Category Archives: Chicago

Set Up Publicity Photos for Helinet

Having done the ride along with Alan Purwin of Helinet during the filming of Transformers, Alan was interested in getting some publicity shots of the helicopter to use for their own marketing material. He asked if I would be interested in doing the shots and I was more than up for it. What I wanted was to have a high enough vantage point from which to shoot. You want to be looking across or down on the helicopter to get some real context to the work.

Additionally, Alan wanted the helicopter to be mounted with a different camera mount. He owned a company in New Zealand called Shotover. This was the mount that he wanted on the helicopter for the shots instead of the larger ball mount that had been used during the Transformers filming. I discussed with him where to get an elevated location from which to shoot. He had been staying at the Trump Tower for all of the filming and had developed a good relationship with one of the managers there so got me access to use one of their outside deck areas. This proved to be an ideal spot.

We had a series of runs with the helicopter coming up the Chicago River towards me, pulling up in front of me, hovering close by and making diving runs from the River North area across in front of me to be over the Chicago River. I had a radio so I could call in the next sequence or have them run it again. The weather had become a lot nicer than it had been when I was riding along and so I was really happy with the results. So was Alan and they soon were on the marketing materials for Helinet. No doubt they now have new material, but it was used for a while. Sadly, Alan dies in a plane crash during the filming of a movie in Central America. He was a passenger in a plane that crashed on take-off. He was a super nice guy, and I am sure remains sadly missed.

A Trip Over Chicago in the Cameraship

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In a previous post, I shared some images of the Helinet Squirrel that was used for aerial filming of the Transformers movie franchise in Chicago. When I had been in touch with Alan Purwin about some photos I had got of them in action, he invited me to come along during one of the filming sessions. They were operating from a location in the south of the city – an unusual circumstance because, in those days, Chicago did not normally allow helicopters to land in the city. However, we met up at Midway Airport before heading to the filming location.

Alan was flying whilst David Nowell, the cinematographer was in the left seat controlling the camera installation. They had worked together many times and had a very slick relationship in the air. A producer was next to me in the rear seats. We left Midway and headed into Chicago where we flew around the city a little before landing on the south side. The film crews have clearance to operate at low level and in between the buildings. It is quite a stunning place to be as you slide between the skyscrapers.

The challenge for the team was to visualise what the scene would be. We headed towards the Sears Tower over which an alien spaceship was supposed to be. We were filming the sequences over which the CGI would insert the various elements. These sequences had to be run several times, and each had to be exactly the same so the material could be combined seamlessly. Watching all of this happen whilst seeing the buildings all around you was something else.

I would love to have spent more time with them on the project. I was not part of the regular crew so I couldn’t outstay my invitation but to see all of this in practice when having seen plenty of it from the window of our apartment over the years was something else.

Filming With a Squirrel

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When we lived in Chicago, it was a regular thing to see filming underway for either movies or TV shows. One morning, as I walked to work, I was bemused by someone running alongside a bus banging on the side when clearly another would be along in a minute. Then I realised it wasn’t a CTA bus and there were cameras filming the whole thing. The bigger productions would often involve aerial camera work.

I actually did a number of pieces on this for GAR over time. There was a local operator that would do some filming work with a Twin Squirrel. However, some of the larger film productions had their preferred operators. Michael Bay would use Helinet out of California. This business was run by Alan Purwin, and we ended up spending some time together. During a previous Transformers filming session, I had got some photos of the cameraship and had shared them with him. The plan had been to meet up but an accident occurred on the set and the filming was curtailed.

When another Transformers move came to town, we did get in touch. I will have a few more posts to come that cover this time. For the first post, I am including some images of the helicopter in action filming various sequences around the city. The camera was mounted in a large, stabilised turret on the front of the fuselage while a ballast weight was mounted under the rear to keep the CG within limits. That turret would change later as will be seen in another post.

The Lifespan of an Airliner

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Recently, Eastern Air Express brought a 737-300 to Seattle. They had not long had the airframe, and it was freshly painted in their colors. Before they had it, this aircraft had been operated by iAero. They ceased operations so I guess Eastern picked up the airframe as a result of the asset disposal process. The registration is one that shows the history of this jet having been originally with Southwest. I knew I had shots of iAero operations and thought I might have this jet and, sure enough, I do have some images of it.

The thing I didn’t anticipate was that I also shot this plane when it was with Southwest. Just a single shot of it landing at Midway in snowy conditions and the image quality is far from impressive. No winglets fitted at this point either so just the original wing configuration. I am pretty sure that Southwest was the original user, so it is now on (at least) its third operator. Did it go anywhere else before iAero? I don’t know. Will it have another owner after Eastern before it becomes spare parts? We shall see!

Playing With an Old CRJ Moon Shot

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For some reason, I recently came back to an old photo I took of a Delta Connection CRJ900 as it climbed out of O’Hare. It had climbed right by the moon as it was rising in the eastern sky towards the end of the day. I had liked the photo at the time but now I was thinking about how to do a better job of editing it. Now I have been using the masking tools in Lightroom a lot more, I figured I could take different approaches for the jet and the background. The results were a lot better than my original efforts and I quite like how it now looks.

United’s Oldest A320 Heads West

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I was reading a couple of articles that were discussing old jets getting retired. The original MD-11 was retired by FedEx and, when I checked my catalog, I didn’t have any shots of it. United has retired its oldest A320 so I looked for that one too. Turns out I did shoot it once. It was arriving at O’Hare and was painted in the colors of Ted – United’s short-lived low-cost airline. I guess the jet lasted longer than Ted did!

Stormy Chicago Sky Revisited

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Living in the Midwest provided plenty of stormy weather days. The way in which the storms could brew up on warm afternoons was really impressive. I have always loved lightning and sometimes we got so much of it, you would stop paying attention. One afternoon, there was a storm forecast to roll across the city. I decided to head out to the planetarium since it has a great view of the city and I was hoping for lightning behind the skyline or maybe even on some of the high buildings. I am not sure whether it is a thing but it seemed like the lightning would be more prevalent at the leading and trailing edges of the storm so I was hoping to get shots before the rain made it no fun to be outside.

Things didn’t work out quite as planned and there wasn’t the lightning I was hoping for. However, I did get some amazing cloud formations rolling across the city. Watching this come towards me, it was hard to recognize that this wasn’t some CGI on a movie but was actually heading my way. It looked amazing. It wasn’t long before I retreated to the car once the rain showed up.

On another occasion, I was flying in to Midway. As we made the turn back towards the city after flying out over Lake Michigan, a really intense storm cell was sitting north of the city. It came into view as we turned and I videoed it with my phone. It was another beast of a storm, and it was probably rather damp underneath it.

QOTS Flashback and Gear Action

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I was running back through some older shots while experimenting with some processing techniques and was looking at some British Airways 747-400 shots. With them now retired from BA service, it was a moment of reflection to see the shots again. It was also a departure sequence which meant there was a good view of the way in which the QOTS main gear tucked away. A cool looking sequence but a lot less common these days. Thank goodness for the freighters and the remaining passenger jets.

The Curves Are So Cool

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At quiet times, I browse through older shots to see what I have shot in the past that might not have been the most interesting subject of the shoot but was worth another look. I had been photographing with a bunch of guys at O’Hare a few years back as the evening was drawing in. We were out at the west side of O’Hare and the evening light was great. An Embraer E175-E1 took off and turned overhead us. The low light angles picked up the underside of the aircraft as it turned. The bottom of a wing has a lot of complex curvatures to it and the low light angle really emphasizes that shape. This shot really appealed to me for that reason.

Goodbye Alitalia

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Airlines come and go but there are some that seem immortal, despite the fact that they really should have died. Alitalia was one such airline. It had gone through financial crisis after financial crisis. All sorts of EU rules were broken with the government propping the airline up and then they got support from another airline which probably regretted it very quickly. It now seems that they have finally gone. The failure of an airline is obviously traumatic for the people that work for it and I am genuinely sorry for them. However, Alitalia really needed to go. There is a new airline in Italy and they have bought the rights to the name. They paid less than half of the minimum bid that the people selling the rights said they would take. It looks like it was just to stop someone else using the name but we shall see. Let’s hope ITA is a better run operation.