejido Jacinto Pat Exploration Project. This 6-month long exploration established the Dos Ojos system as the longest underwater cave in the world at that time. More recently, Quattlebaum and his exploration team have been pushing the outer limits of cave diving, with the exploration of "The Pit," an underwater cave in the Hidden Worlds system with passages at depths of 390 feet and beyond. This has proven to be some of the most cutting-edge cave diving exploration going on anywhere in the world today. About his experience coordinating logistics for the "Amazing Caves" Imax film, Quattlebaum says: " ...not only was it a great pleasure working with all the pros from the film crew, but after all these years of exploring, my dream of sharing the beauty of these caves with the world was finally realized."

In late 2000, Kimberly ("Kim") Cunningham unfortunately passed away. The MacGillivray Freeman Films team is honored to have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Cunningham in his capacity as a science advisor for Journey into Amazing Caves. Here is a statement from him prior to his death:

"Since I began caving over 27 years ago, I had always hoped that I could contribute in some small way to the infant science of speleology. Finding the rock-munching bacteria of Lechuguilla Cave has fulfilled that dream for me, with the research ramifications hidden beyond my time horizon. From the anti-cancer research to the application of characterizing fossil microbiologic structures on Mars, the research potential of my initial efforts will hopefully keep some people busy for many years to come."

Cunningham worked for Geo-Microbial Technologies, Inc., was an ex-USGS research geologist and past Science Director for the Lechuguilla Cave Project, the original group credited with the discovery and early documentation of the planet's most unique speleological environment. In 1990, using a scanning electron microscope on material he obtained deep within Lechuguilla, Cunningham discovered the bacteria which has since launched scientific investigations like those of Dr. Hazel Barton, Dr. Larry Mallory and others. Cunningham's discovery also attracted the attention of NASA's extra-terrestrial (Mars) research group and a myriad of research projects began.

Journey into Amazing Caves is released in remembrance of Caving and Research Partner, Kim Cunningham.

"Cave explorers are often viewed by the general public as rather odd. Why would anyone want to poke around in the dark? But cavers bring to their hobby a spirit that is very special -- they share a curiosity about the world that is absent in most people's lives. They want to know what lies around the next bend. This passion for exploration quickly leads to a desire to know where caves go and how they form. In this way they are drawn naturally into science. Many scientists got their start as cavers. But no matter what their profession, cavers share a special curiosity, love of life, and willingness to commit themselves. Imagine a person's pastimes, profession, and character being shaped by a hole in the ground!"

Dr. Palmer teaches hydrology, geochemistry, and geophysics, and also a summer field course in karst geology at Mammoth Cave National Park for Western Kentucky University. He is an honorary life member of the National Speleological Society and recipient of the NSS Lifetime Achievement Award in Science. He is a fellow of Geological Society of America and the 1994 recipient of GSA's Kirk Bryan Award for his article entitled "Origin and Morphology of Limestone Caves." He is the author of several books on caves, such as "A Geological Guide to Mammoth Cave National Park," as well as several dozen articles on cave origin. He and his wife Peggy have studied caves and their geology throughout the United States and 13 other countries.