I do know that the otter pilot told everyone to get out of the plane, including the non-jumpers. In the plane were the real stunt doubles and unfortunately some people that were not skydivers such as a hair and make-up artists and David Donnelly (Kevin’s son). They actually saw helicopter parts fall past them. Kevin Donnelly and Jan Davis were among the jumpers. This was on a practice pass for the cameraman with jumpers not in wardrobe, just skydivers. The helicopter pilot underestimated the height of the tail and hit the vertical stabilizer with the rotor. It turns out that the helicopter was supposed to peel over the Twin Otter as the jumpers exited to get a nice angle and turn so the cameraman could also keep the jumpers in frame. I was in my camera room when someone knocked on the door and asked me why there were so many round canopies coming down. Were you on that load? Can you tell us about it? We used to mountain bike ride together.ĭuring one of the scenes being filmed at California City, a helicopter turned suddenly and sheared off one of the horizontal stabilizers causing everyone to bail out. I got to hang with Don a bit because of a mutual friend and skydiver Moe Viletto. I know he was in the plane at Perris when we did the pickup shots. I can only guess that Don’s love for skydiving had some influence.
Point break movie movie#
Did he play any role in the movie other than getting Patrick into the sport? Patrick Swayze’s brother Don, was an active jumper at Skydive Perris. He made a good double for one of the jumpers and it was a major honor to have them put me in the camera slot. I was also working with Ray Cottingham who was my mentor as a cameraman. I was also working under the direction of skydiver and 2nd unit director Kevin Donnelly who is a legendary skydiver that more jumpers should know about. Then a helicopter would pick us up, fly us back to the airport and repeat. We were required on all but the landing shots to land on top of a mesa to stay away from the general public on the lake and shore. The jumps would take place far from the airport over the Lake. We would take off from Paige Arizona airport, climb up to 14k for the jumps.
My favorite part of working on the film was the entire scene at Lake Powell. What was YOUR favorite part of working on this film? He was trained at Skydive Perris so he made a lot of training jumps there. The only filming we did at Perris for the movie were the shots Patrick asked me to shoot to make the scenes better. There were two skydiving scenes, one was shot at California City Parachute Center using Perris’s King Air and the other scene was shot at Lake Powell using Perris’ King Air. What was the location where most of the Point Break skydiving footage was shot? What portion of the movie was filmed at Perris? Patrick Swayze Filming Point Break Photo by Tom Sanders We had two doubles for him but he definitely did some of the jumping that is in the final cut but no real surfing. With his dancing and athletic background, his skydiving skills were awesome for the few jumps he had. As a surfer and skydiver, I know skydiving is easier in the beginning. Eventually, they had to put him on a skid behind a jet ski to fake some shots. Surfing is a VERY difficult sport to learn, much less look like you are a super cool Bodhi while surfing. I know many of the people involved with the surfing scenes because much of it was shot here where I live in Hawaii. They can’t chance the main character getting hurt. The studio would allow him to try and surf but not skydive during the principal photography filming. That Patrick Swayze was attempting to do the surfing during principal photography and he was not a surfer. What are some of the things that surprised YOU about Point Break that few people know about? He was friendly, easy to approach, just a cool mellow guy with no attitude about being a movie star. He didn’t have many jumps… maybe less than 50 but he did great. So we did exit shots, tracking, and deployments with me on my back. I was able to shoot up angle shots only because the filming in the movie did not take place at Perris. Not even sure who paid for the jumps but it did not involve the studio, he just wanted to make the scene better. He said he could get the film if I could get the camera. After the studio was happy with all the footage for the skydiving scenes, he called me up and asked me if we could go out to Skydive Perris and shoot some more shots.
I only got to be with him for two days I think. They would not let him skydive while “principal photography” was going on but he was sneaking out to the DZ to train. Patrick Swayze was pure joy to be around. Patrick Swayze did many jumps in several of the scenes. Skydiving photographer Tom Sanders working on a film in Hawaii Kids Indoor Skydiving Parties & Kids Club.
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