American Cinematographer - July 1989 - 44

from the air station. Veteran oper¬
ators

Joe Valentine and Mike Kelly

were

down at the base of the wall

platforms. Several remote
cameras were
positioned for addi¬
tional angles.
Kenny Bates would be
hung in a horizontal position so
he could flail his arms and legs on
the way down. All camera speeds
would be 20fps as the rig needed
a little
oomph to complete the
reality of free fall. Kenny would
be plunging downward at around
90% free fall velocity toward a
grove of live oaks at the base. His
on

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Bates' life was literally in
the hands of John McCloud at the
controls and brake handles of the
descender rig. It was a dead easy
tilt down for me on the 600mm

lens, all blue sky, rushing cliffs
and

falling body. The cable was
invisible to the lens and the result
startlingly real. Every camera
reported a spectacular shot. The
ranger station received several ur¬
gent calls about a body falling
down El Capitan. Before we fin¬
ished with the rigging, we spent
four days doing POV drops with
was

Agfa: Gives

the Panaflex Gold

camera

for

plate shots,

a potentially haz¬
ardous exercise for such expen¬

You The
Whole
Picture

sive

equipment, which we
mishap.
Having successfully got¬

executed without
ten Kirk
next

down the mountain we
turned our attention to how

he

got up there in the first place.
Serving as a double was climber/
guide Bob Gaines. The script
called for no rope, and while there
A selection of varied
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AGFA
42

^

a

those who

can

climb with

no

(or solo, in climbing par¬
lance) to do so in front of a camera
is asking for trouble. Over the
years, I have seen the very best
climbers slip, and with no rope
rope

slipping

means dying. Conse¬
we determined that
Gaines would never be without a

quently,

backup. Once again we turned to
the 1/n" milspec cable to give us
protection. With velcro straps

we
hid the cable in the crack that
American Cinematographer - July 1989

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