I received the following very interesting e-mail a couple of days ago:
My brother Irwin learned to fly helicopters with a fellow named Chuck
Whiteman at Central Pacific Helicopters. (As Irwin's younger brother
I was always hanging around hoping to get a free ride.) Chuck flew a
fair amount of aerial photography, and was hired to shoot aerials for
the opening of the show. (Bobby-something was the DP) Chuck
described to me their concept of "dollying" the helicopter towards
the balcony of the Ilikai Hotel where Jack Lord was standing. They
tried for many days to shoot but it was way too windy to get
anything. (I was also interested in photography and talked to Chuck
after each day's shooting to see how it went; I even went down to the
area and watched from below.) This was before the days of gyro
stabilized camera mounts, most of which would not have fit in Chuck's
Bell G-5 helicopter. The weather never did improve, and Chuck said
they would have to use what they had because the show was about to
air. Chuck did not feel good about what they got; he said that they
did not feel good about it either.
When I watched the opening of the show when it first aired, I
realized that they used the shaky footage they got, and "stutter-cut"
it to hide the shake; it was supposed to be a continuous scene, but
the wind and resulting camera shake forced them to come up with
something else. I knew little of editing back then, but realized
and was impressed that they took what they had and "saved it in the
edit." The characteristic quick-cuts-to-music that so stylizes the
opening was the result of some really windy weather and some really
clever editing.
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