The Soarin' film uses IMAX projection systems, with high-speed
(48 fps) high definition Omni-max film projectors. That's twice
the speed of normal motion picture film.
Because airspace inside national park boundaries is protected,
it took several months for the film crew to obtain permission
to fly a helicopter into Yosemite National Park. The last time
a helicopter was permitted to fly through Yosemite was in the
mid-1900s, when a flood had closed the park to visitors.
Though it may be hard to see them, mountain climbers in the
Yosemite sequence are making their way along a cliff face before
the waterfall comes into view. The six members of the Yosemite
Mountaineering School spent an entire day before the shoot placing
pitons for handholds and footholds during filming. While the
shot was being set up, and in between takes, the climbers literally
"hung around," suspended from the cliff by ropes.
One climber clung to the cliff for about six hours before the
shot was ready to go.
Because of the status of Monterey/Point Lobos as a marine
sanctuary, it took a year to obtain all of the necessary permits
to film that sequence. One of the boats in this shot is a NOAA
(National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration) boat, whose
job it was to monitor marine animal and bird activity during
filming. Fortunately for the animals and the film crew, the
shot was pulled off without disturbing any of the protected
sea otters, sea lions or brown pelicans.
The scene in which guests go soaring over the USS Stennis
aircraft carrier as it heads out of the San Diego port is unusual
in that all of the Navy jets and helicopters can be seen on
the carrier. Normally the carrier offloads all of the aircraft
as soon as it comes into port. When this scene of the film was
shot, the vessel happened to be making a quick turn-around and
had not had time to offload the aircraft. The USS Stennis is
the largest aircraft carrier in the Navy's fleet weighing in
at 97,000 tons with a flight deck area of 4.5 acres.
There is a scene in the film in which horses and riders gallop
through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Prior to filming this
scene, the crew was required to hire an archaeological team
to perform a biological and paleontological resource assessment.
In other words, the team hand-dusted the area from Fonts Wash
to Fonts Point -- a four-mile stretch of trail -- in order to
be sure no artifacts would be disturbed by the horses and riders.
In the Anza-Borrego shot, the Thunderbirds fly over the horseback
riders. Many meetings with Air Force personnel were required
to set up this shot. Flight paths for both the Thunderbirds
and the helicopter film crew had to be carefully charted and
arranged. The jets travel so fast that they would not be able
to see the helicopter in time to avoid intercepting its flight
path. Timing its departure and GPS location very precisely,
the helicopter departed only a few miles from the filming rendezvous
point, while the Thunderbirds took off from Nellis Air Force
base, near Las Vegas, more than 200 miles away.
Lt. Col. Brian Bishop, the Thunderbirds' lead pilot, uses
the code name Be-Bop. The lead pilot for the Thunderbirds may
hold his or her position for no more than three years, and Lt.
Col. Bishop's participation in the filming of this sequence
for Soarin' constituted his final flight as commander of the
Thunderbirds.
