Helicopters For Free

A common thread throughout these post has been how low-budget ‘Billy Jack’ was. Here’s more: when the film was shut down in the Fall of 1969 (almost sounds like it should be a song by Bryan Adams), Tom and Delores scrambled to find a way to a) replace the money they’d lost, and b) get the production back on track. While they were taking meetings back in Los Angeles, showing parts of their completed film, the film commission (the folks who try to get films to come to their state) from New Mexico came to town.

Tom and Delores got a meeting and proceeded to convince the commission that finishing ‘Billy Jack’ in New Mexico would be such a good thing for the state that not only should the commission help them, it should throw in a lot of stuff that Tom and Delores didn’t have the budget to pay for. Things like policemen, police cars, hotel rooms, and two helicopters.

Tom had always envisioned a long, high shot at the end of the film but never figured they’d actually have a hill in the right place or a helicopter to pull it off. The song and dance they did for the New Mexico film commission solved the problem. But just because you have a helicopter, doesn’t mean you’re ready to shoot.

Helicopters used to shoot movies usually have camera mounts. Even back in 1970, the mounts were crude, but they existed. While the state provided helicopters, how to use it for shooting a movie was up to cameraman Fred Koenekamp and his crew. What did they come up with? Rope.

They had been shooting the departure scene all day. They had all those extras out in the desert for one day. There was no tomorrow. By the time they finished everything else and were ready to shoot from the helicopter, there wasn’t a lot of time. The sun was going down. It was shoot now, or forever give up the shot. So Fred and the grips literally tied Fred into the helicopter (you can see the rope) and put a camera in his hands. And that’s how the last shot of ‘Billy Jack’ came to be.