THUNDERBIRDS... A Team Portrait скачать в хорошем качестве

THUNDERBIRDS... A Team Portrait

“THUNDERBIRDS…a Team Portrait” is a television program I directed and photographed years ago. It aired numerous times on the A&E Cable Network. Back in ’87, I was granted permission by the USAF to produce a documentary about the Thunderbirds, the United States Air Force Jet Demonstration Team. Each year, the team appears in dozens of airshows throughout the country. They’ve also represented the U.S. in numerous foreign countries. As a pilot myself, I thought it would be interesting to film the people and behind-the-scenes operations of this unique squadron. HD didn’t exist in 1987. Neither did small video cameras like the GoPro that record to solid-state memory. Originally, I planned to shoot this documentary on film. I wanted lots of in-cockpit cutaways of the pilots as well as air-to-air footage of the F-16’s. FYI, if you want to install a camera or other device in a military aircraft, the pilot, crew chief and often a rep from the aircraft manufacturer has to sign off that the installation is solid, secure and does not affect the operation of the aircraft or emergency egress (ejection) systems. It’s a big, complicated deal. A year or so before this production, Sony introduced a relatively small, Video8 camera that weighed 2 pounds with a self-contained battery. The CCD-M8 was our only option. I decided that the entire show would be shot on 1” broadcast analog videotape with Video8 aerial cutaways. Sony gave us four Video8 cameras and 50 cassettes. For the ground based footage, I used one of Sony’s first CCD broadcast cameras, feeding composite NTSC video to a 30 pound, Sony BVH-500A portable 1” analog videotape recorder. During initial pre-production, I sent one of the 8mm cameras to the Thunderbirds and asked if something could be fabricated so the camera could mount inside the cockpit, pointing at the pilot’s face. One of the team’s crew chiefs made a bracket that attached to the jet’s glare shield, next to the HUD (Heads Up Display). It’s amazing to think how much easier this would have been today with GoPros and foam tape. Another challenge was jet-to-jet photography. The General Dynamics rep, assigned to the squadron, secured a MAU-12 wing pylon equipped with a camera housing. The system attached to the F-16’s wing as if it were ordinance. Another Sony CCD-M8 fit inside the pylon and pointed at the other jets. Of course the quality of these first generation Video8 cameras was not great, but it was our only option to get certain shots. Also, the tremendous G-forces exerted by the aircraft during maneuvers affected the camera’s spinning record heads and tape mechanism. I have years of experience directing and filming TV commercials for ad agencies, but working on a project with the United States Air Force was unique. Once you receive official permission to produce your requested project, a liaison is assigned to you. This person is experienced in working with film crews and will help you accomplish almost anything you need to shoot. From my experience, the Air Force was very organized and buttoned up. I created a shot list of what we were trying to film each day. Every Air Force person at the pre-pro meetings had throughly read my shooting plans and had specific questions. Often their suggestions improved camera locations and other logistics. I always hire crew people who have positive attitudes and posses multiple filmmaking skills, especially when it’s a small crew. It’s really important to carefully choose crew people for a military project. Before the production, I was required to submit a detailed list including the SS#’s of all crew personnel that I intended to bring on base. I was warned in advance, that no crew person would be allowed on base if they had a criminal record. I’ll bet the scrutiny is even higher today in our post 9/11 world. To revive this older program, I went back to the original edited 1” analog videotape segments. I played each one on a Sony BHH-3100 1” deck patched into a BlackMagic, Terranex video processor. This cleans up video noise and upsamples the standard def, interlaced video to 1080 progressive HD. I hope you enjoy the show and appreciate all the hard work the USAF Thunderbirds Team goes through to fly each airshow.