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To achieve the greatest possible impact in cinematic celebration of the American Bicentennial, IMAX, the world's largest film format, captures the sweep of the nation's history up to its 200th Birthday
Several years ago, the Smithsonian Institution envisioned a beautiful theatre for their new National Air and Space Museum located on the mall in Washington, D.C. They wanted this theatre to be an experience of visual and aural effects that would go far beyond normal movie viewing. In order to achieve this goal, they decided on the IMAX system using 70mm film run horizontally through camera and projector. The huge IMAX frame size, equal to nine 35mm frames, provides the sharpest, most steady motion picture image. This incredibly sharp image, projected on a screen the size of a five-story building, combined with a 6-track sound system emanating from 11 different strategically placed speakers, more than fulfills the original vision of the most awe-inspiring motion picture experience.
On July 1, 1976, the motion picture, "TO FLY", opens to the public. It presents one of the most uniquely told stories of the American Bicentennial.
The film is not so much an historic epic as it is a visual, aural experience. In order to produce such a motion picture, Francis Thompson Inc. of New York selected our company of Laguna Beach to produce, direct, photograph, edit and co-script this philosophical story of America. After months of preproduction meetings in New York City with the Thompson organization, Continental oil Company (the financial benefactor), and the Smithsonian Institution, the guidelines and story were conceived which would take our company on a year-and-a-half pilgrimage through the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the American experience.
THE STORY
It is significant that IMAX, a completely new way of experiencing film, should be chosen as the format for the story found in "TO FLY", for its theme is also that of a new way of seeing. This unique film relates how we as Americans have come to have a fresh perspective on ourselves from our various stages in casting off gravity's tight bonds.
The film begins in 1831 as one of America's first aeronauts prepares to ascend in a gas balloon, float free of earth's gravity and explore the country from a...