Stories from the film set.
In the movies and in TV shows, there seem to be more helicopters than you would actually see in real life.
Why? I suppose they are visually dramatic and the roaring of their engines pops on the big theatre sound systems. Even in home theatre stereos.
They big, they bad.
The good guys – even the bad guys – could arrive in a car, an SUV or even a truck occasionally. But there’s nothing like a helicopter filling the screen dropping the FBI or a SEAL team into the blazing fight.
And you can rent the hell out of them, lots of them lining up on the sidelines of small airports waiting to be of use.
Audiences seem to love them. Not me.
When I worked on two seasons Burt Reynold’s “B.L. Stryker” TV series, I developed a real dislike for these clunky machines fumbling their way through the air like giant can openers on a death mission.
I sorta fudged in a previous column when I said the only phobia I have is for heights. Helicopters could make that list longer if I admitted it.
Part of it is that only five years before Stryker, the actor Vic Morrow and a child actor had their heads separated from their bodies during a helo accident on the “Twilight Zone” movie set.
The two horrible crashes recently in New York and D.C. just reawakened the helicopter nightmare in my head. Whoa!
Every other Stryker episode featured plenty of helicopter action.
One big reason was that Mr. R rented his personal one to the production company as well as his small Piper type airplane (which made it into one episode. (See my column “That time I ruined Burt’s plane.”)
We would cover any graphics on his already black copter and other ones that they rented, then letter them with “FBI” or “Sheriff”. One time there was a completely white one we had to cover every square inch.
Why did I dislike them so much? Because the director was paranoid that some vinyl might come loose, hit the rotors and cause a crash (which never happened, and I knew it wouldn’t).
So we had to have someone on set to do “helicopter duty.” When it was me, they would land between takes, and I would have to run under the still-turning blades and booming engine and inspect top to bottom with my hands.
It felt like those blades were aiming at my head like a Henry the 8th divorce.
You had to be there to understand.
One of my favorite on-set terrors was when they used a parking lot between two skyscrapers in West Palm Beach as an inspection spot. As the beast lowered itself 30 stories, it seemed that at any time a blade would smash into huge glass windows and send 2-and-a-half tons of metal onto my head.
Two years of that traumatized me forever.
Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 33 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
