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Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Quiet on the set . . . . . Action!
Tarentum RPC's (Pennsylvania) member, Tom Erdner relayed a story about a call he had recently. Many thanks to Tom for sharing his hobby, and sharing this story with us.
'In late June I got a call from the owner of Animal Actors, Inc. in New York asking if I knew anyone who could provide pigeons for release in a movie they would be filming after July 4 in Pittsburgh. He found me through our club website. I told him I could as we had just finished up our OB season and I had birds in plenty good enough shape to make a local flight. He said "Great!" and added that he was relieved to find me as he had some pigeons at his property in NJ but wasn't confident they could make the flight from Pittsburgh. He went on to say that over the years he's kept all kinds of animals in several barns there. He even had an elephant at one time!
He called me in a bit of a panic the next day and said that the film schedule had been moved up and they were going to shoot the scene two days later at the Leetsdale Boat Dock in Leetsdale, PA, which is about 20 air miles from my loft. I met them there with the birds. It as a very hot, sunny, muggy day.
Turns out they were shooting scenes for an episode of "The Mayor of Kingstown", a crime series about political corruption in a city surrounded by three prisons. The town's economy revolves around the activities of those prisons. Jeremy Renner plays the part of Mayor. The series runs on Paramount Plus.
The scene they were shooting opens with the Mayor (Renner) waiting at a remote boat dock for a clandestine meeting with a couple of thugs. As he walks out on the dock, he sees an old man who had been fishing there release a pigeon. He asks the old man if that was a homing pigeon. The old man says "Yes' and goes on to explain that he communicates with his son in Detroit via pigeon. He says the bird was carrying a note. (They had previously filmed the old man putting a note in the message container and then tying the container on the bird's leg). Renner wryly says, "I use a telephone." The old man makes a few nonsensical remarks (to a pigeon flyer) such as "I've missed a lot of phone calls, but I ain't never missed a pigeon" and "A pigeon can fly from Pittsburgh to Detroit and back in about four hours." They chat a bit longer and the thugs arrive. Renner wishes the old man well and walks off the dock to his meeting.
The shoot reminded of my long-ago life in the military -- "Hurry up and wait." It was along, tedious day. I arrived at 11:30 am and got home about 9:30 pm.
The old man actor was a piece of work. He admitted he was "afraid them birds would bite me." I showed him repeatedly how to reach into the crate and catch the bird, and how to hold it with one hand, but he was too distracted about remembering his lines and not "getting bit" that he didn't pay attention to what I was telling him. So later, I had to sit and grind my teeth as he pulled my magnificent birds one by one out of the crate by their wings or their necks in each take.
I was surprised that the pigeon release had nothing to do with the movie's plot, unlike the scene in John Wick where Laurence Fishburne communicates with his Bowery crew by pigeon to avoid telephone bugs and Internet IP address tracking. I guess it was just a human interest angle.
There was a tremendous amount of interest in my birds from many members of the crew. They couldn't believe that my birds would actually fly the 20 miles back to my loft. Most thought the birds would just go out, fly a couple of loops over the river, then come back to the crate. When I told them that we regularly race them up to 600 miles, they were amazed and slack jawed. "No way!"
"Yeah! Way!"
With all the standing around, I had several chances to explain pigeon racing to the curious. I don't know if we will gain any members as a result, but it was fun. The most gratifying remark -- "They're beautiful. They sure don't look like the pigeons in Central Park." '
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