North Carolina

At last! A day off. The weather here is foul - and we can't film in the rain, so today and tomorrow are a chance to wash my socks, catch up with people, and of course - update my blog.

I'm now in North Carolina (queue another graphic):

I'm also going to try and setup a map today of where I've been - as I've got all this GPS information, so surely there must be a way of putting it into a google map or something similar...

North Carolina is pretty cool. I'm now just outside the city of Raleigh (which I think is the state capital). Interesting facts about North Carolina:

• Home of the first flight by the Wright brothers (and I saw the site they did their flight from the other day, photos to follow).
• Population of roughly 9,061,032.
• Home of a lot of Tobacco and Cotton plantations (though these are becoming less profitable).
• They have "grits" here.
• We are staying near the William B Umstead National Park. Yes, that's right, the B. Umpstead national park.

Grits. I suppose I ought to explain what grits are. I first heard of grits in the 1992 film "My Cousin Vinny", and have always wanted to try them - but never had the opportunity to do so. In the film, grits were never really explained -but they sounded so awful, that I felt I had to give them a try.

So I did.

And they are gross. Basically they are just ground corn, like selmolina, but savory. Not my cup of tea at all.

On the mention of tea, I'm glad to report that I have consumed three cups of almost english tea, though I have made a bit of a mess in the process. American's don't really do tea - or at least, not in the way it should be done (when I say should, I do of course mean the British way). Hotel rooms here are loaded with appliances: a 32" flat screen tv, 3 lamps, a fridge, microwave, coffee percolator - but no kettle. There are even 2 phones - in case I find it hard to move the 2 metres away from the bedside phone to the one on the desk. Or should I say 2 yards. Anyway, sans kettle, I have succeeded in making tea using the coffee percolator. Although, each time so far I've overfilled it - resulting in a tea expedition to the furthest corners of the side unit. Oops.

Right. Time to work on this map.....

Delaware

Today the job started properly. We had a five hour flight over half of the state of Delaware. Well, I say a five hour flight - it was actually two flights, with a stop for fuel, coffee and fresh brownies about half way through.

It may not sound like much - but it is tough. The difficulty comes in maintaining absolute complete focus on the task in hand for two and a bit hours at a time. It's relentless, and the weather today was difficult - patchy clouds, which make good exposure difficult. Nothing like starting at the deep end I suppose!

I have some fantastic footage of Delaware on the other laptop - but I still don't have the software I need on this laptop to make getting stills quick and painless. Hopefully that will be sorted out over the next few days, and I'll add in some nice shots of Delaware in all it's glory.

So what is Delaware like?

Well the north is very flat, and has lots of people in it.

And the south is very flat, and has fewer people in it.

It has an impressive bridge.

The people are friendly (but that's hardly a differentiating factor - I've yet to meet a state of unfriendly americans, in fact they are SO overly friendly I was actually relieved when someone scowled at me when I said "morning" to them the other day). The food is american. The cars are overly big. Walking is looked up in the way we look upon the nutters in Oxford Circus exclaiming that the world is coming to and end - it's just not really the done thing.

American TV is awesome, for all the wrong reasons. EVERYTHING they say is loaded with gravitas and drama. And it's all so full of cuts, jumps, mad graphics and other editing conventions to try and keep people interested that it reminds me of a movie trailer. American TV is simply that: one big film trailer, interrupted with countless commercial breaks. Odd.

Today has been a decidedly British day. I flew around all day in a helicopter surrounded by a bunch of brits. We flew over the county of Kent, filmed New Castle, and landed in County Sussex.

After such a day, and feeling decidedly patriotic, this evening I decided to treat myself to a cup of proper British Tea. So off I trotted to Walmart and bought myself a box of Twinnings English Breakfast. Ok - the box is the wrong shape, colour and size - but no matter - within I was expecting the genesis of a decent brew. On the way back through the hotel reception I swiped a couple of "half-and-half" milk portions from the coffee counter (not that I have any idea what half-and-half is - I'm assuming one half is milk, perhaps I don't want to know about the other half...), and with my ingredients in my hands set-off back to my room. To be met with complete failure. My machine is equipped with a coffee machine, microwave and fridge - but no kettle. I was tempted to microwave it - but I only have plastic cups and I just KNOW they'll melt. I couldn't quite bring myself to make tea with the coffee maker. Perhaps in a week I'll do it - but I'm not that desperate yet!

Tomorrow I shall bring tea with me to breakfast, and see what happens.

Simple things....


Ben

At last!

Finally! I've found a way of getting frame grabs from the footage we've shot. Here's the first:

Moody Dusk over Princeton

Showtime

Today was awesome!

We had Showtime down today, filming part of their "behind the scenes" footage for the shows. I was interviewed (which was quite funny - as having not really shot anything yet, I didn't have a whole lot to say), but it went quite well. We then had some filming in the cockpit in the air, and did some flights around Princeton Airport. It was also a bit of a practice run with Richard, which was great to do ahead of the first proper day of filming.

At last I have some pictures. So without further ado:

The Skyworks Helicopter. The silver ball on the front is the camera system (lense pointing backwards)

Members of the Skyworks team - hard at work

Jim Swanson - wearing the coolest hat and glasses this side of.... the hangar.

Setting up the rig.

Tomorrow the real filming begins, starting with Delaware. I don't know much about Delaware - but I sure as heck will tomorrow. Tonight we're going to try the american version of "Indian" food - which I'm sure will be amusing, even if it tastes like lard. Actually, that's unfair. Not all American food tastes like lard. Some tastes like grease...

I have video footage of some of the things we've filmed - so once I've cracked how to get frame grabs from it, I'll be able to update with some of the days filming.

In the mean time, I think I'll settle back and watch wall-to-wall advertising on some cable channel. They are hilarious.


Ben

Princeton

I'll keep this very very brief, as today has been quite long, and I have to be up in six and a half hours. Finished the rig completely today and did a short test flight over Princeton. Went really well, although we had some intereference from one of our cockpit cameras.

Tomorrow we're filming interviews in the morning with Showtime, and then if the weather improves we'll film Delaware in the afternoon. Weather is pretty atrocious right now, what is probably light rain over here is more what I would consider a monsoon back in the UK!

Yet another burger tonight. There are now 7 of us here, and the lack of a big enough car meant a return to the dreaded Ruby Tuesdays.....


Ben

Bigger rig

More building of the rig today. We've postponed our flight to tomorrow, as it's taking a bit longer to get everything right. This is going to be our last chance in a while to work on the rig and getting everything set up properly. Then tomorrow we're going to fly over either Manhattan or Princeton (though hoping it's the former, as I really would love to fly over there again!). It's interesting - when you're flying over something like manhattan but watching it on a 17" screen you don't really get a sense of scale - it seems quite small! Next time I must remember to look up from the monitor ever now and then...

I'm spent, and it's time for bed. Today was my first day without a burger, I opted for the healthy option and had pizza instead. Tomorrow should be an interesting day, and I'll try and take some photos.


Ben

The big rig

This is SUCH a boy's job. It's awesome. Today we decided we needed to build a better mount for all the equipment inside the helicopter, so the four of us headed off to the local B&Q equivalent and bought the world's biggest set of meccano. It really was a collection of bolts, brackets, L shapes and clamp-like bits and we set about building the most awesome thing ever. The coolest Lego sets pale into insignificance, next to the sheer awesomeness of the toy, ahem, work item, we built today.

And that was it. It was a really blokey day. 4 men building a metal frame in an aircraft hangar. What more could you want.

And I had yet another burger!

It's late now, and we're getting up early tomorrow to finish our mount, before hopefully doing another test shoot around Manhattan. Time for some shut eye.


Ben

New York, New York

Wow. What a day.

3 days in and I'm already on my 3rd burger. And this is in New Jersey, where healthy food is almost an option. I dread to think what it'll be like in the southern states... I shall come back rotund.

Today we filmed Manhattan. Granted, it was only a test flight, to test out our Red Hen (which is actually painted black.... but hey), and it went really well, but it also gave me a chance to test the system and get in some much needed practice.

Weather conditions were stunning, we had excellent visibility and a clear blue sky, on a very cold day (something in the back of my mind makes me think that's a good thing). We flew for just over an hour, and I recorded some pretty nice footage of New York skyscrapers and the Hudson Bay. I thought I'd shot some beautiful footage of the Statue of Liberty and Elis Island - but alas, I'd run out of tape and not noticed. Very frustrating, but I can only kick myself a little - I was trying to balance both control panels on my knees, and trying to do Richard's job as well, and the VTR readout was obscured. Since this was a test shoot for the Red Hen, it doesn't matter anyway.

In any case, it was stunning. And I'm now confident all the machinery is working to a good standard, and we've worked out what bits need changing and reconfiguring over the weekend. Jim is flying out currently, and will be with us soon, and tomorrow the real setup and bench testing can begin.

Must dash. We're off to supper. At our favourite place.... Ruby Tuesdays.

Perhaps I'll have a burger.....


Ben

A day of chickens

Day One, was intense. I woke up at 4:30 am, UK time, and by the time I got to bed, it was 4:00am UK time. Ouch.

4 hours later, this morning at 8:00 UK time (3:00 am USA time), I was up again.

It's perhaps little wonder then, that right now I'm sitting here writing this and feeling beyond shattered. I no longer have any concept of time. None. My computer tells me it should be 5:13p.m., but I think it's lying to me. Perhaps lying is too strong a word. In any case, it's a dubious claim to tell me it's only 5p.m.

New Jersey is... cold. And spacious. In fact, my two oberservations so far on this part of America are that it's spacious. And cold.

Oh, and did I mention the cold? It's freezing. The kind of cold you get when you go to the Alps skiing - although without a ski in sight. It reached -3 last night, and tonight is supposed to reach -6. We may get snow tomorrow (which would be awesome), although that may prevent us flying (which would suck).

Chickens have played a major part of my day. Well, two have to be precise. The first, is actually a GPS machine called a "Red Hen". This machine cunningly attached geo-spatial co-ordinated to video footage, allowing people to see what we've shot in a Google Earth style interface. The second "chicken", was actually red hen. The nastiest, fattiest, battery-farmed chicken I have ever tasted, cooked in grease and red chilli sauce. It was foul. Sorry, that's a poor pun. In all honesty though, I think I'd have been better off eating the Red Hen, than the red hen...

I still feel a bit blurry, as I sit here and try and work out where I am and what I'm doing. I've not really stopped for a minute in the last week, and today, suddenly, it dawned on me: I'm in America. I'm going to be filming things here from the sky. That's superb.

Tomorrow is going to be our first flight. As it happens, we're only flying in order to test the Red Hen - not to film - although I'm certainly going to jump on the chance to practice. And hey, I might as well record what I get up to.

Hmm. My head is nodding a bit. Time for a coffee. The night is young.

Oh yeah. Highlight of the day. Ken's house:



Ken, the person who has been looking after our helicopter for the last couple of weeks, has built his house INSIDE A HANGAR. Oh yes. It is THAT awesome. That's not his office, that's his house. Last night we were fiddling around dismantling the filming equipment, whilst across the hangar, his family were tucking into their evening meal.

Words fail me. Which is a good thing, I guess, as that's the end of my post.

Ben

Day One

This is it. I'm off! Sitting here in Heathrow airport, my precious laptop battery slowly running down as I sit at my departure gate. My slight frustration at the broken plug socket I'd spent the last few minutes finding dissapates instantly when I realise that this is it: I'm off.

The last six days have been a blur. Since getting my I-VISA at the American Embassy last Wednesday, I've been running around like a cartoon character. I've moved all my stuff and car to my friend Nick's garage in Bournemouth (with a few bits left over in Purley), and I've moved out. Hmm. I must remember to tell the landlords I've moved. Yes. That would be useful.

Anyway. The absolute madness of the last six days has been replaced by complete calm. There's something calming about airports (provided you arrive rediculously early). Once you're in, you're in. All you can do is wait - and that's a perfect change to relax and read a good book. Well, perhaps it is for some people. I couldn't resist squeezing a bit of e-mail writing in, but now that I've got that out the way, I thought I'd setup this blog.

What is this blog? Well, hopefully, it'll be an entertaining account of my trips to America over the next 9 months or so. I've been offered a pretty nifty job, as a camera technician on an aerial shoot covering the whole of the United States. That is pretty cool. No, that's awesome.

Right now I'm waiting to fly to Newark, New Jersey, which is my first detination - although I won't be filming there. The first state I'll be filming is.... wait for it.... Delaware.



Flight is starting to board....

More from the other side of the pond.


Ben