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El Paso Airshow

May 6th

All of the footage from Fargo came out great. The new footage with Odegaard and Beck allowed us to raise some badly needed funds. One more piece to the fundraising puzzle is Col. Frank Borman. A restorer of numerous aircraft, Borman is also a recognizable name outside the warbird community, a plus in fundraising. Currently, Borman owned a dual-seat P-51D Mustang. I've tracked him down in Las Cruces, New Mexico. His staff was wonderful in coordinating our shoot. Borman's time is very limited, but we've concocted a window where we can come out and shoot at his hanger. We could only shoot him Monday. Kevin and I would fly in on Saturday for the better airfare rate, stay over and get New Mexico scenic shots on Sunday, biding our time before we could shoot Borman. The only thing we would not get is Borman flying. Perhaps, if we asked nicely, we could get him to do a couple passes of the field for us while we're there.

May 7th

Disaster. Borman's staff leaves a message on my voice mail that informs me that he has had a death in the family and now cannot shoot with us on Monday. I have, of course, already bought our non-refundable airline tickets and made all arrangements. Borman's staff asked me to call back. Well, time to do some damage control. His staff informs me that he's still willing to do the interview, but his time is more limited now. He can only shoot with us Sunday at his hanger. Monday morning he must fly out. Okay. I'll take any time at this point. I was just amazed at his generosity. I was, and still am, very thankful to Borman for making it happen in spite of a family situation. We would continue on to New Mexico. Since Las Cruces has no vacant hotel rooms, I'm forced to get some room in El Paso, an hour away. Although it is where we are flying in to, it's an inconvenience. Oh well. I'll just add it to the list of things distracting me from my interview questions. That's okay, just a once in a lifetime interview with a retired Apollo astronaut.

May 9th

I have to call Borman's office today. Like all of the other shoots, paperwork must precede us. You don't just wheel off and shoot stuff for a film. Releases and proposals must be written, sent, signed, sent back, signed again, ect. I call over and get, at first distressing news. We can only shoot with Borman on Sunday evening. He's busy the rest of the day. Damn. Our interview is going to turn into a hurried hour in a dark hanger. We'll also have no chance to get him flying. I agree to this. What else am I suppose to do. After we hash out some directions I make some small talk with his assistant. I then find out why he is busy.

"He's flying in an airshow".

"Oh, really. Where at"?

"The Amigo Air Sho in El Paso. Both Saturday and Sunday".

It really is interesting how fortunes can change during the coarse of a phone conversation. We now had an opportunity, not only to interview him in the daytime in the city we were flying into in the first place, but also to shoot him flying. Now I had to work some magic with something called the Amigo Air Sho, and quick.

May 11th

Kevin and I arrive at Hopkins Airport at around 5:30am. From the lessons of Fargo, I put my new plan into action. Airlines, as most people know, charge extra for heavier than normal bags and too many bags. We had both. Before Fargo, my understanding was that the media gets a discount for extra bags. The folks at Hopkins listen to me explain this, blinked at me, then proceeded to charge me the full fee. They explained that I had no credentials. Fine. Kevin and I now possessed "Restorers" credentials produced on my computer and laminated at Kinko's. Presto! We get the discount. We also benefited from Kevin's good charm. This will not be the only time he'll bail me out. Our luggage of excess was whisked away to our plane.

We arrive in El Paso with little drama. After collecting our gear and getting our act together, we head for the airshow. Our plan is not to stay long, just to get our bearings there, meet the authorities, and scope out our interview spots. We accomplish all of this...and it's warm. Not crazy hot, just really nice. A welcome change from the tundra of Fargo. We're there just over an hour and Kevin gets sun burnt a nice rose color. He is dubbed "Pinky" by the local staff.

Because of the draconian weight restrictions of the airlines, I've secured some gear in El Paso to be rented. Well, it wasn't actually in El Paso. Since we were shooting outside, I only needed a 12X12 silk, stands, bags, ect. After scouting the airshow, Kevin and I travel out to pick up our gear. After driving about 30 minutes through dusty back roads we stop about a mile from the US/Mexico boarder. There, I call our rental house for more detailed directions. He tells us to go to this deserted intersection and wait for him, he'll meet us there.

After around five uncomfortable minutes, a rusty pickup truck barrels down the road at us while a neighbor dog eyes us up as intruders. The window rolls down and we are greeted by Steve Osborn, our equipment guy. We follow Steve to his house, a path that would have been tricky to covey to us on the phone. His house sits on a grassless property, overlooking the entire valley. His front "yard" is a garden of many types of cacti. The back yard has a nice fire pit, encircled by chairs for what I'm sure must be great sunset viewing. Steve opens the garage to reveal his rental house, four rows of storage racks filled with film & video goodies. He loads us up with everything we need. I'm sorry I couldn't have paid for him to be on our crew. He was great.

That night, we went to an air show party held at a western themed bar, open for only airshow personnel and leech-like media. We go in and have some the best Bar-B-Que ever. Or, we were just really hungry, I'm not sure which.

May 12th

We arrive at the AirSho (that's how they spell it) already behind the 8-ball. Although Kevin and I find where Col. Borman's Mustang parks, my two hired PA's are nowhere to be found. Although this is our first airshow shoot on the schedule, logistics difficulties become a theme at almost every show. Col. Borman flies back to Las Cruces every evening after the show. He should be flying in to El Paso in the next 30 minutes. We have Col. Borman first thing this morning, before he has to do a flight briefing. The gates won't be open yet, so we'll have good sound. Early morning interviews, though, put a snap in your step. I drop Kevin and the gear off at the plane and go out searching for them. After 20 minutes of circling, I pick both of them up and drive them back to the Mustang. After a few minutes setting up, I finally have a quick half second to look over my interview questions. Right as I start to, Col. Borman flies over in his dual seat P-51 mustang Su Su II. I don't even have time to squeeze off some b-roll shots of him flying in. I settle for shooting his taxi-up and shut down. He hops out an greets us in a matter-of-fact, cordial way. We introduce ourselves and shake the hand of a legend.

He's done this before. After shooting one mag's worth of interview, it's really apparent that this former astronaut/Airline CEO has done interviews before. He's succinct, engaging and states the question back in his answer (something extremely valuable in editing.) After our interview, he indulges us by hanging out and chatting. I geek out only once and have him autograph a photo of Earth taken on his mission from lunar orbit. It's now on my wall, framed.

After we clean up and Col. Borman to his briefing, we set ourselves to wait for his performance at 11:00. Then, we get tracked down. Someone at the show, a Mig pilot want to get his performance shot and has heard there is a film crew on the premises. He's now sending folks out to track us down.

We meet up with George Cambron in the main hanger while Kevin and I are trying to keep our gear from getting lost. The main gates are now open. Our mode of transportation is a golf cart, one that we stole from AOL. George is very interested in having his whole act filmed. He tries not to faint too hard when I tell him the price. Hey, film's nice looking, but expensive. Also, we usually don't film the entire act, 10 minutes long. He finally agrees with a handshake.

After some nice stuff around George's Mig-17, we position ourselves to do film his act. Kevin has kept his skin-pinking tendencies under control so far today. We'll see how the rest of the day goes.

I don't recommend starting a shoot about airplanes with a follow shooting of a Mig-17 performance. They're hard to follow. Also, he didn't get that close to the ground. And, just as we had warned, he's really far away while he's turning around for passes. Well hey, do what the client wants....

After a good warm-up shooting a Mig, I'm ready for Col. Borman. Unfortunately, he doesn't get very close to the ground either. We use two cameras on him, me on the SRII and Kevin down the runway with his Arri-S. A loud camera, but who cares, it's MOS. Besides, I think Kevin got the best shot of the performance anyway (see the last shot of the trailer.

Borman also flew a heritage flight with and Air Force F-15. We got that and tracked down the F-15 pilot. Great guy. Maj. Daniel Blue. Call sign: Blue Balls. He gave us a great interview. Fortunately I came with plenty of film. I really should plan these shoots better in advance.

After a days worth of shooting, I feel pretty good about what I've got. Gina, the head of the airshow, invites us out to a volunteer party at the Holiday Inn. We agree. Our expectations are for a small little get-together around a buffet of pretzels with a bunch of volunteers, beat down from the riggers of a week's worth of air show. What we walked into was completely different.

We enter the bar, which is already hopping. Sort of a rave mixed with a kegger. Gina sloppily waves to us to come over to the bar, which we do. The Snowbirds (Canadian aerobatic team) are parked at a table with a donut of girls around them. The pilots are giving the girls temporary tattoos of the Snowbird logo on the small of their backs by licking them on. We say hi to Gina and she attempts to introduce us to some pilots who could care less because a) We're not pilots and most importantly b) we're not girls. The din of the room increased significantly when the Air Force guys dedicated the Air Force Anthem to the Navy pilots. Time to leave.

That night, I was exhausted. I went straight to bed. Kevin, always the restless sociable type, went to the hotel bar for a beer. There, he enjoyed his beer and the company of a tanked Mariachi band trying to out-sing each other. They really couldn't speak English that well, but Kevin seemed to have a really good time. You'll have to ask him about it sometime.

May 13th

The next day was our scenic day. Sort of 'Travel around and get lots of color shots of the area'. We also intended to drive to Las Cruces and see Borman's hanger. Borman's hanger is immaculate but he and his plane are not there, which I suspected. He already high-tailed it out of there for the funeral. We settled for just looking around, which was fun. Borman's assistant Patricia was gracious enough to give us a mini tour. We continued to shoot scenics around the New Mexico countryside. I had rented a Steadicam for tracking shots. One situation it is terrible in, wind. There was a lot of it, too. I tried to give it a go, but to no avail. The shots looked terrible. Money wasted, lesson learned. Windy Location - No steadicam.

After our wind-swept shooting tour of the countryside, as well as a lost detour onto White Sands Missile range, we return the rental gear and head back to ElPaso. We dined at the State Line, where everyone there had told us would have the best Bar-B-Q food. They did, and we have enough to drink to make buying one of the State Line's T-shirts seem like a good idea.

We successfully returned home again, jumping through all of the post-911 security hoops at the airports. Me and Pinky got to finally shoot somewhere warm. Time to raise some more money and prepare for July.