Left: Planes: Fire & Rescue. Right: Planes Producer Ferrell Barron
Thousands of people will be watching the sky above Ford Island this weekend. The Biggest Little Airshow starts tomorrow, showcasing real and remote-control aircraft at the Pacific Aviation Museum. Kids will be able to peek inside cockpits of real planes, fly in a simulator, and watch remote-control models fly stunts over the airfield. But this year, one of the big draws is actually on the big screen instead of the tarmac.
Planes: Fire & Rescue will play in Hangar 79 Saturday night. The latest installment of Disney’s popular Planes movie tells the story of Dusty, a top racing plane, who is injured and discovers a new life as a firefighter. The free screening is a treat for kids and parents at the Airshow. But it is also a special moment for Planes producer Ferrell Barron, who will be introducing the film to local viewers.
It took four years of production, involving a team of 900 people, to create this new Disney classic. One hundred were consultants, and most of them were firefighter, air attack officers and their teams.
“The tag line [of the movie] is ‘When others fly out, heroes fly in,’” Barron said. “That’s what the firefighters do. No other profession has such a selfless act.”
The Planes crew worked very closely with CAL FIRE, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection which protects more than 31 million acres and responds to more than 5,600 wildland fires every year.
“We just entrenched ourselves with this group of incredibly brave men and women,” Barron said. “We went to their training exercises in Redding [California] in the middle of the forest.”
Also participating in that training exercise were smokejumpers for the US Forest Service. These men and women parachute in to fight flames on the ground.
“The alarm goes off. … They have to jump into gear, put on all the gear and take off within three minutes,” Barron said. “To be on the side, watching them was amazing. … We had GoPro cameras strapped to some of them. They can literally land on a rock. Pinpoint accuracy.”
Accuracy was the goal of the Planes team as well, especially when it came to the portrayal of the firefighters and airplanes. CAL FIRE, the US Forest Service, aviation experts and more were involved from the beginning, giving insight on everything from the story development to exact dialogue to the sound effects.
“We had a smokejumper work with my sound designer to make sure that the sounds that he would hear in the middle of a forest fire was accurate,” Barron said. “ ‘This sounds right, but there should be a little more this and that.’”
CAL FIRE and smokejumpers were among the first to see it at the premiere, and were only a few to spot a tribute animators worked into the film. At bases, many firefighting teams have a Wall of Fame, honoring pilots or aircraft lost in the line of duty. In Planes: Fire & Rescue, the team has a Wall of Fame as well. On it, animators added two aircraft, accurate down to the tail numbers, that went down in California.
“So many of [the CAL FIRE and jumpers] caught that,” Barron said. “What it meant for them to come up to us afterwards and thank us for paying tribute to their friends. It means so much to us and so much to them.”
Two smaller consultants were just as important a part of the Planes team − Barron’s 3- and 5-year-old boys, who were his youngest, and most personal, test audience.
“I was very careful,” Barron said. “I showed them little glimpses throughout production to get their reaction. Especially the big firefighting stuff to see if it was too scary.”
Apparently not. The boys have seen the film four times now and still love it. They’re not just learning about firefighting. Barron says they’re learning an important life lesson about second chances.
“It kind of sounds like a grown up topic, “ Barron said, “but really not, it’s an important lesson for kids to learn and for adults to remember.“
Eight years ago, Barron’s own path took him from Disney to creating documentary series for an aviation company. That “second chance” introduced him to the fascinating history and experience of working with World War II planes. He returned to Disney for the chance to combine his passion for animation with his passion for aviation in Planes: Fire & Rescue. The fact that the film also brought him back to Hawaii for the first time since he and his wife got engaged on Kauai, makes the journey better.
“To be involved in this movie, to be at Pacific Aviation Museum at Pearl Harbor, it’s [like my life has] come full circle,” Barron said. “It’s a dream come true for me.”
Planes: Fire & Rescue plays at the Biggest Little Airshow on Saturday, August 16 at 5:30 p.m. Tickets for the screening are available at the Airshow starting at 3 p.m., first come, first serve. The Biggest Little Airshow is Saturday and Sunday, August 16 and 17 at the Pacific Aviation Museum, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Read more in our Weekend Guide or at pacificaviationmuseum.org.
