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brentfinley

Ripley's Believe it or Not

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What a busy weekend. 11/09/02

Left Sat 9am for Kingman for a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" shoot.

We were going to throw the World Largest Rubber band ball from a
plane. My friend Joe Jennings got me a 2nd camera gig for
the shoot. This ball is about 5 feet in diameter and 2600 pounds. My
job was to step off of the tailgate a split second behind Joe. He was
going to try to grab the ball on the way out and stay with it for a
few seconds. Without a "grip" this thing would immediately be "gone"
as its terminal velocity would be close to 400 mph.

We left Eloy in a nasty headwind and only made 115 mph ground speed.
It made for a slow, boring, loud ride in the skyvan. Lucky I brought
earplugs. 10 minutes into the flight, I noticed Wayne Snyder, our
rigger, messing around in the back of the plane. He had brought
an ice chest for “victory” beers after the impact. He was standing
oddly in front of it and then dropped his pants and squatted on it.
So much for that ice chest…. I did manage enough time for a digital
Picture. Blackmail…you know. Although… he does pack my reserve.
They don’t call him Weird Wayne for nothing. But I digress..

We flew between cloud layers into Kingman and got bumped around
a bit. It was supposed to be a windy rainy day, but clearing up.

The Ripleys folks were set up along side of a group of hangars with
the "Ripley's Road Trip RV", a couple of Jeeps, and a big red carpet and camera
boom for the cool "sweeping" shots. Big studio lights and all. It was a very
cool scene. I stepped off the plane with my camera kit and they were
rolling tape. I get plenty of face time in this show which is very
nice for a change.

The hostess for the show was Kelly Packard, well known for her role as
"Summer" on Baywatch. What a cutie pie. She was about 100 lbs and
5'4" with 3 inch heels on. She was very nice and smiled a lot off
camera as well as on.

They shot segments on and off between rain and wind Saturday, but
wound up reshooting all of it starting at 5am Sunday since it cleared
up. Poor Kelly. She had on a short sleeve shirt and was freezing
between takes.

The jump plan was to throw a 55 gallon barrel of water for a test drop to
dial in the plane, the spotter, the ground cameras and test the "educated guess"
trajectory of what the Ball might do. Bryan Burke from Skydive
Arizona is always the ground coordinator for "drops". He's very good at it.
He's great. He also has a wonderful (albeit morbid) sense of humor.
Someone asked a producer when this would air. The guy said "February".
Bryan turned and said "Or tonight on the six o'clock news, depending on how
things go." You gotta love him.

The helicopter pilot showed up Sunday morning with a beautiful A-Star
bird with a million dollar "Gyron" camera system.

We were sitting around when the production crew left for the landing
area at around noon. The RV, jeeps, Hostess, Rubber band ball maker,
etc. Took off and the helicopter spooled up to go get some ground
shots of them on the highway.

Joe Jennings just got up and walked out to the helicopter while were
sitting there and we all wondered what he was doing. He popped his
head in and spoke to the pilot for a minute and then unzipped and
started peeing next to the helicopter (which was pretty funny). He
turned to us (100 yards away) raised his hands and then hopped into
the helicopter.

We all thought... "that bastard is getting a cool ride on the
helicopter... Why didn't I think of that first!" Heck, we weren't
doing anything for 2 hours, why not. Now I knew why he took
a leak.. they’d be back in an hour or so before the test drop.
They took off and headed north after the convoy.

At that point, Wayne Snyder, the rigger in charge of restraints for
the ball in the plane, was going to town with one of the producers to
stock up an ice chest with beer for the post impact festivities. He
Promised to buy a new ice chest for the beers. He said he cleaned it
Out with clorox, but we just couldn’t bear the thought of ingesting
Anything that had come from the ice chest turned port-o-potty.
They got to the gate of the airport, turned around and came back.
Wayne hopped out of the Suburban and the producer took off again.
Wayne walked up to us and said something I'll never forget...

"The helicopter just crashed."

I heard him perfectly, but looked at him with disbelief and asked
"what?"

That was all he knew. The producer got a cell phone call that said
the helicopter crashed. We had no other details. Within a minute, we
heard emergency vehicles driving up the highway near the airport. We
looked north and saw no smoke. That was good.

Now we speculated. As a skydiver, I'm used to non-trained personnel
saying things completely out of proportion when describing an
"incident", so I wasn't jumping to any conclusions. A helicopter that
loses an engine will "glide" as well as an airplane and set down
without incident. Someone might describe that as a crash.

Well before I describe what really happened, let me first say that
everyone walked away with bumps and bruises. Pilot, Cameraman,
and Joe. OK? OK.

Here’s what happened…

The helicopter crashed.

The pilot was following the RV from the side as it went down the highway.
Flying sideways at 40mph, 40 feet off the ground. Joe said he saw a
glint out of the side of his eye and looked up. He yelled to the pilot
"look out". The pilot looked over, started to dive down, and
hooked a suspension cable. They immediatly spun around, slammed into
the ground, flipped over (which sheared all 3 rotor blades), broke the
tail boom off, smashed the Gyron Camera ball off, broke the landing
skids off, and broke windows. Two million dollars worth of crashed up
junk. They'll probably salvage plenty, but all I can say is "Ouch!"

The producers were about to call it off when Bryan Burke said "Why?
We just used all our bad luck, and Brent's got all the same equipment
as Joe, let's go do this thing while were all here and the money's
spent." Bryan is great. Did I mention that before?

Meanwhile at the hospital, Joe was pleading with Jack (one of the Ripley’s
higher ups) to not cancel the drop. That his crew was solid and what could
possibly go wrong. The helicopter crash was unrelated to the operation. He
was doing this while pacing around his gurney with an IV plugged into his arm.
The staffers looked at him like he was a lunatic.

Although Joe's neck x-ray showed nothing and he was ready to jump, the
producers wouldn't let him go. They asked me how I felt about doing
the shot. I said "let's go."

Jason Peters was promoted from Ball pusher to 2nd cameraman and now I
was the only one rolling high speed film (16mm) out the door with this
baby.

The barrel drop went great at 2:45 and we got off the ground at 4:40
for the ball drop.

We were supposed to circle twice for a dry run and then the real shot.
We circled 6 or 7 times. I was getting concerned that the light would
be gone soon and the camera settings I metered on the ground at 4pm
would be a little underexposed if we pushed the sunset into the shot.
We finally got the ball off at 10 minutes before sunset.

Stepping off with a 2600 lb ball rolling at you is not any different
than with a car (I've done 4 of them) or a living room set (done that
twice), except that when I got off the plane and my forward throw was
slowing down in the wind, the ball did not slow down with the wind.
We fell at the same rate, but the ball was racing away from me, level
with the horizon, at an amazing rate. I got the exit shot I wanted.
Jason never hung on, but he got a cool shot too. The ball made an
impact crater 4 feet deep in the soft dirt, bounced another 75 feet,
and sluffed off about 1 foot of it's diameter that lay in a heap about
10 feet from the remaining ball. The heap was warm... And smelled
like burned rubber. What glorious carnage.

The ball guy had everyone sign this 1/2 inch wide, large rubber band,
that he attached around the entire ball before we loaded it. He did
find it in there. It was broken in one spot... Right on Joe Jenning's
signature. Very eerie.

Bryan burke drove up with the Rental truck for our gear. First
thing's first... Where's the Beer? "I got you covered he said" as he
reached into the bed and popped open a Pale Ale for me.

Next... Why did we circle for so long? Turns out the producer wanted
Bryan to drive Kelly and the ball guy out to the impact as soon as it
went. They pointed to the red jeep and Bryan said "You're in luck...
I can drive a stick...", but when he got in, the keys were missing and
they spent 15 minutes looking for the stupid keys.

"Believe it, or not"

:)

We took impact photos with the crew, gathered our stuff and drove back
to the airport.

We had a nice tailwind on the way back and made 219 mph ground speed
back to Eloy... We got in at 9pm. After another 45 minutes on the
road, I was back home....

Now I'm back at work... And finally get to shift back into a lower
gear for a bit.

Oh, yes.. I almost forgot…

Here are the pics: http://www.brentfinley.com/images/ripleys/
www.brentfinley.com
[email protected]

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You know, I read about the helicopter crash, almost posted it in the forums, but it hadn't said anything about skydivers. Although I had assumed that there had to be one or two lurking about for something like that.

Will you keep us updated as to when the show airs (since I'm more then sure you can't post anything related to it until then), I would love to see that.

How's Joe doing now? I assume he's fine, since you didn't say anything past him with the IV.
--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

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Quote

Stepping off with a 2600 lb ball rolling at you is not any different
than with a car (I've done 4 of them) or a living room set (done that
twice)



Yeah, I know exactly what you mean, do it all the time... :S

Boy, seems like you guys have an awful lot of fun at Eloy! :)

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What a story!

Great pics (and what a cutie!)

mh
"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

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