Dream Big: Engineering Our World
When: Opens at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 17 and runs through June 29. 10:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. daily.
Where: IMAX at the California Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles.
Tickets: $5.25-$8.50.
Information: 213-744-7444, https://california sciencecenter.org.
When: Opens at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 17 and runs through June 29. 10:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4:30 p.m. daily.
Where: IMAX at the California Science Center, 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles.
Tickets: $5.25-$8.50.
Information: 213-744-7444, https://california sciencecenter.org.
Hollywood tells plenty of stories about doctors, lawyers and detectives, but engineers? Not so much.
“Because there’s never been a movie or series about engineering, our idea was to portray what an engineer really does in order to get American kids, particularly girls, interested in it as a possible career,” says Greg MacGillivray, who’s at the helm of MacGillivray Freeman Films’ new IMAX and Giant Screen film, “Dream Big: Engineering Our World.”
Narrated by Oscar winner Jeff Bridges, this first of its kind film that opens Feb. 17 at the IMAX at California Science Center explores human ingenuity through “wow” moments like a helicopter flying around the Great Wall of China or visuals of the wind deflecting the twisting Shanghai Towers while hooking viewers with personal stories of inspiring characters.
The 40-minute IMAX exploration, made in partnership with the American Society of Civil Engineers, shines a light on engineers such as Avery Bang, who at 32 has spent the last decade building pedestrian bridges in rural villages around the world.
She first witnessed the impact of engineering while studying abroad in Fiji.
“I got to experience a world with limited infrastructure, where toilets don’t flush and electricity isn’t a light switch away,” she says. “But the New Zealand government had built a pedestrian bridge, and when I crossed that bridge I was able to see how something so simple could make such profound change. It really helped me see that this engineering course that I was taking could lead me to help people in a really impactful way.”
Bang, who is now CEO of the Colorado-based nonprofit Bridges to Prosperity, takes the audience to a remote area of Haiti. There, she leads her team of engineers in the construction of a foot bridge across a river that has claimed the lives of many people.
Crossing the river is the only way for villagers to access school and medical care.
“There’s a misconception that engineers sit behind desks and that’s certainly not who I am,” she says by phone from New York while on a tour to promote the film. “To be part of this film has been such a privilege because we have the opportunity to recast the stereotype so that the next generation can see truly how important this career can be.”
“Dream Big” also focuses on the story of how a Latino robotics club led by teacher Fredi Lajvardi of Carl Hayden High School in Arizona took down the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in an underwater robot competition.
One of the students who helped build the $800 robot — made of PVC pipes and fittings, a retractable tape measure and lots of wires — was Angelica Hernandez, now an engineer.
She stars in a re-creation of the events.
“For our small budgets relative to Hollywood, that was Hollywood-style filmmaking,” says producer Shaun MacGillivray, who is the son of Greg MacGillivray. “Every shot was scripted, rehearsed and story boarded, and frankly I’m so proud of that sequence because you’re so excited when they win.”
About 25 percent of the 5 million to 20 million people who will see the IMAX film in the first two years are school-aged kids on field trips. They are the target audience of the campaign.
“How do you inspire kids to get excited about engineering? Well, this is a great platform,” Shaun MacGillivray says. “This may be the first time they’ve ever experienced just how exciting and cool it could be to be an engineer.”
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