Rummaging through an old box of photos the other day, I came across these; crusty old transparencies, from a time before drones, and a few snaps from a project in the early 00’s.
There seemed to be quite a bit more money sloshing around back then, so when budget permitted, I used to shoot a little bit in helicopters. It was without question hugely expensive, and always took out a fairly decent chunk of any budget, but it was so much fun. There was a company called Flight Logistics that used to operate out of Pinewood; very nice people they were, and I always thought what a fun job and exciting job theirs was. They’d turn up with a truck load of remote control mountings, like the ultimate Mecano set, and spend a few hours building a rig to fix your camera to the nose of whatever aircraft you were working in.
This particular job, I had hired a Bell Jet Ranger, maybe it was a Long Ranger, I can’t quite remember and apart from slight difference in length, they’re almost identical aircraft. Whichever one it was, it was a fabulous machine and I was looking forward to spending a few days sitting in the cockpit passenger seat with a camera remote on my lap, squinting into a CRT monitor with an old OS map as a makeshift monitor shade. Our flight plan would take us from East to West, Blackpool to Scarborough over the moors and then back over the Lake District – the highlight for me. There were specific shots I knew I wanted, low passes and dynamic sweeps over that area in particular.
My clients, were obviously delighted to be able to tag along and get a jolly away from office, fair enough I guess seeing as they had ultimately paid for it all. I have never been a fan of having a client peering over your shoulder, but thankfully they were sitting in the back and separated from myself and pilot in the cockpit. The main client, a slightly overweight middle aged corporate man who drove a Jeeaag, sat in the back wearing his golf club branded peaked cap the wrong way round, like he was in some Apocalypse Now sequel. You get the picture.
The pilot, whose name I sadly now forget, was very experienced, incredibly skilled and I do remember he was unnervingly calm. I wasn’t quite sure whether or not to trust this at first, but a little later I realised just how important that character quality was. His CV was impressive though, and he had flown for the BBC before, as well as this lady who called herself Queen Elizabeth, and a long list of dignitaries and various so called ‘celebrities’. If nothing else, that gave us all a great deal of reassurance, both for our safety and comfort, but also because I knew he’d make sure I came away with the shots I needed and my clients had dug deep for.
Anyone who has flown in one of these upfront, might remember, they are dual control with a duplicate set on the passenger side. As I was to be occupying that seat for a few days, the levers which would have been on my right hand side, had been unscrewed to keep us all out of trouble, leaving just control stubs down by my right foot. With all the kit, monitors and camera control chutney I was cuddling, it was fairly easy to forget the controls were there at all, and in truth there was no real reason I needed to remember that anyway. Or so I thought.
We started off the round of passes over the Cumbrian terrain at safe, comfortable and legal heights, I think it’s normally 100m dropping a little lower over unpopulated, rural ground. The camera would be facing down and I would pan up through 90º to face forward. It’s a pretty dynamic sort of shot but you need to be reasonably close to the ground for it to really work. As we got more comfortable with the move, the pilot would drop a little lower on each pass, eventually going a little below the minimum 30m I think you’re supposed to stick to. Through the headsets, I could tell the clients in the back were enjoying it all immensely and spirits were high. As we rounded up for another pass and straightened up, I noticed the pilot switched off comms to the back seat and the corporate revelry from the back suddenly went silent. As we were approaching one of the peaks at a fairly alarming speed, the pilot in the strangely calm manner I had already witnessed that morning, informed me the he was suddenly unable to raise the nose of the aircraft and asked if I could just check where my feet were. Sure enough, they had found themselves on top of the control stubs, with my right foot very firmly lodged against the one which enables you to not fly straight in to mountainsides – it’s a fairly important one. With not much time before we did just that, I freed my foot from the equipment, and the pilot brought us up and out of trouble. I am fairly certain that the pilot’s external calmness belied a different sense of inner urgency, but it didn’t show, and switching the comms to back seat back on, my clients, clearly oblivious of the mini drama that had just taken place in the cockpit, were still there whooping with delight. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.
Looking back on these experiences, even the more challenging ones, having had the opportunity of being able to employ and work with a crew of talented technicians has been such a big part and privilege of my working life. I miss all the film family vibe. Focus pullers, loaders, camera trainees, grips, gaffers and sparks and all the other related and qualified technicians. Tech has changed all that and the industry has changed with it. Reduced it, made it all so instantly accessible, and consequently spread it very thinly. These days you just throw up a reasonably priced drone and even with half a clue, you’re getting footage that, quality wise is probably superior to what was available back then, and of course at a fraction of the cost. But it’s just not as much fun. And of course it’s just you, like so much film making is now. I have a mixed relationship with new tech and what this has meant to the industry. What you might gain in ease of use, accessibility, and immediacy, you lose out in the breadth of experience.
