#fix-it factory

how we rigged the 15 individual lines for the 5 hot air balloons. thanks to @erica_hampton for staying late at the office and helping me :) you’re too good to me * 

This photo still makes me laugh. I kept this crazy contraption, it's now sitting back by my desk. This was made for an effect of several hot air balloons rising during a celebration scene - we wanted to pull the effect off in camera, vs shooting the balloons on green screen. 

So, to explain what exactly happening here, each clothes pin is holding a piece of fishing-line; each piece of fishing-line runs about 4 ft in the air, looping over a free-spinning guide, then reaching another 10 ft forward (to clear the mountain set) and back down 4 ft to where the balloons are floating. It took 3 fishing-lines to hold and steady each of 5 balloons.

Then, the entire clothes pin plate was attached with weights, pulling it downward on the slider track, a piece of copper wire was fed up and over the 30 ft long set to a focus motor  running through Dragonframe, which let out the copper wire very slowly over the corse of the shot, letting the balloons drift upwards at a controlled pace. 

To see the whole thing in action was pretty ridiculous - a mess of fishing line criss-crossing through all the speed rail rigged above the set. There's footage of it somewhere, as soon as I find it, I'll be sure to share more.