There were five helicopters working throughout the shoot, with numbers rising to 10 during periods of intense aerial activity. Two Bell 212 heavy-load aircraft were used to ferry people and sling equipment into the remote locations. Painted military khaki, they also served as Major Rasul's helicopter on camera. Normally piloted by New Zealanders, the helicopters are based in Papua New Guinea for use on oil rigs and construction sites.
The other on-camera helicopters, an SA365 Dauphin and a BK 117, were painted white with red insignia, the colors of entrepreneur Elliot Vaughn's Majestic Airlines.
Aerial coordinator David Paris says Vertical Limit had the biggest helicopter requirement of any film he has worked on. At Mt. Cook, getting all the equipment and personnel up to a location 15 miles away at 10,000 feet within two hours was not easy. The other challenge was the weather. "We had to have the ability to pull people off the mountain immediately if the weather moved in," says Paris. "We also had helicopters spread over different areas, because while main unit was at Mt. Cook, second unit and set construction were working out of Queenstown."
For Academy Award®-nominated sound mixer Kathleen "Pud" Cusack, the fact that Vertical Limit is set on a mountain made it essential to record "clean" sound.
"A film on a mountain is almost harder than a period film. When you're doing a contemporary film set in downtown LA, it's supposed to be downtown LA, and if you have extraneous noise you can work with it. If you're doing a period piece set in the 1700s and you have a plane go by, it's a bit of a problem. But you still have noises, so it could be anything. Up on the mountain, however, no noises make any sense other than wind and the sounds the people make, like the clanking of their climbing gear.
"At 26,000 feet, where the script is set, it's too high for helicopters and too high for birds. There's nothing green and no running water. It's pretty sterile.
"I found out a lot about wind," continues Cusack. "Wind really doesn't make any sound. The only thing that makes sound is when wind hits something. Mt. Cook had some wonderful wind."
Movie Database
In Theaters
