Island Hoppers Lives Again as Paradise Helicopters!

I'm working on a film out at the Turtle Bay Hotel on the spectacular north shore of Oahu.  We are building some set pieces before filming begins next week.  I was very surprised to see the Magnum, P.I. helicopter taking off right next to where we are working.  I knew that a company here was flying the same helicopter (but not THE identical one) we had used on the show with the same graphics.  I walked over to see if they would allow me to take a photo to post here.  I met the pilot, Josh, and Sarah and mentioned to them I had worked on the show and they kindly allowed me to take these photos:

The helicopter had just been used for some aerial photography and still had the camera mount.  We are working right on the other side of those trees.

Both Roger Mosley and Larry Manetti have visited and signed the helicopter in 2 places.

They have also signed the console at the bottom as well.

It was great to see this copter again after so many years.  It's in much better condition than I remembered ours being.

So if any of you get a chance to visit our beautiful State sometime, contact www.paradisecopters.com and go for a ride.  Too bad they can't fly to the estate and land, but maybe someday.  Josh said he'd take me up sometime so maybe I'll have something more to post!

Yearly Update! Greetings from 2013.....

Aloha All!  I had never intended this to be a once a year posting.  I even had trouble remembering my password to answer all of those (well, not that many) who have emailed in the past year.  So, if you don't mind not much news about Magnum, P.I., here's what's going on:

I'm afraid my "new career" as a Creative Director for a special events company only lasted 10 months.  The job wasn't particularly creative, nor was there a need for the kind of creativity I could provide.  So other than creating an 18' long smoke breathing dragon we put into the middle of a swimming pool at a hotel for a food and wine festival, I spent most of my time doing Xcel documents in a cubicle!  I now have a much greater respect for my sister who managed to do 38 years in a cubicle for the phone company.  I'm not a cubicle kind of guy!

Earlier this year, I spent about 10 days as the Production Designer for the opening credits and trailer for the new "Dog and Beth Bounty Hunter" show.  It's actually not being filmed here and I don't know if they used any of the footage we shot since I haven't seen the show now on the CMT network.  I thought I was going to be working on "Godzilla" which just wrapped.  The day and location for my interview were set, but the call with the time never came.  They did bring over a huge number of crew people from the mainland and Canada which was mildly insulting.  It's ok, a movie about Godzilla attacking Waikiki will not be on my viewing list anyway.

What will be on my viewing list is my next job--one of the potential best of my career. Funny how one job doesn't even want to meet and a much bigger one, with an Art Director position working for an Academy Award winning Production Designer and very famous director on a true story with an incredible script does work out.  Unfortunately the 3 page non-disclosure agreement I signed prevents me from discussing it here!  But I think I can say that I am very excited and look forward to my 6 week involvement.

I can tell you, however, I have written up a Production Design course outline I will be teaching at Pacific New Media through the University of Hawaii extension division this fall.  There will be 6 weekly 2 hour sessions for anyone who wants to sign up.  It will be a chance to educate a group of people what actually does happen in the art department and hopefully give some insight to visual aesthetics when creating a film or video production.  If nothing else they will learn how to fake it and find it!  I am hoping that this will eventually lead to the possibility of teaching more within my field.

The only Magnum News to report is that a local helicopter company did bring Roger Mosley over here to land in their Island Helicopter looking helicopter that is now doing tours here on Oahu.  The actual helicopter crashed years ago, but I believe this is the same model and is painted to look like the original.

Other news is that the facility that the new "Hawaii Five-0" had been using in an old newspaper warehouse complex near downtown is being torn down for one of 22 new 40 story high-rises being built in Honolulu.  Apparently being recognized as already having the worse traffic in the USA, we need to be even more crowded in our city core so that our new $5 billion monorail might actually get used. (yes, I have my own opinions!) Now that Disney has given up their lease (originating with "LOST") on the State Film Studio at Diamond Head (where the original "Magnum, P.I." was filmed), 5-0 has moved in there.  Shows today are so much more complex than they were 30 years ago so they are also renting additional warehouse space.

I will try and post more than once a year!  Thanks to those of you who do keep in touch.

Rick

Higgins' Den "Before" Look PART II

Back to Basics...........Set Photos

I feel like one of those vaudeville performers who just keeps on tap dancing while waiting for the next act to come on.........except they're late.  Well, I may not be able to tap dance, but I am still waiting for my slides / cd  to come back from India so I can post more set photos.  In the meantime I'm trying to come up with other interesting photos--like a bust of Jack Lord facing Macy's at Kahala Mall!

This is probably the most obscure of all my set photos:  A 1945 basement of a Jewish Synagogue in China!  I'll bet the writer's stayed up all night thinking of that one--it's obscure even by "LOST" standards.  Again, no idea which episode or why or what it was for.  I scanned all 3 photos as one rather than individually since there's not a whole lot to see.

It is interesting, though, because the paint job on the columns is pretty good, there is dirt on the stage floor, you can see the ends of the set and catwalk above, and, of course, the set dressing is fantastic!  (what little there is of it--crates, brass items, boxes).

Another side note, I always have to laugh now when a director or designer says "just get a few wooden crates" and I respond with "we have to build them."  I suppose for 100 years or more, wooden crates were readily available and cheap and usually discarded.  Now that we have decimated many of our natural forests,  wooden crates are almost impossible to find anymore.  We used to get ours from a place called Jade Food Products for free, then .50 cents, then $1.00 a crate, then they switched to cardboard and no more crates.  Incidentally,  the only cardboard box plant in Hawaii shut down last summer.

Now I'm running out of obscure information about cardboard plants in Hawaii AND photos, so maybe I will have time to learn how to tap dance?  Hey, it could happen.

Aloha,  Rick

More about film studio, Hawaii 5-0, Magnum

Idrove over to my old haunts around the film studio today (in part to let my visiting sister help our economy shopping at Kahala Mall) and took some photos.  Rubber chicken has put his original letter to me under comments in the previous post if you want to follow all of this.  I also forgot to point out that the google maps of the studio area are at least 4 years old since they do not show the new studio offices and construction mill although the new soundstage is shown.

I took pictures of the corner of Diamond Head Road at 22nd Avenue and again at 18th Avenue.  I think some of you will recognize parts of the National Guard building that was used in some Magnum episodes.  I wasn't aware that across the street from this building (on 22nd Avenue) there are still some of the old WWII warehouses still in use for something.  I remember when they used to actually store tanks there.  As this is the most expensive part of the island, I used to tell visitors that this area had their own army for protection.  In any case, there does not seem to be any trace of a warehouse that could have been the one where 5-0 was filmed.

Sorry, couldn't add these photos on this post so refer to above next posting for views.

The view at the corner of Diamond Head Road at 18th Avenue is much greener and better landscaped than it was during Magnum times.  The old soundstage (renamed the 5-0 Stage and now used for storage by "LOST") has a new sliding door and has been repainted, but is otherwise the same.  It's just an old Butler Building warehouse, but is the holy grail for Magnum fans.  The new studio gates and guard house are an improvement over the old shack and chain link fence that were the entrance for Magnum slightly to the left of the main gate and still there.

Well, it ain't much folks, but it is 30 years later and this is what it looks like now.

Aloha,  Rick

P.S.  here is also a detail of one of the old guard houses to Fort Ruger and now an electrical substation.  Also the bust of Jack Lord outside Macy's at Kahala Mall.........odd place for a memorial.

Look what I found.....The Guesthouse Set! (and ME!)

Who would think I'd ever put this photo of me on the internet?  Well, I sure won't be mistaken for Tom Selleck!  One day the Art Director, Archie Bacon, and I were walking by the unprotected, uncovered Ferrari and I just happened to have my camera.  Like a couple of naughty kids, we took turns taking pictures of each other sitting in the car.  Yeah, I'm SO cool that I didn't even know how to open the door from the outside or the inside so I had to climb in and out!  This was the "driving " Ferrari.  They also had a "tow" Ferrari which they used behind a camera truck for when you saw Tom inside the car "driving"--which he wasn't.  Again, cutting back and forth between actual driving shots and sitting behind the wheel shots, it looks pretty good.  That's the soundstage behind me on the left.

On to the guesthouse photo--it turns out I did have one in my portfolio.  That means that when Indiana Jones comes over and we go on a quest in my attic to find the long buried photos, there could be more (?).  I know you all have seen this set more recently and more often than I have so pardon my first impression on seeing it for the first time in decades--what a dump!  It's much smaller than I remember and almost looks dirty with those walls.  Ok, please, no hate mail and death threats--it's just my first thougts after all these years.  You can see the make-up tables being stored inside the set since space was always a premium on that stage.  George Sumner was a personal friend of John Hillerman so that painting had to hang prominently over the fireplace.  It would not have been my choice since it photographed so dark on camera.  Basically the furniture was pretty much run of the mill sort of middle class Sears contemporary items.  I had forgotten there actually were windows on the camera left side of the set and the smaller one on the landing.  Normally a set would be lit for filming and then the lights taken down and used elsewhere.  As you can see, the basic lights were left up on the catwalk all the time because this was a permanent set.  The guesthouse set was fairly close to the side wall of the soundstage--the back wall maybe 6-8 feet away which made it difficult to have a higher ceiling since the roof sloped down at that point.  You can see the small ceiling sections over the entry door.

There was a door to the right of the TV set that really did lead into Tom's bedroom set.  There was also a small wall portion that could be used as part of the "4th wall" but was seldom seen.  I think that is my leadman Russ Maki standing on the set.  

Many have asked what happened to all the items.  I am amazed at how many of those items did survive the "great purge" when they tore down the old set dressing building a few years ago.  It's funny how when things are taken away from their original environment, they just become "stuff."  Like after my parents had died and we sold the family home, I brought things back to Hawaii that had been in that house for decades.  Somehow without the wall paper and windows and familiar surroundings, the things just weren't the same.  What few items that may or may not still exist in the new storage area,  are the property of the State of Hawaii Film Office and would not be for sale--so don't ask!   I'll be the one getting in trouble for even mentioning it!

I found a few other surprises--even a "funny" Christmas story (and photos) about an explosion we did that accidentally  blew out the windows out of a house and sent their Christmas tree flying across their living room.  Have to wait for Christmas for that one!  Again, thanks for all your encouragement and comments.  (don't stop now!)