Meeting with Virgin America today

Will and Rico are meeting with the director of online media at Virgin America today. WilCo films will be helping Virgin America create online content for their websites and other avenues.  We will be looking to interview passengers, crew and staff about why they chose Virgin to work for or to fly with. If you have never flown on Virgin, it is truly an experience, unlike no other.  So, if you are taking a flight on Virgin America, do not be suprised if the WilCo Films crew approaches you and asks if you would like to talk about your flight on Virgin America.

Shooting the opening scene…

Last weekend we started shooting the opening scene to A Pilot’s Story. I will not tell you want we shot as that would spoil the film, but lets just say it involved the stunning California coast line and a beautiful little Piper J-3 Cub.

I will tell you about one aspect of the shoot just because you should know what I will do to get the shot. We were shooting on the side of a tall cliff on the Northern California coastline. I wanted to get a shot of the Piper Cub flying along the water from above. So my pilot in the Cub was to fly along and bellow the cliff and I would get the shot from above. There was a good amount of ice plant and other vegetation in my way to the edge of the cliff. No worries I am a hiker, I have my hiking boots and my good cargo shorts on . So off I trudged through the think brush with camera and tripod in hand. About half way to the edge I noticed the green and red leaves of the bushes I was walking through. It was all around me, and I had about fifty more feet to go before I found the edge. I look down and notice that each leaf had a smooth side and a bumpy side. I think to my self, “Hey this is Poison Oak” and it was bushing up all over my legs. I looked back to see the fifty feet or so I had already walked through and said to my self. “Art is pain, move on Will!” Laughing it off and kept going. I got the most beautiful shot of the Cub flying along the empty beach and across the crashing surf. It is a beautiful shot and will defiantly make it into the film. 

Somehow I didn’t get any kind of a breakout of poison oak thank goodness. The film Gods must have been smiling down on me that day. So with the Gods on my side you now know I will do just about anything to get the shot.

-Will

The Zed Card of the future…

In the old days actors and models would hand out Zed Cards. Zed Cards like resumes that would have a few photos on one side and a resume on the other side. These cards would allow actors to hand out a small sample of some the looks they can achieve along with some examples of there work. The problem was it could not really show off there acting skills.

With the internet, now actors and models have a much better avenue to show people there work world wide.  One of the services we provide here at Wilco Films is HD video “Zed Cards” for internet distribution. Now actors and models can create really samples of there acting abilities and let the world see there work. We can set up small scenes, light them, edit them together, and even add sound effects and a sound track to enhance their exposer to posable acting or modeling jobs. 

Just recently I had to the chance to work with three up and coming actors. We shot two thirty second scenes for each that shows their range of work. Now they have a good sample of their work on the internet that can been easily seen and shared around the world. 

I am really excited about continuing to provide this service to many more actors and models, and help them achieve their goals and further their careers. Let the future begin.

A Pilot’s Story Update

Just a quick update about A Pilot’s Story project. We are continuing to get great feedback from the trailer. Rico and I attended the National Aviation Hall of Fame Induction ceremony last week after being invited  by a wonderful aviator named Zoe Dell Nutter. It gave us a chance to meet some of our nations great aviators and spread the news around about our project. The ceremony was being held in Dayton Ohio so us California boys jumped on a plane and made our way there. 

The first nights event was held in the National Museum of the United Air Force at the Write Paterson Air Force base. The museum is one of the best aviation museums I have ever seen. If you ever find your way out to Dayton you must spend at least a day there. Rico and I spent must of our Saturday enjoying the museum. 

Saturday night was the main event, the induction ceremony. A black tie affaire held at the Dayton Convention center. Over 700 people in attendance to see four outstanding contributers to aviation accept their awards. The four inductees this year were Col. Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson, USAF (Ret.), Herbert D. Kelleher, William A. Moffett, and Sean D. Tucker. We had a great time at the event and got a chance to meet some amazing aviators.

Now, back home in the real world, we continue to work on A Pilot’s Story, as well as other projects. I am currently in the design and building process of creating a way of attaching my steady cam rig to a helicopter. This will allow us to get some really amazing footage from a flying platform. I can’t wait to try it out. In the past I have always just handheld a camera with a gyroscopic device attached to it in the helicopter. With a full steady cam rig on the helicopter we should be able to eliminate all jerky movement we get when handheld.  Check back for more on that.

-Will

An Introduction

Hello everybody. My name is Will Hawkins. I am a film maker living in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am the production director for Wilco Films. We produce just about any kind of film project you need produced. Every thing we produce is shoot in stunning 1080 High Definition video. Wilco Films is mostly made up of pilots so we do have a passion for aviation films. But that is not the only thing we shoot. In fact if you can think it we can shoot it. Even air to air or air to ground shots. 

Currently we are working on a film about pilots and why we fly. You can see a trailer here.

If you have any questions please feel free to drop me a line at will@wilcofilms.com

 

Thanks for checking us out.

-Will