So I'm hired to work on my first "ride film." New York Skyride.
New York Skyride is a motion simulator housed permanently in the Empire State building. A box full of seats moves in sync with an image on a movie screen with the express intention of making everyone in those seats hurl chow.
Our first day is at The Cyclone in Coney Island. The Cyclone is a rollercoaster. Not just any coaster, it is, perhaps, the meanest coaster in the known universe. Built in 1927, a year well known for its sadistic, borderline deadly rides, The Cyclone kicks ass to this day. Not that it's the biggest coaster, or has the highest speed, or the tallest hill, it is the psychotically aggressive roughness of the ride that gets you. The cars rattle along on their steel wheels as if at any moment they may jump the track and send you flying off into the bay.
Similar coasters employ braking devices built into the track to slow the car as it nears a curve. The Cyclone has never heard of such a thing. The cars hurl themselves into impossibly sharp corners, sending the occupants whipping back and forth across the seats. If not for the restraining bar, you’d be thrown clear (as has happened several times when people have been stupid enough to defeat those bars.)
Take it from me, The Cyclone is one rough ride. (Tip: Always sit in the very first car. And as you reach the top of the first hill, take your hands off the bar and pull your feet off the floor. As you plummet down at 80 miles per hour, you pull major negative Gs. Fun.)
We’re using an Arri III. The Arri III is considered one of the toughest cameras every built. How tough? When NASA was looking for a film camera to use on shuttle missions, they tested everything on the market, thinking they’d select one then modify it up so it could withstand the rigors of a shuttle launch and landing. The Arri III was so rugged it didn’t need any modification to fly on the shuttle. Off the Shelf and into Space was Arri’s motto for a few years.
It’s an awesome camera, and features and oval, top-mounted magazine. Our key grip, the guy responsible for safely mounting the camera, is Mike Lamb. He’s a West Coast guy, and, in my opinion, the fucking Yoda of grips.
Mike's in his late 50’s, balding, eyes lined from years of squinting at particularly difficult rigging problems. But behind the wrinkles, his eyes are super novas. There is nowhere this man cannot mount a camera.
So Mike and his crew tackle the problem. First they mount a pieces of 2" plywood across the seats. Then they're going to pretty much bolt the camera directly to the plwood.
That's when Jim, the DP, comes over. Jim’s an older gentleman, in his 60s maybe. He sports a white Amish style beard with no mustache, and wears a nifty straw hat. He’s another LA guy, a ride film expert who’s shot a dozen roller coasters. He asks Mike to change the rig. He wants Mike to mount the camera on the tripod head. Jim has this long tripod handle. He’s going to sit in the car behind the camera and use the long handle to pan and tilt the camera as they hit corners and so forth. (He’ll be watching the shot on a video tap, which displays what the camera is seeing on a portable video monitor.)
I realize our California crew has never ridden The Cyclone. No one has even taken a test run. I’m thinking of speaking up, but I can’t. The Chain of Command dictates that I keep my peace. And these are big, swaggering ride film experts from LA. All they’ve been doing the whole day is dissing New York, how we have no film production infrastructure (we didn't back then, but do now,) how our gaffer’s tape sucks (it’s better, thicker) and how smelly the city is. So they’re not going to take kindly to the New York camera PA telling them their business.
But the guy who’s there to run the ride for us isn’t so shy. When he sees the rig, he walks over and asks the crew if what they’re doing is smart. He’s basically told to mind his own business. Coaster guy walks away, shrugging. Then says very loudly to his buddy, “Okay, but I wouldn’t ride it with that thing on the front.”
The First Assistant Camera is Bruce, Jim’s son. The two of us get the camera prepped and Mike mounts it up on the head. The entire column, tripod head, camera, is maybe two and a half feet tall. Mike runs a “mag strap” over the top of the camera. A clamp grips the magazine while heavy nylon straps are tightened down on either side. This will keep the camera from shaking too much.
Then, it's time to do the shot. Never one to miss a free ride on my favorite coaster, I jump on board, maybe six cars back from the camera. The ride takes off and up the first hill we go.
“Everything all right?” I ask him.
“I have a very bad feeling,” he tells me.
I tell the guy to take his feet off the floor and hands off the bar, the best way to ride down the first hill.
“I don’t think so,” he says quietly.
We tip over the top and roar down. Our car hits the bottom and shoots up the next hill, negative G’s suddenly flip flop positive and we’re slammed back in our seats. The car is shaking like a banshee with fleas. The Cyclone wants blood. West Coast blood.
The camera begins to vibrate back and forth, just a bit at first, but as the car slam dances its way along the tracks, the vibrations get more intense. The camera begins to rock violently, side to side, until the top of the magazine is describing an arc two feet wide. The whole rig is coming apart before our eyes.
Panic in the cars. Any moment now, the mag strap is going to break and the camera is going to rip free of its mount and be hurled into space, or worse, back at us.
Jim, sitting right behind the camera, does what you're never supposed to do. He wriggles free of his restraint and leans forward, grabbing the camera in a death embrace, muting the vibration.
Bruce, seeing his dad on the verge of being thrown to his death (which, as I pointed out earlier, has happened a bunch of times,) wriggles out from under his restraint and grabs his dad around the waist. No one else is close enough to get a hand on Bruce. And we’re only halfway through the ride. Father and son are on their own.
The rest of the ride is spent in mind-numbing suspense. We watch helplessly as Jim struggles to hold onto the camera and Bruce struggles to hold onto his dad.
After an eternity, the ride ends. The car rolls into the station and brakes to a stop. The crew runs over, frantic.
Everyone does a quick body part count, we’re all okay. And the camera isn’t even damaged.
Jim turns to his gaffer. “What the fuck was that!?! That wasn’t a roller coaster, what in the name of fuck was that thing?”
He stalks away. Mark and Bruce approach the camera to remove it and re-mount it. Bruce pops the mag strap off. When he does, the magazine snaps off the camera and crashes to the ground.
It turns out that the screws which hold the magazine mounting plate have vibrated loose during the ride and been tossed to the four winds. A camera tough enough to launch and land on the space shuttle was unable to handle The Cyclone.
There’s a moment of stunned silence. The coaster guy comes over and takes a look at the wreckage. He slaps Bruce on the back. “Welcome to New York,” he says and walks away, whistling.