THE BACKSTORY

“Could I book a round trip ticket?”

I was speaking to Captain Gavin Crouch, co-ordinator of Canada’s aerobatics military flying team, The Snowbirds.

“A round trip ticket? For a Fly by? Not sure I understand”, he said.

It is unquestionably one of the most exciting moments of the Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill. For a producer, it’s a treasured segment; thrilling, thunderous and thrifty…free in fact. You don’t get many moments like that in a show. So, naturally, I wanted it twice.

“Yes, round trip, please. Fly over the House of Commons direction north at precisely 12.05, hit a u-turn and fly back, direction south, cresting over the Peace Tower exactly one minute and thirty-six seconds, and five frames later”.

“Well, we’ve never done this before”, Captain Crouch told me which is exactly what a producer wants to hear from a guy in a red fight suit.

“It’s going to require some math, speed of the plane, the velocity of the wind…etc.”.

I was using the fly-by as sound design – musical punctuation to the ending of the opening number. We needed it to frame perfect and in 2005 it was. In 2011, it was late, by about two seconds, the longest two seconds of my life.

“Captain, if I wanted a late fly over, I would have booked Air Canada”.

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