Though only 500 miles from Hollywood, the Grand Canyon is rarely in feature films. A new film, Granite Rapids Moon, has filled the gap. Billing itself as “the first feature film ever shot in the Grand Canyon,” the independent production was shot almost entirely within the trails, campsites, and geological formations of the canyon depths that were carved by the Colorado River over millions of years.
Expect a short answer if you ask cinephiles to list other pictures shot at northern Arizona’s geologic wonder. Perhaps they’ll cite Thelma & Louise, Into the Wild, Bride & Prejudice, Fools Rush In, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Joe Dirt. Or go for the easiest answer of all, 1991’s Grand Canyon — even though it mainly occurs in Los Angeles. The movies with actual Grand Canyon scenes usually stay at the upper (often southern) rim, or use footage shot elsewhere to represent the canyon’s vast interior.
There are two big reasons for this. First, getting to the bottom of the Grand Canyon is tough. Rim to river plunges more than 5,200 feet, traversing 20-plus miles — a day’s worth of knee-pounding switchbacks. The return hike, ascending a mile, is gruelling. Roads? Nope. Gear and equipment must be carried down. Even renting a herd of mules, film crews can expect to end up like Alice in The Brady Bunch‘s season-2 “Grand Canyon or Bust” episode (beloved to ironic Gen-X-ers), limping bow-legged and saddle-sore. (That TV show’s canyon-floor scenes, with the “Bobby! Cindy!” lost-children subplot, were shot near Los Angeles.)
Secondly, the National Park Service has to approve scripts filmed within the canyon. They are not messing around when it comes to issues of danger. On average, more than a dozen people die annually due to falls, exhaustion and other factors. Canyon tourist shops prominently display a book, Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon, as incentive for visitors not to end up in its pages.
Writer/director Kenneth Cran, a frequent Grand Canyon explorer, decided it was time to merge his filmmaking ambition with his adoration of the abyss. Cran previously helmed The Millennium Bug (2011), which tapped into his love for classic sci-fi monster movies. For Granite Rapids Moon, he turned to his appreciation for small-scale drama. The resulting screenplay contrasts a man’s reflections, about his intimate relationships, against the epochal vastness of the canyon, and in particular the Granite Rapid area of the Colorado River.
Granite Rapids Moon begins at the home of a married man, John (played by John Charles Meyer, who co-produced). John receives a mysterious card in the mail on the occasion of his 10-year-old daughter’s birthday. The card’s enigmatic question — “Have you told her yet?” — compels him to hike alone into the Canyon, thinking (via flashback scenes) about an excursion he took with an ex-girlfriend a decade earlier. Curious meetings and recollections accumulate, more questions arise, time-lapse panoramas (reminiscent of Koyaanisqatsi) add to a meditative tone, and the Grand Canyon becomes a character in its own right.
Q&A: Granite Rapids Moon
In late April 2025, I had the chance to attend Granite Rapids Moon‘s premiere screening at the historic Alex Theatre in Glendale, California. After the film, a Q&A session featured Kenneth (Ken) Cran and two of his co-stars — Etienne Eckert (whose credits include Dave Made a Maze and 2009’s Star Trek), and Brit Morgan (whose credits include The Frozen, Friend Request, and a role as Karl Urban’s ex-girlfriend in The Boys). They discussed the pressures of shooting a low-budget picture during two Grand Canyon excursions, one in the winter cold and one in the summer heat.
Etienne Eckert led the Q&A, which is partially excerpted here with the filmmakers’ persmission. (Eckert’s character, along with co-star Missi Pyle, did not appear in the Grand Canyon scenes. But she shows up in framing segments shot in nearby Williams, Arizona.)
Etienne Eckert: What was it like to shoot a movie in the Grand Canyon?
Brit Morgan: It was wild, but one of the best experiences of my life. Physically it was really hard with all the hiking, no bathroom, no showering, but it was incredible.
Etienne Eckert: I’m impressed by your answer; I know how my husband smells after a day… [laughs] You guys shot 33 pages of the script on the six-day December trip. That would be a borderline-insane production schedule even with a studio and 12-hour days. But you guys had 10 hours of daylight, and still had to fit in hiking 41 miles. So Ken, how was that?
Kenneth Cran: I still can’t believe that anybody would agree to do such a crazy thing. When I wrote the script, I figured I would just shoot it with an iPhone, and not even ask the National Park — just shoot in on the sly. As soon as John (Charles Meyer) read the script he said, there’s no way we’re doing that. We’re going to call the National Parks and everything. I was like, ugh, now we have to get a budget. I was going to do it for just ramen noodles and anybody who wanted to go. The fact that anybody would do anything like this, um… You know, I am so glad it was a good experience in that you don’t [he gestures toward Brit] want to claw my eyes out or anything. But to answer your question of how was it — it was great, but my god it was the hardest thing I think any of us had ever done.
Etienne Eckert: Brit, you knew John from an earlier production [The Millennium Bug] and he recruited you for this role. This was a while ago obviously, but what were your first thoughts? What was hiking in the Grand Canyon like — was it scary, was it exciting?
Brit Morgan: I was definitely scared. I have a little anxiety as a person, and was concerned with water and being dehydrated. I’m physically fit but i’m not like an athlete or anything. Ken’s expertise, and how many times he backpacked it already… And we were with Amy, right?
Kenneth Cran: Amy was our National Parks advisor. She was required after the National Parks representing the Grand Canyon had signed off on the filmmaking.
Brit Morgan: It brought me comfort that she was with us.
Kenneth Cran: We didn’t go down without the National Parks expert. In order for the National Park to allow us to do that, they had to approve the script. They said they got a lot of scripts every single year and rejected all of them. But they accepted ours, and that was an amazing thing.
Brit Morgan: Yeah, the team… you guys really knew what you were doing, so I felt confident. Watching the movie just now I was thinking, was my mom okay that I was doing this? It was crazy. You’re just gone for five days. There was no reception. Was it five days, six days?
Kenneth Cran: It was a week.
Brit Morgan: A week! Oh my god, it’s wild! It was definitely the expertise of the team that made me feel confident. I was nervous but excited by the challenge.
Etienne Eckert: Ken, how many times have you hiked the Grand Canyon?
Kenneth Cran: I started hiking back in 1994, I don’t know, 30 to 60 times… Some people go to church, I go to the Grand Canyon three or four times a year. It’s my safe place. Which is pretty crazy, because it’s one of the least safe places if you don’t know what you’re doing. What can I say? Go to church, it’s easier.
Etienne Eckert: Aside from the obvious filming challenges, what made the two trips different? [One in June, one in December.]
Kenneth Cran: The winter trip, it gets very cold. The Grand Canyon is a mile deep at the bottom. So in December when we went, there was snow on the ground. I’ve been up at the rim camping where it’s nine degrees, so it’s extremely cold.
But summertime is really problematic. Amy, our National Parks advisor, said I don’t think you guys want to go down. We went in June. We originally were going to go down in July and she’s like, that’s a bad idea. I have a picture of myself a couple of years ago on one of my August trips — a selfie with a picture of the thermometer at 140 degrees in the sunshine.
The big difference is that [pointing to Brit] — you didn’t go on the winter trip, you went on the summer trip. Winter is easier. Summer is just absolutely brutal. I don’t know how we did it, to be honest with you.
Brit Morgan: Do you remember that one time we woke up at 4 a.m. to backpack to avoid the heat?
Kenneth Cran: It was 3 a.m.
Brit Morgan: 3 a.m.! I have it in my memory because we woke up at 3 a.m. to start the day. And it was still dark out, with all the stars. It was just so beautiful. That’s what we did to avoid shooting at the hottest part of the day. So then it would be shaded by the time it got really hot out.
Kenneth Cran: And then we got to the campground and everybody set up tents, and went to bed at like 11 o’clock in the morning. Well, everybody almost. I stayed up and sat in a creek and read my book, and everybody else went to sleep.
Audience member: Why’d it take 10 years to release?
Kenneth Cran: Because life happens, and honestly in the 10 years, some of us got married, divorced, we had deaths in the family, we had children born, a couple children. Etienne had a couple of children…
Etienne Eckert: I was quite a bit younger… I did not have two children yet.
Kenneth Cran: Sorry it took 10 years.
Audience member: I forgive you!
Other audience member: How many days did you spend shooting?
Etienne Eckert: Six days in December, and eight days in June. Those were at the Grand Canyon, but of course we had other locations in Williams, Arizona.
Kenneth Cran: This is the first film in history that has the vast majority of its footage at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. That has not happened before.
Audience member: What was the budget?
Kenneth Cran: I can only say that it was under $500,000.
Audience member: Did you shoot in sequence?
Kenneth Cran: We shot the winter stuff first, and John [Charles Meyer] had long hair. I said, you gotta cut your hair to be 10 years younger. I think he was a little “eh” beause his hair was super long. So we had to shoot all the stuff that took place in the present first, and then he got a haircut and shaved his beard and everything.
Then, we did have to shoot a scene where he kisses Brit, but he didn’t have long hair or a beard, and so we had to glue… it was 95 or 100 degrees at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and I’m trying to put this fake beard on him! He’s wearing this hat and all of his winter clothes, the rest of us were in shorts and tank tops…
But we did shoot in sequence as much as possible. It’s something I prefer to do anyway. I think it’s easier for the actors, and it certainly is easier for me to keep things organized and in order. We had a lot of happy accidents too, so that’s a good thing.
Audience member: What was the inspiration for the story?
Kenneth Cran: I’ll tell you, but you might say “What the hell?” I am a huge fan of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. I’m a huge fan of Friedkin anyway. But I love Into the Wild, the movie Sean Penn directed, adapted from the Jon Krakauer book. It’s one of my favorite books. Every time I go down into the canyon, I take Into the Wild with me, which is a little bit weird. But Into the Wild was an inspiration for sure, and any movie by John Cassavettes, because they’re so natural. I tried to make this as natural as possible. I hope it worked.
Post-Screening Comments
I liked Granite Rapids Moon and if it comes your way, check it out. For a movie of its budget level, and the clear limitation of how it was filmed, it has an ambitious, contemplative approach.
The main story does a compelling job of dangling a question — what does “Have you told her yet?” mean? — and periodically adding questions to keep up momentum. That offsets the movie’s meditative aspect, where it basks in Grand Canyon mood and scenery, thoroughly captured by cinematographer Oktay Ortabasi. (At the screening I told him “That could not have been easy,” him chuckling back “It really wasn’t.”)
John Charles Meyer’s lower-trails journey, with many scenes of stillness, absorbed in thought, reminded me of David Carradine wandering the Southwest in the 1970s TV show Kung Fu. (Meyer also has shades of Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Keanu Reeves). When he’s on his feet, his journey becomes a treasure hunt for an object he lost a decade earlier — a sort of Kokopelli-Talisman McGuffin with a symbolic purpose. I appreciated the subtle way the “current” and “past” scenes were tinted: a bluish tone for his more adult-age winter, yellow for his younger summer. (It’s reminiscent of Steven Soderberg delineating cross-cut stories in Traffic.)
Another nice touch is the child’s sidewalk chalk drawing of dinosaurs, a wide shot as the film begins — a domestic detail aligning with the 65-plus million years of the canyon. When Meyer meets another hiker (Susan Papa) on an important life-quest of her own, their buddy-system dialogue allows themes to slowly emerge. There are emotional flurries between them, camping at night in the romantic, starry skies, and the outcome of their friendship is one of the story’s decent-hearted notes.
A small role by Micah Cohen (as a character who calls himself “Ben Jammin'”) provides some manic whimsy. Is this rock-traipsing, gregarious goofball high on peyote, heat-dazed, or just one of the many characters one meets along the granite paths? Cohen’s antics reminded me of Harold Krenshaw (Tim Bagley) from the TV show Monk — a loopy Loki whose psychosis may or may not be harmless, but probably is. As for Missi Pyle, I wish the movie had more of her — there’s only a small pile o’ Pyle in the framing story — but I’m always glad to see the comedic character actress in anything (I’ve been a fan ever since she was the randy, purple-tentacled alien in Galaxy Quest, and her spot-on Nancy Grace impression for Gone Girl sealed the deal).
In the Q&A the writer/director Kenneth Cran mentions his love for Into the Wild, and you can really see the connection to this film. For one, the main character John makes several practical mistakes that put his survival at risk. (During a a scene of parched recovery, simple orangle slices never looked so rejuvenating.) I suspect one reason the National Park greenlit the script is because it demonstrates the need for hikers to prepare and take the canyon seriously. The phrases “Pack it in, pack it out” and “Leave no trace” come up too.
You can also see the John Cassavetes influence in the flashbacks of Meyer hiking alongside his ex, played by Brit Morgan. Their tempestuous relationship has shades of the cinéma vérité approach of films like Faces or (to a lesser extent) A Woman Under the Influence. Though it’s not always clear what went wrong with his earlier relationship, the main character’s emotional situation feels universal — the reconciliation of anyone (male or female) whose unsettled younger love life contrasts against their (hopefully) stable later-life one.
In its way, Granite Rapids Moon makes a humble tribute to the natural landscape of experience. Like the Grand Canyon, it is full of memories, nooks, treacherous falls, shaded respite, rivers of change, and people who come and go — some strange, some hurtful, and some who make the whole journey bearable.
