November 2, 2011

Since the pilot of Got Home Alive was a success, The Travel Channel contracted for a whole season of episodes.  Because of my work on the pilot, Grip Curt Pepper told the produced that I was a useful person to have on the crew for rope rigging, safety, medical, etc.  Based on Curt’s recommendation, I started working part0time for the show on the f=very first segment shot.  The work was quite sporadic at first, but picked up through the season to where I was pretty much full-time by the time they finished shooting the last show.  Toward the end of the season they needed more rigging/safety people, and I got Glenn Henderson hired on, too.

DP Kevin O’Brien On Belay. Photo: P. McCurdy

In October we were shooting an episode titled Pasadena Plunge about a hiker who got stranded in steep terrain.  By this point in the season even the crew was joking about the fact that every segment seemed to have about the same plot.  They needed a long shot of the actor on a steep slope, but the location was pretty dodgy.  They would have had Glenn stand in for him, but Glenn wouldn’t shave his goatee, so I got the nod.  Glenn and I rigged some ropes such that I was tied into a tree above me, with both Glenn and the rope was off camera.

I don’t know what technically qualifies as a film stunt, but getting into a place where you have to be roped up for safety while standing in on camera for an actor – I’d call that a stunt.  It’s goin’ on my CV!

The camera crew was across a ravine and shot me just sitting there, occasionally kicking a rock loose or making some dirt spill down the steep slope below.  Since my head was down and I was wearing a hat, the camera couldn’t see my face so I started talking to Glenn who was belaying me from just off-camera.  I went on at some length about the intense drama I was creating on camera and my certain nomination for an Oscar.  Glenn tired of that and started heckling me.  That didn’t faze me much, so Glenn started throwing small rocks at me, only stopping when he saw it was making me laugh so hard I was shaking!

We show biz types take our work seriously.