LUNAR’clips 2002                        Volume 9, Number 6

Copyright © 2002 by LUNAR, All rights reserved.

An Enchanted Evening (Magazine), LUNAR on TV again

On Halloween day, I got a call from Reuben Maness, a producer for Evening Magazine on KPIX, Channel 5. He said they'd like to do a segment on the club, so naturally I invited them out to the next launch on November 16. Unfortunately, he told me his deadline was the end of the next week, so they wanted to shoot the piece on the following Tuesday or Wednesday in the late morning.

I told him that I could set up a special launch, like we did for Discovery Channel and Tech TV, but that schedule was pretty tight. The fire permit and insurance were no problem since they are blanket for the year. I told him the first hurdle would be finding out if the field was available, and the second was if anyone could come out on such short notice. I called the LARPD office and found out that the field was available (not too much demand for mid-week mornings). That just left finding some fliers. I posted a notice on our "announce" list asking if anyone could skip work a couple of hours Tuesday or Wednesday morning for a chance to be on TV. I should have known better. I got a dozen guys hopping up and down on one foot, waiving their arms in the air shouting "Me! Pick me!"

On the day of shooting, November 6, the LUNAR contingent consisted of myself, equipment manager Bill Orvis, Tony Cooper (who brought his Piñata rocket), the Clay brothers, Jamie and Peter, plus Jamie's wife Jeanne (O'Lone), with the Gumby video rocket. Lee Teicheira brought his usual arsenal, as did Wes Freeman, Joe Pettinicchi, Mike Holmes and Rob Briody. There was a LUNAR old-timers reunion of sorts as Mark Weiss (LUNAR 001) took some time off from his police duties to observe and bring his all-important Class III Pyro license. H.W. "Bear" Neff (LUNAR 005) also came, bringing his "Sonic Seduction" for display, although he didn't fly it.

We started setting up at 9:30 so that they could start shooting at 10 as Rueben had requested. The EM crew didn't get there until 10:20, but at least it didn't take long for them to get going. In addition to Reuben, there was just a cameraman (who also did sound) and the on-air personalities Mike Rowe and Malou Nubla. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but found them to be very polite and personable. More importantly, they asked serious questions about the hobby and what we were all about so that they could talk intelligently (or at least not embarrass themselves) on the air.

The first thing I discovered when going over the planned shoot with Rueben, was that this wasn't just one of their three-minute segments. We were going to be the "wraps" for the show. That is, we were the dozen or so little snippets that fit in between the stories and commercials where the hosts banter back-and-forth and do the introductions. I let them pick whatever rockets they wanted in any order. The show isn't shot in the order you see it on TV, but rather they did the segment intros first, then the closing, followed by the opening (go figure) and finally some promos to be used during the news before the show. They also shot some "B roll" footage, which are unscripted scenes used to cover people doing voice-overs, etc.

After a few launches to get them used to what these things look and sound like, they naturally picked the Gumby rocket for the first subject. Since it had a running video camera in it, they even used it to do part of the previous segment's wrap-up with Mike looking up into the camera (this was Jamie's suggestion and it worked perfectly!). I had to stretch our safety rules pretty much to the breaking point to let them get an effective shot. The model was armed and the pads were fully charged while they gabbed away into the camera. Being over 100 ft away at the console, I couldn't hear what they were saying, but was just listening for my cue of "let 'er rip, Jack!" as they trotted away from the pad. They were only about 30 feet away when the H180 lit. It was so startling that Mike issued forth with a "Holy crap!" which actually made it on the air!

Next we flew Bill Orvis' Saturn V on a composite, which gave the audience a lesson in some of the problems in the hobby. The motor chuffed a couple of times (causing Malou to let out an "oh, my goodness!") and never did come fully up to pressure. It did a lazy half-tumble through the sky and pranged sideways just as the ejection charge went off. "Jeeze, pranging on camera" was my comment, within earshot of the crew. "What's that mean?" asked Mike. I gave him a brief lesson in terminology ("prang" and "chuff") that he incorporated into the next segment. Next came my big interview. That's when we learned how tightly scripted this show is. "You have 55 seconds," Reuben told me as they were hooking up my wireless mike. He didn't say "about a minute," it was "55 seconds." Suddenly my mind went blank. It's not for a lack of things to say (never been my problem!) but how to come up with only 55 seconds worth. I blathered something about safety and permits, but about the only thing I really remember is giving out our website URL.

For the last few launches the personalities moved to the console so that they could be shown selecting the pads and pushing the button (with me just off camera with my foot on the dead man switch). They launched Tony's Piñata rocket for the last segment, followed by a few more for the promos. As a finale we batch-launched the last four pads, but only three of them lit, and the other three went several seconds apart.

One thing that we were a little concerned about was the weather. It has been so calm the last part of November, it's difficult to remember the big storm that hit the first week. While it was absolutely perfect flying weather earlier in the morning, by the end of the shoot it had become completely overcast with the approaching storm. By the time we got the equipment put away the wind was gusting steadily, and 24 hours later the whole Bay Area was being deluged.

After we were all done, I only had about 30 hours before the show aired to let everyone know the exact time. It aired right on time, but the storm was so intense that significant amounts of the Bay Area were blacked out. Some people complained that they only got to see part of the show before the lights went out. Others didn't get to see it at all. KPIX repeated the show about three weeks later, but didn't give us any notice, or I could have let everyone know. We still had quite an audience, though. Charles Winter, our web site host, said that even with 800,000 houses without power, for the two hours after the show aired, we got about 10 times the normal number of hits. He figures that we had about 1,000 new visitors to the site. On the other hand, at the launch a week later I asked the assembled crowd how many of them were flying with us for the first time. A dozen or so hands went up. Then I asked "How many are here because you saw us on Evening Magazine?" Not one hand.

Oh, well. Sic transit gloria mundi.

[Ed. A video clip of the lunar part of the show is available online. ]

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