ADVERTI SEMENT FEATURE | GB HEL I COPTERS
SHOOTING How do you film helicopters chasing helicopters? Get another helicopter, of course. GB Helicopters reveals how it got the aerial shots in Terminator: Dark Fate FOR THE SKY
Remember pop star Harry Styles’ Sign of the Times music video? Maybe not. But in it, he is godlike as he soars through the sky and appears to walk on water. GB Helicopters made this possible with its daring aerial shooting. It therefore seemed only appropriate that an aerial unit of this quality was picked for the new Terminator: Dark Fate , where Arnie “will be back”. TERMINATOR IN THE TERMINAL “There are two big VFX helicopter scenes that we supplied the aerials for. One of those, which sees the bringing down of a large cargo plane, was actually shot out of Budapest airport,” says Will Banks, a pilot at GB Helicopters. “Production closed off an old passenger terminal and used the taxi ways around it, which were dressed up to look like a US Air Force base. It wasn’t the busiest passenger terminal and Budapest airport isn’t the biggest, but we definitely wouldn’t have been able to get away with doing that in England,” he jokes. However, Banks adds: “Safety was never compromised and significant risk assessments with both ground and aerial recces were carried out prior to commencement of shooting. The scene took place at night, so there were fewer passenger planes coming in and out of the airport. We were brought into the shoot by the aerial coordinator, Steven Moth, from Spirit in the Sky. We have worked with Steven numerous times before and that trust within the team is paramount to a safe and dynamic operation, delivering exactly what production requires.
IMAGES Various stills from Terminator: Dark Fate, as well as some of the helicopters and equipment used by GB Helicopters for filming
38 DEF I N I T ION | OCTOBER 20 1 9
Powered by FlippingBook