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Behind the Scenes |
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 Ray relaxes after the shoot |
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Transmitter Theory and Bench Setup: Not wanting to spend big bucks on a studio, and having a very simple shoot, Stu (cameraman) and I decided that a hotel room would be the easiest place to shoot the studio footage. After checking out about six hotels in the Van Nuys/San Fernando Valley area, I settled on the Extended Stay America in Stevenson, Ranch, CA (just north of Van Nuys). We met there on the morning of April 16th, 2005. The first surprise was the room wasn't made up. Great. Since we weren't going to use the bed or bathroom, that was of little consequence, and was a good reason to get a day's credit on the hotel room. (I had reserved it for Friday night so we could start shooting Saturday morning.) Fernando (lighting) wanted to set up the backdrop over the window to block out all ambient light in the room. It was soon discovered, however, that the backdrop also blocked the under-window air conditioner from air conditioning the room! So now I was faced with shooting in a 95 degree room (because of the heat of the lights). If my face looks red in the DVD, that's because a) the background light, and b) I was about ready to pass out from the heat! Once we got going, there were very few interruptions from outside noise. We took breaks every once in a while to open up the door and let the room cool down. There was a Coco's restaurant next door for convenient meals. The Transmitter Theory was basically shot on Saturday. I had memorized the introductory comments (stand-ups), and used a cue card to make sure I had the major points covered. From then on, everything was done "on the fly" or "off the cuff" to keep things as real and down-to-earth as possible. After previewing the "dailies" until 1am Sunday morning, I knew what was good and what I wanted to re-shoot. For all the "stand-up" introduction stuff, if the engine is out of the helicopter, that was shot on Saturday, and if the engine is in the helicopter, that was shot on Sunday. After we re-shot some of the introduction stuff on Sunday morning, we went on to do the Helicopter Setup. By mid-afternoon Sunday, we called it a wrap. After previewing the Helicopter Setup footage, I knew I was going to have to re-shoot the throttle setup, as I wasn't satisfied with it. Within the next day, I came up with my new "1,2,3" method of throttle setup. The question was, when was I going to be able to re-shoot it? In the weeks that followed, I re-made connections with Steve Brown in Long Beach, CA, who had shot my original "Model Helicopter Technique Video" in 1997. He had transitioned from a fire-fighting job to open up his own full-time video studio (SepiaProductions.com), so if I could make it down to Long Beach, I could set up in his studio, shoot the additional footage, and complete the project. The opportunity to shoot with Steve came on June 24th, 2005. The flight footage had already been shot on May 28th. I "broke down" my existing throttle setup and reverted all the numbers back to what they were on the day of the original shoot. After re-shooting the throttle setup, we went on to shoot "Blade Building and Rotor Head Balancing," which is an upcoming DVD. Flight Trimming: We started shooting around 1pm. It was kind of funny. Stu wanted to get close to me and the helicopter to get a good shot, and I kept backing up to keep a safe distance between the helicopter and Stu. If you look closely in some of the shots, you can see that Stu is walking up to the helicopter just before I'm lifting off. I realized what he was doing, and gave up trying to get farther away. Stu did a great job of shooting the helicopter, then "backing off" to include my comments after I landed. You'll notice how I ask Pat, "What's next?" This is because I wrote down all the steps of flight trimming that I wanted to follow, because in the heat of filming, I knew it would be easy to skip something. So Pat is simply reading me the checklist. You're not missing anything if you can't hear exactly what Pat is saying. After shooting about one and a half tanks of fuel, we were interrupted by the Los Angeles City fire department, who said they needed the field to help put out a local brush fire. This was a real shock, as it threatened my "shoot it all in an afternoon" philosophy. We decided to wait out the fire department. In the meantime, Stu told me, "I have to leave to pick up my daughter." The sound-man said he had to leave with Stu, too. No!!! But what about what I had already said??? "It's going to take all afternoon to shoot the flight trimming!!!" Now I was half-way through Flight Trimming and things were rapidly headed downhill. I asked Pat if he could stay with me and shoot the rest of the footage after the fire department was gone. He said yes, he could. Good. Pat became my "clutch" cameraman. We persuaded the sound-man to leave the sound equipment with us. (Pat works with Stu, and could give the equipment back to Stu, who could give it back to the sound-man.) An hour and a half later, City Fire was finished with the field, and Pat and I were left to finish the flight trimming. For being "thrown into the fire," Pat did a great job. Thanks, Pat! You saved me! As with the studio footage, the flight footage isn't technically beautiful. Shooting a model helicopter in flight is tough to do. And it was worse because neither Stu nor Pat had a chance to practice. In retrospect, I'd bring a "dummy helicopter" to fly and give the cameraman a chance to practice shooting it in flight. But again, this is a "training tape," and even though the helicopter is out of focus in spots, you can easily tell what's going on just by listening to the sound. Somewhere around the start of the third tank of fuel, the lawn sprinklers came on right where we were shooting. That necessitated grabbing everything and moving to another part of the field. Ahhh!! You can see the sprinklers watering the lawn in at least one of the shots. If you really take notice, there's not much footage from the beginning of the third tank of fuel to the end of the video. From the studio standup shots, before the Flight Trimming was ever shot, I told you that it'd take between two and three tanks of fuel to do the flight trimming. So it's pretty realistic to call the flight trimming "complete" after two and a half tanks of fuel. The middle portion of the third tank of fuel was shot trying to get some nice low rolls with the horizon in the background. We weren't real successful doing that, but we did get what was essential for the DVD. One thing was for certain... I was so involved with flying that I didn't realize that I was nearly out of gas at the end of that third tank of fuel! With the first three tanks of fuel completed, and the helicopter perfectly set up, I was happy. The process had been less than perfect, but I knew I had the shots I needed. On the fourth tank of fuel, I had a "wind down" flight and Pat shot more footage. This is where the hovering pirouettes were shot (after the third tank of fuel and before the credits). I also did a bunch of low inverted hovering to supplement the third tank of fuel footage. After the fourth tank of fuel, we re-wound the tape to check out that footage, only to find that it wasn't there! For whatever reason, the "record" button on the camera hadn't been pushed! By now, it was too late to try to re-shoot that fourth tank of fuel. The helicopter's batteries were dipping into the yellow, and most of the afternoon was gone. I wasn't too disappointed though, because I knew I had the footage I really needed, and the overall goal had been achieved. I lost a little bit of "frosting." So what. I had the cake. I hope these comments have given you an insight as to what it took to make this DVD series. I am extremely pleased with it, because as stated from the very beginning, we're not starting with a perfect setup and "reverse engineering" it. We're starting with nothing, and explaining "why" and "how" all the way through. I'm certain you'll enjoy (and learn) from what you see! Ray Hostetler October 17, 2005 |
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