“The Bridge So Far – a Suspense Story” wins TWO 2006-7 Emmy Awards from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences –San Francisco/Northern California Chapter. The Emmys were for Outstanding Achievement in a Documentary, won by David L Brown and his filmmaking team, and Outstanding Graphics and Animation in a Program, won by Charlie Canfield for cartoon animation and Rick Pepper for 3D visualizations. The film was sponsored by the Professional Engineers in California Government (PECG).
The entertaining documentary/news special follows the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge from its original construction in 1933 through the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake up to the present day. More than a huge design and construction project, it was also a frustrating and sometimes comedic mess of local, regional, state, and even federal politics; dollars and delays; finances and finger pointing; the U.S. Navy vs. Caltrans; northern vs. southern alignments; skyway vs. suspension bridge, a bikeway to nowhere; colorful characters, conceptual changes during construction; and monumental cost increases caused by such far-flung factors as the then-upcoming Olympics in China.