A terrible tale told to a Bionic Woman

Fire Down Below…Director nearly vomits on his film.Perhaps this is the behavior of an obsessive movie making enfant terrible, after producers have re-cut his masterpiece beyond his recognition. I may be terrible, but I am no enfant. This is how it happened.

December, I979.  I was the third person in a Hughes 300 helicopter. Can seat three. Generally two. On my left was the pilot; on my right was future Academy Award winning cinematographer John Seale with a Panaflex camera hanging from bungey cords through the open doorway beside him.

Our standby mission each day: to capture footage of brushfires ( known as bushfires Down Under) that regularly break out each summer in the rugged Blue Mountains north of Sydney. The call to get in the air had come through an hour before. A big blaze had started. These pictures will give you an idea of the scale of these fires each summer, and the big brass balls of the volunteers that fight them.

Installing our bungey-slung, poor man’s Tyler mount for aerial photography required flying without the door on the passenger side of the perspex bubble cockpit. We had left the door at the city helipad along with our regular clothes. We were wearing white overalls, part of our survival gear for easier location from the air, in case the chopper went down in remote terrain and we were marooned pending rescue. An unlikely scenario but a worthwhile precaution.

I sat snuggly between pilot and cinematographer, cradling two loaded 400 foot magazines on my lap in case the reported outbreak of fire was spectacular enough to require extensive coverage.

The courage and dedication of these volunteer fire fighters is extraordinary.

But as we approached the ribbon of fire and smoke, we were struck by a weather phenomenon unique to Sydney known as a Southerly Buster, a hot wind from the south that can reach full intensity inside a minute and is sometimes strong and sudden enough to capsize a yacht. There were two external  results:  the fire back burned on itself and fizzled out, ending our mission, and local airports including the city helipad were closed to all aviation till the wind had abated. Our pilot, cool and laconic as Australian aviators tend to be, simply turned the chopper into the wind and hovered pending instruction as to which airport to make for. The Southerly produced an internal result for me..

Despite being the son of a fighter pilot, I have not inherited my father’s love of flying. After 10 minutes of buffeting, pitching and yawing, my stomach began to indicate it had issues.  I had just finished eating when the call to chase this fire came through. Now my lunch was unhappy with its lodgings and anxious to leave.  The pilot, while sympathetic, was under orders to hold his position while other aircraft were diverted to different airports. He urged me to hold it. Well, there comes a time when we all know that a Technicolor Yawn is inevitable. You have seconds to decide in which direction to point your mouth. I considered the options from left to right. Vomiting on a pilot while in flight, as opposed to an inner city public bar, is considered bad manners in Australia. Vomiting on the controls of an aircraft is also frowned upon. Vomiting on one of Australia’s top cameramen…see rules relating to pilots. Additionally John had taken the $200,000 Panaflex Gold with zoom lens off the bungey cords and was holding it securely across his lap. On my lap rested the spare magazines. No cups or paper towels. Not many choices left. So, when the time came to throw me voice, I leaned back as far as I could go and regurgitated in careful bursts onto my chest, as my perverse subconscious deciding to play Barry McKenzie’s song “Chunder in the old Pacific Sea” in my head.

One of the fire fighting choppers that back up the volunteer bushfire brigades on the ground.

Sensitive readers have by now hit the delete button. For those few brave remaining souls, you will be pleased to hear…it gets worse!

My companions were stoic, and grateful that the flying vomitorium had one door removed. We were directed to land not at the city helipad, but at the light plane section of Sydney’s airport.  When we touched down, I asked the pilot where the nearest bathroom was so I could clean myself up a bit, before getting a cab to the city helipad were my regular clothes were. He pointed me towards a large hanger, advising that the bathrooms were at the back.

I entered to find the hanger full of office party revelers. About a 150 of them. It was December 17, mid summer in Australia. The extended Christmas party season had been underway for a week. Uniformed waiters offering wine, and trays of smoked salmon at an upscale  bash for some aviation company, was now gate crashed by a man in white overalls sporting a large stain from chin to groin, with some artistically placed food particles. The Ghost of Christmas (Party) Future had materialized as a warning to all those might over-indulge.  I stammered some explanation but guests shrank and looked away, trying to ignore the odiferous Elephant In the Room, who obviously could not hold his liquor.

Finally reaching the bathroom, I succeeded in making the stain even bigger, but at least lighter in color. Then came the task of calling a cab. In the height of the Christmas party season. An hour later a cab did arrived where I was waiting at the curb.

“ I don’t take drunks.” said the cabbie sternly.
“I’m not drunk” I protested. “ Just a little motion sickness”

He took me under sufferance. But anxious to be rid of Mr. Smelly in the back, or perhaps this was how a Serbian cabbie always drives, he went like a bat out of hell for the city heliport. The twists and turns reactivated the motion sickness, and I had to ask him to pull over. In the rear view mirror I saw his face tighten into I bloody knew it.

As the cab screeched to a halt, the back door flew open, and I slid along the plastic lined seat, I wondered what I looked like to the passing traffic, several of whom honked their horns at a head and shoulders dry retching into the gutter. “ Look at that drunken dickhead, and it’s not even 7 o’clock.”  Today. it would be on U-Tube in minutes.

“You’re lucky I don’t leave ya here.” growled the cabbie, as we sped away. No good deed will go unpunished. But I didn’t care. I was just happy to be alive.

I have told this story during desert at a dinner party ( I know…I’m a sick and wicked puppy)  but perhaps the best place for the telling of this tale is inside a helicopter in flight, which I did when sharing a ride with Lindsay Wagner and her kids. We had finished a night of shooting on my killer virus melodrama VOYAGE OF TERROR, and were being transported from location back to the Vancouver helipad. Watching her kids howl with laughter at each icky detail was a joy.

Lindsay Wagner is a smart, kind hearted, eco friendly, talented actress, able to project strength and vulnerability at the same time, the way Holly Hunter and Kyra Sedgwick can, to name but two. Lindsay has a wry, whimsical side too. And a sexy husky purr that enlivens her commercials. So it surprises me that we do not see more of her in good roles on the small or large screen. She should at least be doing the parts that Geena Davis turns down. Casting directors, please think outside the box.

Despite my gastric upheaval, the 20 minute theatrical documentary DANGEROUS SUMMER, honoring the heroism of the bushfire brigades of Sydney’s Blue Mountains, turned out quite well, distinguished by spectacular scope photography from John Seale, Tom Cowan (subsequent aerials) and Australia’s leading female DP at that time Jan Kenny, who carried camera, lens, and tripod across her back through burning landscapes as it was a lunchbox in her knapsack.

More on this fiery film another time.