For aerial artistry, you gotta give him props

Alan Purwin

Aerial coordinator

“It’s kind of like a department head, and a lot of times I’ll get the credits ‘aerial coordinator’ and ‘pilot,’ whether it be helicopter or plane.”

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Current assignments: “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” “Bewitched,” “The Island,” “Domino” (opening Aug. 19).

Previous credits: “National Treasure,” “Pearl Harbor,” “The Italian Job.”

Nuts and bolts: “I will get a script, and my job is to understand

“The great thing about the aerial industry is that it is always changing, and you won’t know what a director will want.”

Getting approvals: “Every time we do something, it requires a lot of planning and procedural requirements that have to do with the Federal Aviation Administration, and the FAA approves our plan of activities. We have low-altitude waivers, out-of-the-box things aircraft generally aren’t really allowed to do if you are in an environment like Grand Avenue -- flying a helicopter that’s chasing a car through that tunnel, like in ‘The Italian Job.’ ”

The tunnel job: “When I looked at the location, I pretty much determined that at that point, there was only one type of helicopter that would work. It is a really small, compact one [with] a lot of power and maneuverability. Once we decided to go forward, I worked with the city on removing the vapor lights -- they took out all of the lights, and fixtures as well -- and then I got the effects guys to bring in a huge fan that is driven by a Chevy engine. I wanted the whole ceiling and rafters blown out to see if there was anything loose that would come down and go into the rotor blades and cause a problem.

“So we cleaned it all out. I physically brought the helicopter in there on wheels with the engine off and the blades not turning, and then I had somebody rotating the blades so I could measure how much width I had inside. I determined I could make a quick 180 turn inside. Once I determined it was all feasible, we kind of just laid out a plan, and I went into it very cautiously.”

Start your engines: “I grew up flying. My dad was a pilot. He owned an auto-repair business in North Hollywood and had an airplane with a bunch of guys, and I grew up in that plane. I thought I was going to go down the route of a military pilot and eventually be an airline pilot, but after flying for a while, when I was 18 I started getting bored going from point A to point B. My dad actually suggested I try helicopters, and I did. I went on a quick ride and I was completely hooked, and I sold everything I owned to get my helicopter rating.

“I started flying [professionally] in 1980, right out of high school. My first job was out in the Midwest, crop-dusting. I came back and went to work with this company that had the contract with Universal -- they supplied the helicopters for ‘Airwolf,’ so they needed two or three or four pilots on a regular basis.”

Union or guild: Screen Actors Guild

Resides: Lake Sherwood

Age: 43

Salary: “One can make a good living, but it’s really hard because there are six motion-picture guys [who are pilots] out there, and we still have some life left in us. I wouldn’t recommend for a guy who is sitting there reading the newspaper to go invest his life savings in flying under the assumption he’s going to become a motion-picture pilot. A lot of things have to fall into place.”

Problem solving: “I don’t want to name the director or the project, but we had three helicopters painted white. Everyone in the art department and production said they wanted white helicopters, and then the director showed up and said, ‘Why are these white?’ We had to figure out how we were going to get three helicopters painted black in a 14-hour period, which we managed to do. We threw a lot of money at painters.”

-- Susan King