Light! Camera! Action!
Yesterday afternoon at work a person taxied up to the maintenance shop in his plane and asked us if he could film a short movie scene using the shop. The person wanted to do this the next day or Monday. The shop manager was fine with the shoot.
The person called at noon today and said he wanted to stop by at two to film the scene, which he did. The scene consisted of an old Ford truck being driven into the maintenance shop (which is a hangar) and additional shots of the inside of the hangar.
The truck was trailered in and the crew (four total) set up a camera inside the hangar. They first shot the truck pulling into the hangar, then set up outside and repeated the scene. Finally they took some shots of the interior of the hangar. The whole process was completed in under an hour.
The movie is called Expendables and stars Sylvester Stallone, Ahhnald, Bruce Willis, and a bunch of other action stars. Considering the age of some of the actors the movie should have been titled Dependables, but I digress. The film was mostly shot in Brazil and is planned to be released next August. You can Google it for more info. On a side note, why is the CA governor doing films? He should be working on the problems the state has.
This particular scene they were shooting was supposedly missed, though how that happened is a mystery. The crew needed a hangar and I guess my shop was mentioned to them, not the first time this has happened by the way. In the movie the truck will be pulling into the hangar and driven under a wing of a Grumman Albatross, which is an amphibian plane that is to be parked in the hangar. Now obviously there was no Albatross in the hangar, and that plane has a wingspan of 96 ft, while the hangar opening is only around 50 ft. But through the magic of Hollywood and special effects an Albatross will be put into the scene, and I imagine all of the distracting doodads in the hangar will be removed.
I have no idea if this particular scene will make the final cut. The last time filming was done in the hangar, about 4 years ago for an episode of Veronica Mars, the scene was completely cut. Onto the pictures!
I missed getting most pictures of the truck pulling in because, hey, I was working! But I did manage to snap a couple with the film crew set up outside. The next two are of the crew setting up and shooting interior shots for the Albatross. Of course I had to get several of the truck, including one with a local hamming it up inside and one of my manager (so he couldn't complain of my not working while taking pictures). Final one is of the outside of the hangar. The truck scene was done at the right side. I may catch the movie just to see if A the scene made it and B if I can recognize the hangar.