Admin note: Last fall, ACC student, Nicole Wruth created a short video production as part of her course work to air on Bell Fibe TV. Part of her production was a flight in our Tiger Moth. I asked her to write a guest blog post about her adventure! A big thanks to Nicole for doing this, the footage of the Moth is fantastic! Find Nicole on Instagram at @NicoleWruth
Last October something amazing happened, I managed to get myself a flight on a 1942 Tiger Moth airplane. Was I scared? Maybe a little. The airplane did seem a little “flimsy” by today’s standards, but once I got up in the air overlooking rivers, trains and felt the breeze on my face, all my troubles seemed to float away. Here is how it started.
For the past two years I have been a student at Assiniboine Community College studying Media and Communications. Before this I had studied Fine Arts and a few years later became a public-school teacher. I have always had that inkling to do something different, and that different was to work on television (whatever that meant). So, after 6 years of teaching, and a few self-help books later, I found myself back in college at 32 focusing my attention on something I have always wanted to do. We did so many things; radio personality, created mini-docs, podcasts, live multi-cam, and in my second year, we got the opportunity to create our own TV show in partnership with Bell TV (the producer came to Brandon to hear our pitches and everything). I had so many ideas but managed to break it down into one show idea that the producer liked. I chose to make it about my other passion, travel. My show idea had a bit of a twist, it was going to be about local travel, traveling in your own backyard. Partly because I couldn’t afford the plane ticket to Italy mid semester (haha), and partly because I am guilty of traveling the world, yet neglecting the sights and sounds of what is just down the road. So, the basis of my episode is just that, can I find the same sort of thrills that I find when travelling, here at home.
Now that my idea was intact, the Bell TV producer gave me the thumbs up, I was good to go! There was a A LOT of moving parts to this show. I was going to host, write, direct, find my experts, “hire” two classmates as camera people, fly a drone and then edit. All while trying to make it look like it was all filmed in one day, aka, I must get this done before it snows, and it can snow any minute kind of pressure. First thing I did was search for my experts. I needed to find an adventure, good food, and a historical site in Brandon. For historical site, I immediately thought of the beautiful biplane at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum that I remembered seeing a few years ago in their hangar. I remember being shocked that you could book a flight in it! This brings me back to my original point of the show, flying this plane has always been a possibility but I have never done it. But if I was traveling in some European country as a tourist and saw that you could have a ride in a biplane, well, I would 100% do it. So, I paid the museum a visit to see if they wanted to be a part of the show.
A chat, a few emails and one phone call later I found myself with a camera crew, wireless mics, GoPro and a drone on a sunny day ready to film me meeting pilot Robert Glover. Like I said, there were a lot of moving pieces. It was my first time hosting a show and first time directing a two-camera shoot. A week before I got special permissions to fly my drone and organized to have my crew driven out to the runway. The museum staff and the Brandon Airport staff were so helpful and kind. We spent some time filming on the ground as I interviewed pilot Robert about the plane and then we took off!
I can’t tell you how incredible it was to fly in an open top plane, a bi-plane! As Robert said, there is truly something magical about being up in the air seeing those two golden wings beside you. It was stunning, and I felt completely relaxed. The golden fields, rivers, I could even see some cows running and a train passing over a bridge. I never wanted the flight to end.
My episode is called Is Brandon Boring and has recently aired on Bell Fibe TV and is now allowed to be shown on my YouTube (link at the bottom). Be sure to check it out and feel free to share with your friends! Creating this episode was a tremendous learning experience. Are there things I would have done differently? You bet! Am I proud of the result? Definitely! I have a whole new appreciation for my new home of Brandon. As well as creating TV (haha).
Nicole has recently graduated from Media & Communications and plans to run her own media business doing video work, photography, mini-documentaries, and podcasts. You can check out her recent work on www.studionicole.ca and her Instagram page @nicolewruth . She currently works for Trident Films.
Check out her episode “Is Brandon Boring” by clicking below:
Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum & RCAF WWII Memorial 