Tag Archives: filming

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

Leave a Reply

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

Leave a Reply

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.

Old Filming in SF

Leave a Reply

Making my way through old shots for other projects often results in finding stuff I had completely forgotten about. Before we lived in the Bay Area, I was there for some other reason. I was down near the water and there was a film crew working on a production of some sort. The character was on a dock and was approached by some other guys at which point he falls into the water. There was a diver that got set up in the water beforehand for safety purposes. Then they filmed the sequence. I don’t recall them doing it more than once which made it easier than drying the guy off and giving him fresh clothes, I guess!

Filming a Car Scene in Vancouver

Leave a Reply

Walking through the streets of Vancouver one weekend, we came up to an intersection. There was a Porsche sitting on a trailer with two people in it. It quickly became apparent that they were doing some filming. The woman was an actor and the man was filming here. There was a vehicle pulling the trailer with some of the production staff sitting on it. Initially I was focused on what they were doing but then I started to look around.

The whole convoy was all related to the filming. There was a motorcycle escort supporting them and other vehicles from the production team. Everything on the street was controlled. You often feel when watching street scenes that they are filming in an open environment but a lot of the time it is totally controlled. Only us and the other pedestrians could be considered random variables in the whole process. The light stayed red for a while with the cameraman trying a variety of positions and then the lights changed and the whole ground headed off to the next block. We went on our way too.

Talk to Me Goose – Oh That’s Right, You Can’t

Leave a Reply

Top Gun 2 is in production at the moment. There has been much activity around the Super Hornets on the west coast and their involvement in the film with one jet getting photographed a bit in Pete Mitchell’s colors. What I didn’t know was that the production has been on the road. While up at Whidbey Island we saw a Super Bug launching towards us. Based Growlers are of interest and Super Bugs less so but we still shot it. As it got closer, it was clearly painted up differently and we realized we had Maverick’s plane in frame. It flew a straight out departure and we didn’t see it return before we left but it was kind of a pleasant surprise to get it at all!

Astar Over My Head

Leave a Reply

These shots are from a few years ago. I had the privilege to spend a day with the late Alan Purwin during the filming for one of the Transformers movies in Chicago. I got to fly with them on some of the shoot but I also was on the ground when they went off on part of the filming. I put myself directly ahead of the Astar when they took off and Alan buzzed me. I noticed when going through the images that the cameraman was tracking me with the stabilized mount on the nose as they flew over the top.

Filming With a G650ER

Leave a Reply

I missed the best of this event. I got to Everett towards the end of a filming session with a Gulfstream G650ER jet. An Astar was being used to film the jet as it flew some approaches. I had actually noticed the jet online earlier in the day because it had been flying orbits over some of the islands and showed up on FlightRadar24. I didn’t know what it was at the time but, once I got to Everett it all became clear. I didn’t get anything of the Astar as I didn’t have the camera out when I first arrived but I did get a shot or two of the Gulfstream near the end of the flights. Looked like a fun sortie to be involved with.

Roslyn/Cicely Alaska

Leave a Reply

If you are not too young, you may have watched a TV show in the 90s called Northern Exposure. Set in the fictional town of Cicely Alaska, it revolved around a young doctor from New York who had been sponsored through school and, in order to fulfill his sponsorship obligations, had to go and work in this remote town. It was a quirky show and I liked it. It wasn’t filmed in Alaska though. The exterior work was mainly done in a town called Roslyn that sits just on the other side of the Cascades from Seattle. We decided to take a trip.

Roslyn was a mining town for many years. However, when the coal became too uneconomic to mine, things got very quiet. There is a little museum in the center of the town which includes a display outside of some of the mining equipment. There is also a memorial to the miners including a lengthy list of those that lost their lives in the mines.

There are a few buildings that you might recognize from the TV show. The opening sequence of the show includes a moose wandering around the town and passing a café called Roslyn’s Café. The apostrophe and s were added for that sequence but the Roslyn Café is still there and we had a good lunch inside. The doctor’s office is now a gift shop in which you can get plenty of Northern Exposure related goodies. The tavern that was central to the show, The Brick, is also there although clearly the interior shots were done on a stage since it looks very different.

The drive to Roslyn takes you across the Cascades via Snoqualmie Pass and it is a pretty drive on its own but Roslyn was a fun place to visit. It is a small town with a few interesting shops and no shortage of places to eat and drink. We also wandered out of the center a bit, up the hill to see the local church. Then we headed on our way.

Shooting the Astar

Leave a Reply

The team from Helinet was in town recently as part of a movie shoot. With the end of the shoot coming up, I was asked to get some shots of the helicopter in the city. Alan knows exactly what he is doing when flying in amongst the city buildings and can put the helicopter wherever I wanted it for the images. We even got lucky with some great weather. (The following day, it was foggy and no go at all!)

With some advance planning and some good communication during the shoot, we were able to position the helicopter to look dynamic in amongst the buildings. It would have been good to get some video too but time was limited and stills were required so that is what we did. A fun shoot and great people to work with.