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To Fly!
To Fly! is a 1976 American short docudrama film directed by Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman of MacGillivray Freeman Films, who wrote the story with Francis Thompson, Robert M. Young, and Arthur Zegart. It premiered at the giant-screen IMAX theater of the National Air and Space Museum, which opened to celebrate the United States Bicentennial. The film chronicles the history of aviation in the US, with a narration written by Thomas McGrath. Thematically, it explores the search for national identity through the country's westward expansion as well as humanity's relationship with aviation.
The idea of the film was proposed in 1970 and revisited two years later following the museum's interest in an IMAX theater for the planned building. MacGillivray and Freeman expanded a treatment written by the Smithsonian Institution and Thompson, adding various scenes in the storyboard intended to jolt IMAX audiences. Due to the large dimensions of the screens, the filmmakers aimed for immersion and clarity via novel cinematographic techniques. This was further enhanced by the surround sound design. The ending space sequence, featuring the first IMAX rocket launch scene, was made with various experimental special effects. The film was edited by MacGillivray and Freeman, and features a score composed by Bernardo Segall. It was finished on schedule in two years, with a low US$590,000 fund from Conoco.
To Fly! was released on July 1, 1976, distributed by Lawrence Associates and Conoco. It was initially scheduled to screen only for the Bicentennial, but due to public demand was kept indefinitely. In response to these demands, a 20th-anniversary special edition was released in 1996. The film led to an increase in the number of IMAX theaters worldwide and helped popularizing the nascent format, with various intense reactions observed among audiences, and was thus included in the National Film Registry and IMAX Hall of Fame. It also set MacGillivray as a major IMAX filmmaker. With increasing popularity, To Fly! remained among the highest-grossing giant-screen documentaries. Critics praised the film in its audiovisual and narrative aspects—though some were negative on the latter—and it received several accolades.
To Fly! begins in Vermont on July 4, 1831. After reciting a zestful quatrain declaring himself a pioneer, a fictional hot air balloonist named Ezekiel ascends on a voyage around New England. Spectators below look at the balloon in awe and surprise. Ezekiel sees a canoeist heading to whitewater at Horseshoe Falls and warns him to shore to avoid the rapid.
The film then chronicles the history of aviation, beginning with hot air balloons. Its advent is described by the narrator as "like the opening of a new eye", allowing humans to reach untouched places and extend their limits, furthering their perspectives about the world. Despite this, the majority of Americans still used horses; for speedier travel, trains were invented, then cars and powered aircraft. The Roaring Twenties saw the rise of barnstorming, expanding access to aviation among Americans. As part of diversifying aviation, military jets were created, thereupon forming aerobatic teams like the Blue Angels. The use of jetliners made travel faster, and the American territory expanded beyond the mainland. Then, ultralight aviation was invented.
After describing the human imagination as limitless due to a philosophical awakening from the aerial view of the world, To Fly! lastly depicts the Saturn IB rocket launch for the Apollo–Soyuz mission at the Kennedy Space Center on July 15, 1975. Dubbing spaceflight a globally historical feat, the film suggests it can be used in finding extraterrestrial intelligence. The film ends with the narration:
We have come a long way from the time when people gazed enviously upon the birds in-flight. Today, we look upon our planet from afar, and feel a new tenderness for the tiny and fragile Earth. For we know now, that even as we walk upon the ground, we are ever in-flight through the universe. And so, we begin to realize that human destiny has ever been, and always must be, to fly!
The Smithsonian Institution made efforts starting in 1911 to modernize its museums with multimedia content, though this only accelerated since the 1960s. The idea of a giant-screen theater at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) was mooted in 1970 in a 153-page report by the National Museum of Natural History's (NMNH) curator team, which argued the museum needed a "contemporary medium of communications" that will resonate intellectually and psychologically. It suggested an experiential film that would showcase the American landscape and the country's introduction to technology, ending with predictions of the country's future. Among these giant-screen film formats was IMAX, characterized by its tall screen which fills the audiences' peripheral vision, triggering immersive telepresence which creates the illusion of being present within the film's setting. The NMNH proposed a panoramic, curved IMAX screen that envelops its rotunda, but this was discarded.
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To Fly!
To Fly! is a 1976 American short docudrama film directed by Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman of MacGillivray Freeman Films, who wrote the story with Francis Thompson, Robert M. Young, and Arthur Zegart. It premiered at the giant-screen IMAX theater of the National Air and Space Museum, which opened to celebrate the United States Bicentennial. The film chronicles the history of aviation in the US, with a narration written by Thomas McGrath. Thematically, it explores the search for national identity through the country's westward expansion as well as humanity's relationship with aviation.
The idea of the film was proposed in 1970 and revisited two years later following the museum's interest in an IMAX theater for the planned building. MacGillivray and Freeman expanded a treatment written by the Smithsonian Institution and Thompson, adding various scenes in the storyboard intended to jolt IMAX audiences. Due to the large dimensions of the screens, the filmmakers aimed for immersion and clarity via novel cinematographic techniques. This was further enhanced by the surround sound design. The ending space sequence, featuring the first IMAX rocket launch scene, was made with various experimental special effects. The film was edited by MacGillivray and Freeman, and features a score composed by Bernardo Segall. It was finished on schedule in two years, with a low US$590,000 fund from Conoco.
To Fly! was released on July 1, 1976, distributed by Lawrence Associates and Conoco. It was initially scheduled to screen only for the Bicentennial, but due to public demand was kept indefinitely. In response to these demands, a 20th-anniversary special edition was released in 1996. The film led to an increase in the number of IMAX theaters worldwide and helped popularizing the nascent format, with various intense reactions observed among audiences, and was thus included in the National Film Registry and IMAX Hall of Fame. It also set MacGillivray as a major IMAX filmmaker. With increasing popularity, To Fly! remained among the highest-grossing giant-screen documentaries. Critics praised the film in its audiovisual and narrative aspects—though some were negative on the latter—and it received several accolades.
To Fly! begins in Vermont on July 4, 1831. After reciting a zestful quatrain declaring himself a pioneer, a fictional hot air balloonist named Ezekiel ascends on a voyage around New England. Spectators below look at the balloon in awe and surprise. Ezekiel sees a canoeist heading to whitewater at Horseshoe Falls and warns him to shore to avoid the rapid.
The film then chronicles the history of aviation, beginning with hot air balloons. Its advent is described by the narrator as "like the opening of a new eye", allowing humans to reach untouched places and extend their limits, furthering their perspectives about the world. Despite this, the majority of Americans still used horses; for speedier travel, trains were invented, then cars and powered aircraft. The Roaring Twenties saw the rise of barnstorming, expanding access to aviation among Americans. As part of diversifying aviation, military jets were created, thereupon forming aerobatic teams like the Blue Angels. The use of jetliners made travel faster, and the American territory expanded beyond the mainland. Then, ultralight aviation was invented.
After describing the human imagination as limitless due to a philosophical awakening from the aerial view of the world, To Fly! lastly depicts the Saturn IB rocket launch for the Apollo–Soyuz mission at the Kennedy Space Center on July 15, 1975. Dubbing spaceflight a globally historical feat, the film suggests it can be used in finding extraterrestrial intelligence. The film ends with the narration:
We have come a long way from the time when people gazed enviously upon the birds in-flight. Today, we look upon our planet from afar, and feel a new tenderness for the tiny and fragile Earth. For we know now, that even as we walk upon the ground, we are ever in-flight through the universe. And so, we begin to realize that human destiny has ever been, and always must be, to fly!
The Smithsonian Institution made efforts starting in 1911 to modernize its museums with multimedia content, though this only accelerated since the 1960s. The idea of a giant-screen theater at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) was mooted in 1970 in a 153-page report by the National Museum of Natural History's (NMNH) curator team, which argued the museum needed a "contemporary medium of communications" that will resonate intellectually and psychologically. It suggested an experiential film that would showcase the American landscape and the country's introduction to technology, ending with predictions of the country's future. Among these giant-screen film formats was IMAX, characterized by its tall screen which fills the audiences' peripheral vision, triggering immersive telepresence which creates the illusion of being present within the film's setting. The NMNH proposed a panoramic, curved IMAX screen that envelops its rotunda, but this was discarded.