Have you met any celebrities?

I worked in Special Effects and pyrotechnics for 25 years. The list is long.

 

I'm glad @Bob bumped this.

May we please hang out and blow stuff up?

 

Met Matthew McConaughey in Nicaragua. Nicest dude ever.

 

I’ve been out of the business for a while. I’ve thought hard about whether I want to name movies. Anonymity is like a warm blanket. But I’ll name one. I worked on Independence Day.

Er, Mr. ATF agent would make a frowny face.

 

That's awsome. Soon as I saw the picture I thought "that's Will Smith out-flying the alien ship!!!" Thanks for sharing that. I was 10 seeing that in theaters.

Right. Right, right, right. Well. Maybe we can take it offline.

Thanks again for sharing. When I saw that movie, thats what i wanted to do for a living; your job. And @Bob thanks for bumping

 

Did you do the Whitehouse explosion?

 

Yes. Here’s an unlikely photo of a couple of my colleagues and me on the White House lawn.

 

The explosion in the movie...?

 

Yes. That’s a model and we blew it up.

 

Oh that's the model! Ha! My bad. Looked real.

Again, super damn cool. Everyone talked about that after seeing the movie.

I saw a behind the scenes on it a couple years after maybe on the discovery Channel or something showing the model and the explosion from angles where it's clearly a model. Blew my mind at the time.

My wife hasn't seen the movie so I was explaining that the white house exploding was one of the coolest things that happened that year and how this dude on the 4runner forums actually did it. I hope it's ok I've told my wife about you.

 

@Captain Spalding do these models need to be built in a specific way so they explode "correctly" for the camera?

 

Yeah the media made a big deal out of it because we were blowing up (finger quotes) “the White House.“ and there were lots of news cameras there and an IMAX documentary crew and we were kind of expected to put on a dog-and-pony show. Some of the guys would trip over themselves to get in front of the camera so they could see their pictures in Cinefex or one of the other industry magazines but I never went in for that type of stuff. But the White House shot was pretty straightforward. The Model department built a dollhouse and we blew it up. There were other shots that were much more intricate, challenging, and dangerous.

Sometimes we get to dictate what the miniature is made of. Sometimes we have to work with whatever the model department gives us. In the case of the White House which was mostly plaster we got plenty of time for testing and worked with the model department to develop a good plaster recipe and experimented with the explosive to achieve the right look. on the other hand the First Interstate Building (today called the US Bank tower) was fiberglass over a steel frame and it was up to us to figure out what to do with it.

Here’s the White House miniature from the rear.

 

I had Chuck Conners in the back seat of my patrol car. He had been in an accident, and was wandering around complaining of back pain. I put him in there to keep him out of trouble.

 

He used to do Rocky Mountain Elk and Quail Unlimited banquets. Sat with us for dinner a couple of times.

Nobel Prize Winners: Francis Crick (Co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) & John Vaca (Shared prize with Al Gore on Climate Change=we shared a couple of beers and discussed climate change on the Yakima River)

"Celebrities": Ned Beatty (from "Deliverance", etc.=real nice guy), several "stars" of TV from doing their real estate (first career) and from the Dub Taylor Celebrity Shoots, Kevin Costner at the market, etc.

Others: Chuck Stapels (custom knifemaker from Hollywood), Bob Engnath (custom scrimshander).

I was invited to attend the Native American premier of Dances with Wolves. Lots of Native American actors. Met Wes Studi, Graham Greene, and some others. Was held at a small ranch, outdoors with NA invocation. First time my wife had fry bread.

 

I used to be quick to name drop. Now that much of my past has been dying off, with a lot of friends dying of strange cancers, I stopped being so enthusiastic dropping names.

I blame cell phones for a lot of the destruction.

 

HA!!!!!! Chuck would NEVER complain of back pain!!!!!

 

Wasn't it Mikhail Gorbachev who was a massive fan of his and Ronald Reagan introduced him at his ranch during the summit?

 

it's when all the young people started reading books this country really went downhill.

 

What, did the paper have arsenic embedded ink?

My reference was about the strange coincidences of cancer and where they put their cell phones...

 

I knew a guy once that worked for Explosive Technologies in northern California for some years... He had interesting stories!

 

Oh I didn't get that at all from your comment. I thought it was commentary on how young folk are addicted to screens and the internet. My comment was about how in the 1700's and 1800's when books became more common place, more widely printed and affordable, older generations thought books were a waste of time and young people were throwing their lives away stuck to books instead of getting outside.

But yeah certainly. Everything is wrapped in plastic. We now all have microplastics in our brains. Who knows what else.

I guess a good thing on cell phones is that they were probably bad for you in early gen's and they have since switches to lower power transmit radios for substantially less radiation.

 

Met the guys from Motley Crue back in 1987, fairly brief meeting, me and Tommy Lee talked drums for a minute or two then they moved on. Talked to Rich Redmond -drummer for Rascal Flatts a couple times. John Taylor from Duran Duran (helluva bass player and really nice guy)and Chris,Ryan and Vinny from Motionless in White-super nice guys, not what you might expect from their stage/video personas.

 

My godfathers father did special effects and sound effects in Hollywood in the 70’s & 80’s. His claim to fame is working on the fart scene from blazing saddles

 

Around 1999-2001 I went to coaching camps at the 49ers headquarters. One time our session ran into Bill Walsh. He broke down plays with us for about 45 minutes. I got to sit at the table and eat lunch with him, John McVay, Steve Mariucci, and Gene Washington (He was an NFL rep at the time).

 

Christian Barnard, tall guy, very cordial, MIAMI VA Hospital, 1976; Susan Hayward, petit with lots of freckles, Ft. Lauderdale, 1983; Clint Eastwood, (wrinkled “tight” ski pants-so skinny”), Vail, CO, 1985; Michael MacDonald, still had dark hair, Ft. Lauderdale, 1989; Andres Segovia, Florence, Italy, still a virtuoso aged 79, 1971; Jesse Colin Young, Musician’s Exchange, Ft. Lauderdale, 1992; Nick Nolte, Ft. Lauderdale, 1987, gave me dirty look-didn’t say one word; Golfer Seve Ballesteros, Honda Open, Ft. Lauderdale, 1996?, arrogant asshole.

that’s about all

 

Reminded me of another one. A friend was dating the daughter of Tito Puente and was invited to a party/jam session (he was a professional musician and actually was an extra in several movies and had just returned from doing a gig with Woody Herman on a cruise along somewhere). I gave him a ride and she invited us in for a beer. He had a ride back (I think he was staying with her). Anyway, we were having a beer and talking when Carlos Santana walked over and introduced himself. We chatted for a few, and he excused himself and said he needed to talk to my friend Dick, about a gig.

 

I remember, when I was a kid, Santana was a "bar-band" in the Bay Area. Mostly the South Bay. San Jose, Palo Alto, Atherton, and so on. Great music, even back then.

If you knew someone that worked at the bar, you could usually get in, even if you were under age. It was a simpler time. We would just sit and listen to bar bands. The Grateful Dead was another band that would put on great shows, even if it was a small audience. A lot of others, surprisingly. We kids had a great time, jamming with the bands, or even just listening or dancing.

Sorry, memories...
Pat☺