Behind the Scenes - "Intrigue at 40,000 Feet"
Yup, it was shot on an airplane (mostly) during flight.
Erich and I decided to take a trip from Denver to Las Vegas to drink, gamble, party with friends, and scope out places there to live. Circa 1991.
We stayed with our friends from Colorado, Rob and Donna, who were now Las Vegas residents. Donna worked for an airline and arranged for Erich and I to fly on buddy passes, but one of the rules is you must dress nice: no t-shirt and cutoffs. That's why Erich is wearing a tie and JD is wearing those baggy-ass 90s clothes and the last pair of cowboy boots I would ever own.
Since our TV show was always in production, we took a camera with us everywhere. On that trip, we had Erich's Sony Hi8 camcorder.
We shot a little footage on the plane on the way to Vegas. The scene of JD talking to the pilot on the "airphone" was shot just before departing Denver. We waited until the plane began rolling before JD delivers the final line about taking off. The airphone prop JD is speaking into is actually a battery charger for the camera. Notice the red shirt.
The rest of "Intrigue at 40,000 Feet" was shot during the return flight. If you notice, JD's shirt is white and light blue for the rest of the film. Erich was a better filmmaker so he wisely wore the same wardrobe on both flights for proper continuity. (Or maybe because he only brought one shirt-and-tie combo.)
At that time, the airlines didn't have it dialed in like they do now. The advanced algorithms computers use to fill planes today were still years away, and it just so happened that the plane was virtually empty, just a couple dozen passengers on the 737.
As we slugged our beers, we started talking to the flight attendants. The scene where they "forget the other passenger just for a few light-heated moments of conversation with our heroes" was an actual shot of us talking to them for fun. We told them about our TV show and that that was the reason for the camera. We weren't shooting the Intrigue movie at the time. That idea hadn't even hit us yet.
When you have your own TV show, nearly everything you encounter can become part of the show. At least, our show. Hence, when we realized the plane was empty and the flight attendants were being so friendly, it finally hit us like a slap in the face: We should capitalize on this and make a segment for the show! Unfortunately, that idea didn't slide into our beer-buzzed brains until we were almost home. We had less than 30 minutes left in the flight but since the flight attendants would soon have to pick up the last round of drinks, prep the plane for landing, and strap themselves in, we had even less time than that. We had to act fast.
Erich and I conjured the spy caper story out of thin air, making the antagonist a German spy because Erich speaks German fluently. We asked our new flight attendant friends if they'd like to star in our little film, and they agreed, but only if we did right away.
I ran down the story for them as briefly as I could, and then we shot their scenes so they could return to their normal flight duties. The first scene was the dialogue about the turbulence. In the final scene, when Erich is interrogating both attendants in German and I'm slurring my words, I'm literally holding the camera with my left hand. I hand it off to Erich before JD stands to wrestle the German spy out of frame.
Our co-stars returned to duty to wrap up the flight service, and we shot the scenes of JD walking up the aisle chugging his beer (before they had to take it away) looking for the German spy, and then the conversation across the aisle about turbulence.
There was still the issue of the pilots. As our little story progressed, we kept coming back to the pilots. How can you shoot an airline disaster/spy caper movie without including the pilots? I didn't want to be greedy, but hell, we were on a roll, and the flight attendants loved us. The only way it would possibly happen is if we asked. So we did. The flight attendant who presents JD the nuts at the end was the senior attendant and I asked if she thought she could talk the pilots into being in our production. She smiled and said she'd check.
Just before we all had to strap in for landing in Denver, she told us if we waited until everyone was off the plane, there was a good chance the pilots would take a minute to play along before they finished their final checklist and left the cockpit.
After we stopped at the gate and everyone else deplaned, the flight attendant introduced us to the pilots, and I briefly explained the plot and how they were the fulcrum of the film's second act. They were such good sports about it and played along with everything. The pilot in the right seat even wrote his lines on the small notepad in the window to his right. You can see him glance at it while he's delivering his lines.
We only had one quick bite at the apple, one take for each pilot, and everyone pulled it off. Erich’s framing was excellent—and we didn’t have time for a proper preproduction walkthrough of the site. (We'll figure out what to do about the airport outside the windows later.)
We couldn't include the attendant portraying the German spy in the final scene because that wouldn't serve the story; she was in the embassy. However, the lead attendant and the co-pilot were super-nice to stay after and let us shoot the scene of them presenting JD with trinkets of thanks just inside the doorway.
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The worst thing that we failed to do was get all of their names, or certainly they would have been in the credits. A big mistake as young filmmakers. We don't know who or where they are now, but we wish our co-stars well. If you're out there, send us a note to the address on the screen at the end of each episode. We'd love to say hi.
ZenDog Digital, Inc.
7765 Wadsworth Blvd
#740272
Arvada, CO 80006That was not the only speedbump that day. While recalling the shoot a few days ago, Erich reminded me that his parents had to drive to the airport to pick us up. This was before cellphones, remember, so there was no way to contact them to let them know we were on location, shooting the greatest locally produced airline spy caper film the Greater Denver Metro Area had ever seen. The flight crew couldn't wait and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have them in our little show. (Hell, try doing what we did today. There's no way.)
When the final scenes with the flight crew finally wrapped and we said our goodbyes, Erich and I raced to a payphone, called his parents, and apologized for making them drive out to pick us up a second time. (Remember, there was no Lyft either. Erich and I were too broke to spend the money on a cab. Besides, Erich's parents were very cool, mellow, and always very pleasant.)
While we waited for them to drive out a second time, we set the camera on sticks and shot the closing scene of JD and Erich walking past the rolling camera.
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In post-production, we stitched everything together with the title cards and Erich's authoritative voiceover. Since we didn't have access to the resources of Industrial Light and Magic at the time to cover the airport buildings with synthetic sky and clouds, our solution was a joke in the title cards. In filmmaking, there's always a couple ways to get around a roadblock.
I suppose a lesser independent TV show would have saved the money-shot of the pilots for last, but that wouldn't have served the story.
“Intrigue at 40,000 Feet” is a segment in Episode 2. Check it out here if you dare.
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