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

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783/human-aspiration-and-the-legacy-of-to-fly-my-chat-transcript-with-filmmaker-greg-macgillivray
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783/human-aspiration-and-the-legacy-of-to-fly-my-chat-transcript-with-filmmaker-greg-macgillivray.md
Podcast: [Faster, Please! — The Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/faster-please-the-podcast-5630783)
Published: 2025-09-12T16:06:00+00:00
Episode link: https://fasterplease.substack.com/p/human-aspiration-and-the-legacy-of
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/173387821/c75398211a5800fecd5c04915f05ea1b.mp3
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Duration seconds: 1968

## Resource

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…

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## Transcript

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