At some point in my college years I overcame what most normal people would call a healthy fear of heights. I actually even worked for a tower maintenance company one year in Cape Girardeau. We went up TV towers at any time of the day or night in any weather to handle testing, maintenance and installation issues. My first "climb" was up the 1,776 foot KFVS tower just North of town. We were to install a dummy load on the antenna for testing purposes. That could only be done between the hours of Midnight and 6:00 AM at that time. We rode an elevator up the first 1,500 feet and climbed the rest. Actually, we rode on top of the elevator with all of our equipment loaded inside the elevator. It really wasn't a big deal.
Lower elevations became a cakewalk. About a year, or so, after graduation I was working at Video Wisconsin. I was the one who always ended up in the light grid doing whatever work was required. It wasn't a big deal. For Ralph, on the other hand, the thought of being more than two steps up on a stepladder was daunting. Imagine my delight when we had a shoot that would require Ralph to be above the light grid shooting straight down at the ground below.
Let me give you just a bit of background on this incident. It was the middle to latter part of the 1980's. Zero turn radius mowers were just becoming available to the consumer market and Simplicity was releasing their first consumer zero turn model. The ad agency came up with a brilliant commercial that would be shot from directly overhead with the mower driving into the shot, doing a 360 degree turn directly under the camera lens and continuing straight off the shot in perfect alignment with how it came in as the announcer said, "Simplicity wants to take you for a spin." It would take a lot of work (and a lot of takes) to get the perfect shot.
The real task, though, was figuring out a way to get the camera, Ralph and the client above the grid to get the shot. Two people along with a full 35 millimeter film rig weigh a lot. We had to come up with a safe and secure platform. We also had to come up with a way to get Ralph up to it.
I was tasked with designing and building the platform for the shoot. That, in and of itself, was not a difficult task. Making it so Ralph would actually go up on it was a gargantuan task. Trying to shoot a commercial without your director/cinematographer near the camera is impossible. We had to come up with a way to get Ralph up there.
So I designed and built the platform. Let me rephrase that; I seriously over-designed and overbuilt the platform above the light grid. We didn't have a man lift so I set ladders up around the final platform position in the grid and carried up all of the lumber, hardware and tools to assemble the deck. We could have put two elephants up there along with the camera equipment.
It was a thing of beauty - a solid platform that would likely withstand a direct hit from an aircraft. A hole was positioned in the middle for the lens to shoot downward so Ralph would not have to be near an edge. A safe and secure spot for even the worst altitude wimp.
On the day of the shoot, we carefully brought the camera and all of the other gear needed to the platform. Everything would have to be in place before bringing Ralph up. The basic idea was to get him up there and down from there as quickly as possible.
We encouraged Ralph like a toddler taking his first steps as he ascended the ladder. Somehow, although his brain understood the safety of the situation and he recognized that a quick ascent would get him to the safety of the platform faster, it seemed like an hour as Ralph forced himself higher with every step.
He eventually made it up to the platform and looked through the lens. He was better then. Apparently, looking through the lens to the floor below is somehow totally different than just looking through the hole when you're a cinematographer.
We tweaked the lighting and got ready to shoot.
When it came time to shoot, I had to change clothes because the client had decided that my thick head of dark hair was what they wanted to see on camera so I would have to drive the mower for the shot. We taped a big X on the wall to mark my target line. I was not to move my head at all, so I had to watch the X as I drove into the shot, hit the turn at another tape mark off camera, pick up the X on the wall in my peripheral vision as the mower spun on itself and come out of the turn on the same line.
As you can imagine; this was not going to be a one take shot. I struggled with the knowledge that ultimately it was my ability to drive the mower that was going to determined how long Ralph was up there. We needed a print and a safety; so everything had to be perfect - twice.
We eventually got two versions that made both Ralph and the client happy. Throughout the "ordeal" Ralph never came down.
Not to eat lunch.
Not to use the restroom.
Not to take a break.
One would think that the joy of heading back toward Terra Firma would have elated Ralph when we finally wrapped up the shoot. Ralph had an even bigger issue with coming down from the platform than he had going up.
Jokes about letting gravity help him reach the floor were not well received.
That only encouraged us to tease him even more.
I'm pretty sure he would have fired me for the two hundredth time that day had he not needed me to make sure all of the camera gear made it safely back to the ground once we got him to the floor.
I enjoyed watching the commercial when it finally aired; even knowing that no one other than those of us on the shoot would ever know that I was the driver. Most of the shoots I worked on have long been forgotten. A few stay with me even today. Every time I see a zero turn mower I still think back to that day when I took a Simplicity for a spin.
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