PBS Wisconsin Originals

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helicopter rotors pulsing

>> We get up at five o'clock in the morning and we check the weather. >> The day starts out and Nick will do his pre-flight. >> We have to push it in and out of the hanger, and then get the helicopter fueled up. Then we go over our flight plan for the day and what we hope to capture. >> It's going to be the best day ever. >> I do a camera pre-flight as well, so generally make sure the lens is clean, make sure everything works. This part of the camera is the lens and the image sensor. It's a gyro stabilized camera. It take in any vibration from the helicopter so the images are completely stable when you see them on TV. Here we have the camera control unit which is a basic laptop that looks like a big Atari controller. Then over here we have our gimbal controls which is just the fine tuning of how actually the camera moves. And then back here we have what we call the Aux-Box, which is basically the brain of the camera. >> We got it down to a science. >> From there we just start up the helicopter. >> Keep our fingers crossed we get good weather. >> We go out and do it. >> The logistics leading up to the production of an aerial show are endless. The producing team worked for weeks. We had seven shoot dates in September, and we had a list of over 200 sights across state to capture. >> We researched the latitude and longitude of every location. We had to coordinate with the different cities that we were going to fly over. Then we had to work with different organizations, like the Packers, the Brewers and the Badgers, that were going to get footage of over the stadium on game day.

distant crowd noise

>> There were definitely a lot of details and moving parts to keep straight, but that way we could make the most out of our time up in the air. >> A day can last a couple of hours, and then there's times it can last 14 hours. It really depends of how much you have to shoot and what light you want. >> On this particular job where we're doing aerial filming it's tricky sometimes to find a balance of safety and finding a good shot. There's time where we have to go lower than you would just flying cross-country somewhere to another airport. >> The first time you do it it's a little bit of a shock. Actually, it's huge shock. Anyone that's ever done aerials that never did them before, it can freak you out.

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>> Yeah, it can get a little disorienting up there. >> Not only is there the team in the air, we also have another crew down on the ground traveling across the state from sight to sight, coordinating things on the ground, trying to stay one step ahead of us. They meet us at the end of the day at the airport. >> They grab the video files, and then the engineer works all night backing up the footage so the crew could get right back in the helicopter the next morning and start taping again. >> The most important part of my job is keeping everyone safe, but getting the product that everyone wants too. >> When producing a show entirely out of aerial footage, naturally you want to get really good shots for the editor. But sometimes it really comes down to being in the right place at the right time. >> I've gotten to see some really cool things in Wisconsin that I never knew about before. >> My favorite location was the northern part of the state. To me, anywhere in America that's like that is pretty cool. Everything is so populated there's always a house here or something. I thought that was a neat little gem of the state. >> We saw some great geographical spots. >> I had no idea how hilly it was, especially where the Mississippi Valley was. You have hills that are up six, seven hundred feet, and then it varies down to almost sea level again by the river. That was totally unexpected. >> I hope people who see this show realize how gorgeous the state of Wisconsin is, and appreciate what we've built and what we've preserved. >> We literally toured the whole state. It was awesome. >> To see it from a vantage point that generally most people don't get the see. It's the view of the bird, a bird's eye view.