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 the worldwide building of IMAX theaters and helped popularizing the nascent format, with various intense reactions evoked by audiences. It was inducted into the National Film Registry and IMAX Hall of Fame, and 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 aspect but were polarized by its narrative, and it received several accolades.
Summary 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:
Production
Background
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.
In 1972, the deputy director of the Smithsonian, Melvin B. Zisfein, wrote a memo praising IMAX over other giant-screen formats like Cinerama and Circle-Vision 360°, and suggested making an IMAX film for the NASM. Several film treatments were written, the first titled "The Beautiful Mysteries of Flight", though all were rejected. A year later, IMAX's co-founder Graeme Ferguson expressed interest in an IMAX film for the US Bicentennial, also considering the possibility of it being feature-length. In 1974, after hearing about plans for a new building of the NASM at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. as part of the Bicentennial, he proposed this to the museum director Michael Collins. While Ferguson believed this would enhance the museum, Collins had not seen an IMAX film and initially rejected the proposal. However, at Expo '74, an IMAX representative convinced him to go to the IMAX theater and see Ferguson's film Man Belongs to the Earth; he became convinced that an IMAX theater would provide a sense of realism to visitors and accepted the idea.
Pre-production
On July 1, 1974, giant-screen filmmaker Francis Thompson joined in proposing a film about the history of flight for the Bicentennial at the NASM theater. With a US$590,000 fund from the Continental Oil Company (Conoco), with an additional $160,000 for film rights, they set the production deadline to 1976. After writing a third treatment with Thompson, the Smithsonian commissioned filmmaker duo Greg MacGillivray and James "Jim" Freeman, who had previously made surf and giant-screen films with experimental editing; they had also shot aerials for Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). Collins told them that he did not want the film to be too history-oriented and instead be more fun. With Collins giving them full creative freedom, pre-production meetings took place in New York City for several months.
Collins and Zisfein gave around 30 suggestions, about 20 of which were incorporated into the film. MacGillivray and Freeman thought the treatment was imperfect and expanded it into a narrative docudrama with several moments of comedy. They analyzed the existing IMAX films for inspiration, including Man Belongs to the Earth, whose opening aerial shot of the Grand Canyon enthused them. Per Collins, they included scenes with comic relief in To Fly! in order to not make the film feel like a dry historical drama. Thompson agreed, saying there were enough fact-based Bicentennial films being made and that people needed more entertainment. MacGillivray said IMAX is perfect for the film because it "allows me [...] to impact the audience in a greater way". He and Freeman storyboarded it with John Divers at their Laguna Beach, California, office, creating "IMAX moments" to thrill audiences and to rely on visuals more than narration. Seven months were spent on research, with aviators Walter J. Boyne and Donald S. Lopez Sr. as technical advisors.
Actor and real-life balloonist Peter Walker was chosen to portray Ezekiel due to his comic charm. The character was based upon a balloonist who in 1790 apparently made flights over New England while reciting self-written poems, purportedly to impress young women. Walker listed To Fly! among his favorite films to star in. Through filmmaker Randal Kleiser, whom he knew from his friend Basil Poledouris, MacGillivray partook in courses with actress Nina Foch to master in directing his cast. Extras were not mandated to speak because they comprise locals, some of whom the filmmakers felt were amateur. Freeman's girlfriend Cindy Huston, MacGillivray's girlfriend Barbara Smith, and production manager-costumer Jeff Blyth made cameo appearances as different characters. Huston was also focus puller, and Smith was production assistant, craft service specialist, and unit still photographer. Other writers were Thompson, Robert M. Young, and Arthur Zegart; Thomas McGrath wrote the narration. Additionally, Byron McKinney was executive producer. Documentarian and historian Jon Wilkman was briefly involved, alongside NASA, the Office of Naval Research, and the California Institute of Technology.
Filming Principal photography occurred for five months in 1975. Filming paused two and a half months later during June for MacGillivray and Freeman to film the action scenes of Sky Riders (1976), then resumed for two and a half months. They directed and cinematographed the film, frequently switching roles and working seven days a week with a 5a.m. to 9p.m. shooting schedule. They often filmed together in a multiple-camera setup, like in one of the barnstorming shots. According to MacGillivray, To Fly! was the most fun film that he and Freeman worked on throughout their 11 years of partnership.
At the time, IMAX cameras weighed and felt "crude" to the filmmakers, dismaying them as they wanted to experiment with the cinematography. Furthermore, they were worried about damaging the only camera available to them, and wanted to minimize the need for retakes. Ferguson and fellow IMAX co-founders, Bill Shaw and Robert Kerr, ideated creating three new cameras with better specifications, with one of them to be used for Thompson in his other Bicentennial film, American Years. Ferguson granted the proposal. When filming an aerial scene in American Years, the camera's parachute failed to deploy, destroying it. The pre-existing camera was also modified to be on par with the new ones.
To make the film bright, colorful, and naturalistic, the crew used the Eastman Color Negative 5254 tungsten 65 mm film stock, with the opening scene in 35 mm. The costly stock caused the short duration of 27 minutes. To give a dramatic look, they emphasized the characters with cross-backlighting or crosslighting. Because of IMAX's large screens and where the perceived center would be, many novel techniques were implemented. Extreme long shots were treated as wide-angle shots, while the latter were treated as normal shots, and close-ups were treated as medium close-ups. The latter has a wider headroom for visual comfort. Movement was condensed to ease the switching between an extreme long shot to medium close-up, and a wide-angle lens was used to further expand the film's view. Camera lenses were also carefully chosen, ranging from the fisheye 30 mm to the telephoto 600 mm. Pentax and Hasselblad lenses were used; the latter had their focal lengths changed, shutters removed, and mounts modified. It took three months to test them and the camera magazines. However, they had no zoom lenses which MacGillivray said would have eased filming.