Discussion
I want to share the sheer absurdity of 1970s cinematography in one of my favorite camera stunts.
We know that sometimes filmmakers will go to great lengths and sketchy ways to capture specific shots or film specific stunts. As filmmaking and roller coaster nerd, one of my favorite films is 1977’s “Rollercoaster”.
In this particular scene, George Segal’s character is riding a roller coaster at the demand of a terrorist threatening to detonate a bomb in the park. The whole movie is built upon a suspenseful cat and mouse game following a dramatic roller coaster crash at the beginning.
They initially filmed this scene with a camera mounted for closeup shots of Segal and then turned it around for POV of the train (hence the discontinuity with the red train).
But when the train goes up the hill into the turnaround, the camera suddenly pivots the opposite direction, pans around and captures the train safely navigating the turnaround and going down the drop. This shot is a trick shot designed to fool the audience during a tense moment with a fake out of another crash. To achieve this they mounted a camera on the skids of a helicopter with the cameraman laying flat. Then they had to position the helicopter low toward the track to make it look like a POV of the train. Then they had to wait for a train full of passengers (stunt people) to arrive into the same position and then drive the chopper forward and spin around quickly enough to recapture the train.
The audacity to pull of such a risky stunt shot is absurd, but the shot really speaks for itself on how well they pulled it off! Im not sure how many takes they had to take to get the camera in the right position to capture the train going down the drop but they really pulled it off.
Right?? I really wish I could find that "making of" documentary they talk about in the article. I hope there is footage out there of them filming that scene to see it play out.
The roller coaster cars are not in the shot with a camera spins off. I really doubt the coaster had anything to do with it - probably just have that camera attached to the helicopter and flew briefly along the top of the track and then spun off.
Literally right after the camera spins, the roller coaster goes by in the same shot... Meaning the cars were right behind the helicopter while they were doing the stunt.
Sure, but OP said, "they mounted a camera on the skids of a helicopter with the cameraman laying flat" and since we can clearly see feet standing on the skid of the helicopter we know that OP is a filthy liar and made this whole fantasy up!!!
The same coaster is in Kings Island in Cincinnati. They used to run backwards too, for about 20 years without incident. They lost insurance to run them backwards because that wasn’t part of the original design engineering and therefore too dangerous to insure.
sometimes if a thing is popular or will become popular, one company will operate several smaller companies doing similar things with regional variances.
kings dominion is like kings island in that it's a paramount amusement park product but it's based in virginia, which is not in mason, ohio.
Damn sure. It's well established that it's Kings Dominion, they use the real name of the park in the movie and they feature several rides and locations unique to Kings Dominion. Plus Kings Dominion at that time featured the giant lake as a centerpiece which Kings Island never had.
It was owned by Paramount for the longest time until recently (late 2000's I think). They had whole nickelodeon section, a bubba Gump restaurant, a days of thunder ride, and whole suite of paramount rides, even a yogi bear area lol
You know how outside of the ride they had the giant screen playing a video to hype the audience (i.e. keep from being too bored)? They had long rows separated by railing with painted pairs of footprints to get folks to line up with the correct number of people for the number of seats inside the theater.
Yeah, my friend was on LSD that day and thought the part with the spraypainted footprints was the ride. He was very confused when the doors opened up and we went in for more. During the ride he was holding an invisible steering wheel and cackling so loud that other people were bending & straining trying to see who was enjoying the ride so much more than them.
That was almost as good as watching him stumble over and over into the walls when we were exiting the time shaft.
Was Rebel Yell an exact replica of the Racer in Kings Island? Never realized there was more than one.. did they also have an Eiffel Tower replica? I saw both in the clip but the scenery looked all wrong so I was going crazy trying to figure out how it was Kings Island
Yep, both the Racer and Eiffel Tower replicas at both park. They also had a third "Racer" at Carowinds called "Thunder Road" but sadly they closed it down
Another bit of trivia: The priest who pops up at the end of one chase (as the obviously wrong person instead of who they were after) really is an ordained Catholic priest. I knew some relatives of his and it's a bit of family lore that he's in the film. As I remember it he happened to be at King's Dominion that day when the people making the movie saw him and asked him to be in that scene.
You might not have remembered it. Being released about a month after Star Wars, the release was completely drowned by the Star Wars tidal wave sweeping America and the world. If Universal had even the slightest inkling, they would have released it in the first quarter of 1977 and it would have had a better chance.
I saw this movie when I was 6 because Star Wars was sold out. My dad took us to see Rollercoaster instead. Never rode a rollercoaster until I got to college out of sheer terror caused by this movie.
Indeed! Nowadays you can capture the same kind of shot with a drone, so definitely a much lower risk (and easier to do retakes). Some modern day drone based roller coaster videography is absolutely stunning. I wish we could get a modern remake of this movie just to show off some of the cool ways they can film it!
While I’m not the producer or played any part in making the film. I would say, why would they need a crane?
They already had the chopper rented and rigged for filming all the other major shots of the coaster and park. They were able to achieve the shot in question successfully using the chopper. Renting a crane and the logistics of moving it and setting it into position would’ve costed them more time and money in the park while limiting what they could film. So it likely just wasn’t worth the expense and hassle.
Ironically the climax of the film takes place on the July 4th, 1976 featuring Six Flags Magic Mountain's "Great American Revolution". It's a very patriotic and suspenseful scene (with a great demise for the villian). I absolutely loved the way they filmed the scenes with the Revolution as well.
Definitely super easy to do with a drone, some of the modern day drone based roller coaster videography is just amazing. Way to easy to pull off without needing CGI. However CGI might be useful for the opening crash scenes!
Now that I’ve read your description, you can totally see the shake from a helicopter as the camera does the final pan and settles to watch the roller coaster go down the tracks. Fucking unreal!
Unlocked core memory of riding this exact coaster as my first rollercoaster ride ever. The cinematography is insane, but I remember it felt crazy the first time as a kid.
Talking of Rollercoaster shooting, there is an interesting article out there about when they were shooting the mine cart scene in Raiders. They spent a lot of time working out how to create the most terrifying POV ride by experimenting with camera positions, moving the camera, locking off the camera etc, until they found the perfect formula to create what Speilberg wanted from the scene.
From what I understand they basically built a little roller coaster for that scene as well. Absolutely perfect scene to translate into a real theme park attraction!
Amazing. I've been looking for another such cinematographic marvel. I just can't find the name of the movie. It's what everyone called the 720 shot. There's a man who walks towards a woman and the camera does a weird 360 shot but it feels weird. It's in this European building. I think the movie was European.
Can anyone please help with the movie name?
Practical effects just feel so much more admirable & keep me involved in the movie. All this modern CGI has its place just not for every damn shot, you know?
My dad was actually in this movie. He was the General Manager of Kings Dominion, one of the amusement parks where they shot, during the time of production. They gave him the roll of the general manager, named Pierce, in the movie and a few scenes were shot in his actual office. I showed him this post last night as well as the link to the magazine article. He was there when the helicopter filmed the roller coaster called “The Rebel Yell.” He said, “The pilot was following the arcs of the track so close it was nuts.” He said, “Every time he did it I nearly shit myself.”
Oh damn! Yeah I imagine with him being ultimately responsible for the whole park and everything, I would imagine he was white knuckling the whole filming of this scene (and have insurance on speed dial).
I was wondering about where they shot those scenes in the office. It had such a great view of International Street plus all the cool little easter eggs like the hand drawn map of KD and such. It's really neat that they used his actual office for it!
I recently read "Kings Island: A Ride Through Time" as well that covers a lot of the story of the development of Kings Island/ Taft Broadcasting and KD. Sadly they don't talk much about KD (or the filming of this ride). But if I recall, your dad was previous the GM at Kings Island before moving to KD at this point?
NGL I am fangirling a bit right now at your comment. I bet he's got stories upon stories of his time at the parks and the work he's done! Thank you for sharing!
Awesome book. He wasn't the GM of Kings Island, but he was on the board of directors and part of the whole thing from day one. His stories are awesome, hilarious, insane, and endless.
This is one of me and my dad's favorite movies! For anyone that looks into the behind of scenes of how everything was done, it considered a masterpiece at the time considering what they had to work with back then.
This film was the genesis of my coaster enthusiasm at a young age. It's a solid movie that belongs more in league with something like The Parallax View than with films like Earthquake and Airport. Always happy to see people who also love it.
This movie was relevant to my childhood for several reasons. First, me and my family were there that day they filmed this shot. My mom and I are even in a B roll shot waiting in line for a different ride. We didn’t know anything about the shoot when we entered the park. We rode the rebel yell that day and as we were slowly going up the first incline, noticed a side track about half way up where they stored or worked on cars that weren’t actively running filled with actors/extras. That helicopter was also hovering at the top of the first drop when we went over. The second part of the story that I still tell is about the wooden coaster that was at the beachfront in Virginia Beach which they blew up for a shot in the movie. I grew up at that beachfront, and we went to that park often, but my mother would never let us ride that coaster because she thought it was so old and rickety that it might literally fall apart while we were on it. Well, if memory serves correctly, the effects team for Rollercoaster had to use three different detonations to get that coaster to actually come down. That park had been closed for a while and developers were tearing it down anyway, so allowed the movie makers to blow the damn thing up. Looked rickety, but was apparently rock solid, and we could have been riding all those years my mom thought it was about to fall on its own. I’ll have to watch the link and grab a screenshot of me and my mom.
So you’re close, the Ocean View Rocket was used in this movie for the opening scene where the train goes off the rails and crashes. However the sequence your describing was filmed for a different movie “The Death of Ocean View Park” which was filmed just after “Rollercoaster” and featured the explosions you mentioned
Good catch. My memories are definitely foggy. In my under-aged minds eye, I swear I thought the camera man was hanging upside down from a trapeze - like setup when they were hovering at the top of the Rebel Yell, but that was way before I learned about actual film production, so probably a false memory.
Here's screenshots of a pic from the American Cinematographer article I linked above
There is a guy laying strapped to a board on the helicopter skids holding the camera. They basically flew the chopper as close to the level of the train as they could and then some skillful piloting to compensate for the camera guy's huge balls.
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u/Cinemiketography Jul 12 '25
Wow... thats insane