North by Northwest 2 or How I Almost Died in a Fiery Plane Crash

North by Northwest 2 or How I Almost Died in a Fiery Plane Crash
by Mitch Walrath
A few years ago, I was enrolled in Wright State University film school. I actually graduated, thank you. I haven’t worked on a whole lot of movies, mostly school projects, and, a little more important, junior and senior films. Junior and senior films are a little more important because they have budgets, big ones that you can’t meet just by pulling a couple overtime shifts at the Olive Garden. They also have big crews, somewhat good actors, and a lot more equipment than your weekend class exercise.
My most horrible filmmaking experience, though, didn’t happen on a junior or senior film, but a weekend class exercise. The assignment was to make a short (3-5 minutes), silent super-8 chase film.
Herr Director, let’s call him Jeff because that’s his real name, asked me to help him on his chase film by acting as a cop in a plane. Now, one of the ways to survive film school is to help others on their projects, so I agreed to help.
Our hellish day begins with us meeting outside the film department. His actor shows up a little later, as they’re known to do. One thing we’re missing, though, is the cameraman. He never shows. Through some act of God, a guy named Marco Fargnolli walks past. This guy is probably one of the nicest individuals I’ve ever met and one of the best dp’s to come out of WSU. He was a few years ahead of us, having finished his junior film, Prodigies. To the best of my knowledge, he is alive and working in either Chicago or L.A. Jeff aka Satan nearly attacks him, asking if he’ll be camera for his sophomore super-8 chase film. This entails sitting all scrunched up in the back of a twin-engine plane, one of those that can carry two people and maybe some luggage. Marco, out of the kindness of his heart, agrees.
Jeff drives us all to this little airport in the sticks. The plan is to have his future brother-in-law, who is a pilot here, fly the plane. Meanwhile, his actor will be on the ground, hundreds of feet below, running from the plane. The pilot and I are supposed to be cops and it’s my job to sit in the passenger seat and, on film, point down at the escaping felon. Apparently Jeff is remaking North by Northwest, only on a much smaller scale. What he fails to realize is that he is not Alfred Hitchcock.
Okay, we’re in the air. We have a cell phone in the plane and Jeff, on the ground, has one. As well as our camera on the plane, Jeff has one on the ground. Jeff’s actor will be running in a small field next to the airport. It’s probably 100 to 200 yards long. I know that’s a big difference, but it’s been a few years and I don’t remember. Basically, what I’m setting up here is the fact that a plane can cover this distance very quickly, whereas an out-of-shape actor cannot. Foreshadowing.
We get high enough in the air and then turn to where we’re going in the right direction down the field. Like a slow, old horse out of the gate, the actor runs. We spot him, get low enough, and pursue with camera rolling. We pass him very soon. That’s it, we got it. We rise back into the air. Cue the cop. Marco gets a couple cutaways of my acting debut and we’re done. The phone rings and I answer it. Jeff didn’t get it. He wants us to be closer to the ground so he can get both the actor and the plane, chasing him, in the shot. This is super-8, not 35.
We get turned around again as the actor gets back to his starting point in the field. We’re ready. At breakneck speed, the actor runs. We’re hot on his ass, a little lower this time. Marco gets the shot. Damn, we’re good. We rise into the wild blue yonder. Phone rings. Jeff. Still not low enough. Wants us to go again. I relate this to the pilot. He says he can’t go any lower. Jeff tells me to shut up and just do it again. What the fuck? The pilot asks for the phone.
“Jeff, I can’t go any lower. I have to be so far above houses or I’ll lose my license. Do you want that to happen?!....Alright, but I’m only doing it one more time. I’m running low on gas.....He what?!.....Okay, call when you’re ready.”
He hands me the phone. “We’re doing it again, but we have to wait for his actor to get his breath back.” Fucking marathon man down there gets to take a breather while we’re up here, flying around with our dicks in our hands, wasting gas. I can see the headlines now.
As we’re twiddling our thumbs hundreds of feet above the ground, an explosion of blood, shit, and feathers starbursts across the pilot’s side of the windshield. “Holy shit!,” I yell. “What the fuck was that?!”
Already answering my own question. The pilot, visibly shaken, looks at me and says, “Man, never had that happen to me before.” Now, people, lemme tell you that when a bird hits your car or gets sucked into the engine of a plane, especially something big like a 747, the effect is just not the same. It’s more...visceral when a small animal, fighting for the same airspace as a large man-made machine, hits the window of a corrugated tin-covered, VW bug with wings. I don’t want to sound like a pussy, but it snaps you back into reality very quickly. Marco, in his own little world in the back, shrugs it off.
Still not fully recovered from the bird incident, the phone rings. Jeff tells us the actor is ready. “This is the last pass I’m makin’, Jeff,” the pilot yells. We get to our starting point and descend, strafing houses and power lines. If we were a couple feet lower, I think I could open the door and kick the actor in the head. My life flashes before my eyes.
“I’m outta film,” Marco yells from the back, just as we finish chase number three.
“I’m takin’ her in,” the pilot says.
The phone rings again and Jeff says that he finally got the shot, we can come in now. The pilot, trying to get the last word in, yells, “I’m already on the way in!” When I hang up, the pilot says, “I never really liked him.”
Cut to two weeks later. The world premiere of Jeff’s super-8 chase film in a darkened class room. In Jeff’s money shot of the plane chasing the actor, you can just barely make out part of a plane in the distance. Bravo, Jeff. That’s not the best part, though. The felon gets shot, sans blood packs. Instead, Jeff has machine gun fire on the tape he’s playing in sync with the film. To show us he’s dying, Jeff actually has a guy dressed up as the grim reaper walk toward the felon. The dim light from the projector reveals looks of shock on some faces, embarrassment on others. When it’s all said and done and the lights come up, at the risk of cliche, the silence is deafening. The criticism was harsh, very harsh. But Jeff deserved it. Jeff had lofty ideas with total disregard to informed opinions or others’ safety. He bit off more than he could chew. Jeff didn’t understand that in this medium, which is the equivalent of music videos, it’s not what you do, but how you do it. In my years as a film major, Jeff is my only peer whom I could honestly say was worse than me. People, don’t work with someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.