A few months ago, “Before the Plate” released a teaser clip of what kind of footage you can expect to see in the finished documentary. The clip yielded some very good results and has presented us with some unique donation offers — but one in particular stood above the rest.
After the release of the teaser I received a phone call from the Aerial Applicator’s Association, wondering if we wanted to include a segment about crop dusting in the documentary. My initial reaction was excitement but was immediately stopped when budget came to mind. Having crews and aircraft flying around would be expensive and almost impossible to attain for a small film crew that has been funded by farmers and those in the community. That being said, I had nothing to lose and figured I would give one of the local applicators who had been told about the project a call. I hoped at the very least we could skip over to a field they were spraying close by while we were on another shoot and get some cool footage.
After calling the gentleman who owned the company, he was enthusiastic and immediately started planning to have us film an application job they were already doing. I was extremely grateful and figured I may as well push my luck and ask if there was a way for us to get our camera guy in the helicopter with the pilot in order to get some shots. The answer was pretty much as I expected: “Due to Canadian air laws we can’t have someone in the helicopter while it is being used for spraying.”
I was slightly deflated, but I would be lying if I said I was expecting a different answer. I was sitting there feeling like I had asked a bit of a silly question. Besides the safety concern of having the crew in the helicopter, the extra cost to the application company would be huge if we so much as caused a delay of a few minutes. With all that being said I hardly expected the next sentence that came from the other side of the phone: “You know what?,” he said. “This seems to me like a very good thing you are doing here and I think you could use some more resources helping your project. How about I bring down another helicopter and pilot that you can use to film the spraying helicopter and get any aerial shots you need. The helicopter and the pilot are yours for the day to do what you like.”
I was in shock to say the least.
Filming from helicopters seemed like something only within the reach of Hollywood and made our little crew feel like we were in the big leagues. The day was every bit as cool as I was expecting. We captured some spectacular flying on camera. The footage is currently being stabilized, but here are some behind the scenes shots to enjoy.
If you don’t have any extra helicopters lying around that you would like to spare, please visit www.beforetheplate.com and show your support for all farmers!
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