🛩️ Human aspiration and the legacy of 'To Fly!': My chat (+transcript) with filmmaker Greg MacGillivray

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,

In 1976, America celebrated 200 years of independence, democracy, and progress. Part of that celebration was the release of To Fly!, a short but powerful docudrama on the history of American flight. With To Fly!, Greg MacGillivray and his co-director Jim Freeman created one of the earliest IMAX films, bringing cinematography to new heights.

After a decade of war and great social unrest, To Fly! celebrated the American identity and freedom to innovate. Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with MacGillivray about filming To Fly! and its enduring message of optimism.

MacGillivray has produced and directed films for over 60 years. In that time, his production company has earned two Academy Award nominations, produced five of the Top 10 highest-grossing IMAX films, and has reached over 150 million viewers.

In This Episode

* The thrill of watching To Fly! (1:38)

* An innovative filming process (8:25)

* A “you can do it” movie (19:07)

* Competing views of technology (25:50)

Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

The thrill of watching To Fly! (1:38)

What Jim and I tried to do is put as many of the involving, experiential tricks into that film as we possibly could. We wrote the film based on all of these moments that we call “IMAX moments.”

Pethokoukis: The film To Fly! premiered at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, at the IMAX Theater, July 1976. Do you happen know if it was it the 4th of July or. . . ?

MacGillivray: No, you know, what they did is they had the opening on the 2nd of July so that it wouldn't conflict with the gigantic bicentennial on the 4th, but it was all part of the big celebration in Washington at that moment.

I saw the film in the late ’70s at what was then called the Great America Amusement Park in Gurnee, Illinois. I have a very clear memory of this, of going in there, sitting down, wondering why I was sitting and going to watch a movie as opposed to being on a roller coaster or some other ride — I've recently, a couple of times, re-watched the film — and I remember the opening segment with the balloonist, which was shot in a very familiar way. I have a very clear memory because when that screen opened up and that balloon took off, my stomach dropped.

It was a film as a thrill ride, and upon rewatching it — I didn't think this as a 10-year-old or 11-year-old — but what it reminded me upon rewatching was of Henry V, Lawrence Olivier, 1944, where the film begins in the Globe Theater and as the film goes on, it opens up and expands into this huge technicolor extravaganza as the English versus the French. It reminds me of that. What was your reaction the first time you saw that movie, that film of yours you made with Jim Freeman, on the big screen where you could really get the full immersive effect?

It gave me goosebumps. IMAX, at that time, was kind of unknown. The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum was the fourth IMAX theater built, and very few people had seen that system unless you visited world's fairs around the world. So we knew we had something that people were going to grasp a hold of and love because, like you said, it's a combination of film, and storytelling, and a roller coaster ride. You basically give yourself away to the screen and just go with it.

What Jim and I tried to do is put as many of the involving, experiential tricks into that film as we possibly could. We wrote the film based on all of these moments that we call “IMAX moments.” We tried to put as many in there as we could, including the train coming straight at you and bashing right into the camera where the audience thinks it's going to get run over. Those kinds of moments on that gigantic screen with that wonderful 10 times, 35-millimeter clarity really moved the audience and I guess that's why they used it at Great America where you saw it.

You mentioned the train and I remember a story from the era of silent film and the first time people saw a train on silent film, they jumped, people jumped because they thought the train was coming at them. Then, of course, we all kind of got used to it, and this just occurred to me, that film may have been the first time in 75 years that an audience had that reaction again, like they did with first with silent film where they thought the train was going to come out of the screen to To Fly! where, once again, your previous experience looking at a visual medium was not going to help you. This was something completely different and your sense perception was totally surprised by it.

Yeah, it's true. Obviously we