Production Update #54: Helicopter scene in the can... finally...

Well, I've never had the opportunity to actually direct a helicopter before. But last weekend I did just that. Sapora, Masters, Campbell, and I (the Core Four) all squeezed into one car with the film gear, and drove for almost 2 hours to Schafferstown, PA to shoot at a small rural airport there.

I couldn't help but imagine myself as Francie Ford Coppola on the set of "Apocalypse Now" -- although he was re-staging the Vietnam War, and we were... uh... well, just shooting footage of a helicopter taking off... But I DID get to duck and run under the spinning rotor, M*A*S*H-like... Very cool!

Novia was the toughest member of the crew: Temperatures were supposed to reach the low 40's. But it never made it out of the 30s... and she had to run around in that wedding dress under the copter's prop wash. She was freezing! And I still feel pretty guilty about it.

The instant we were finished, she jumped back into the Jetta (yes, it is both a picture car and a mode of transporting the crew) and sat with the heater on full-blast. I was genuinely worried she'd gotten hyperthermic... But we got the half dozen shots, and by the time we got home -- another 2 hours later -- she finally seemed to be warming up...

I also want to thank Terry Inch, the helicopter pilot from Dutch Country Helicopters in Lancaster, PA. He did a terrific job piloting -- AND acting in this brief scene...

This afternoon I screened the helicopter launch dailies at Colorlab in Rockville, MD, and they look and sound very good!

It's supposed to snow sometime next week. I guess I'll be spending a lot of time back in the edit suite... until the weather clears and we can get out and shoot again...