By Paul Locher
The Daily Record
ORRVILLE, Ohio — It was lights, camera and some very unusual action for Orrville firefighters when the fire department went Hollywood. Or something close to that, anyhow.
About two dozen firemen braved bone-rattling wind-chill temperatures in the mid teens for hours Wednesday as they stood with numerous pieces of firefighting equipment at theof Matthew Drive, waiting to play themselves in an unusual video production.
The video shoot, which included hired actors, was being done for a promotional film made for the Will-Burt Co. to demonstrate the real-life capabilities of its emergency scene lighting masts.
Overseeing the production were Allen McAfoos, Will-Burt’s national sales manager, and Scott Hinterleiter, director of marketing and business development. The company hired Canton-based Pyne Ridge Video Productions, whose staff was out in the darkness with all the lighting, boom microphones, cameras and other filmmaking paraphernalia one would expect to see on a Hollywood movie set, right down to director Ben Evans calling for “Quiet on the set!” and “Action!”
McAfoos said the video will debut in Indianapolis in March at the largest trade show for firefighting in the nation. He said the video will help drive home the point to fire departments that “while our light towers are not always a necessity, they should become one.”
Hinterleiter said the purpose of the video would be to show how typical perimeter lighting at a nighttime accident can be enhanced by Will-Burt’s Night Scan towers.
Two major pieces of firefighting equipment are equipped with Will- Burt Night Scan towers. Will-Burt donated the towers.
Hinterleiter said most of the smaller fire departments in Wayne County now have a vehicle equipped with the Night Scan towers, although Wooster’s Fire Department does not have them.
The plot of Wednesday night’s filming was that a car with multiple passengers had crashed into a utility pole. The fire chief arrives on the scene, finds the smoking vehicle and radios for an emergency response. Firefighters respond to the accident as they typically would, initially using standard perimeter lighting. However, when the unit equipped with Night Scan lighting arrives, it makes a huge difference, turning the area into daylight.
In the opening “scene,” Fire Chief Bob Ballentine zooms his command car, lights flashing, down Matthew Drive to the blue Dodge Intrepid that is smashed into a utility pole.
But that’s theof Ballentine’s stunt work. Emerging from the command car in the video will be an actor attired in Ballentine’s turnout gear who plays the chief radioing for the needed response while two cameras roll and sound technicians hold a boom microphone over his head to capture the dialogue.
Ballentine quipped he wished the crew had hired Harrison Ford to portray him in the film.
Nevertheless Ballentine, whose opening run took three takes, was clearly having a good time.
“It’s quite a unique thing for us to be involved in,” Ballentine said. “It’s the least we can do for Will-Burt, which has supported this department in so many ways over the years. We really appreciate that support and the guys felt this was something we wanted to be involved in.”
McAfoos said the production company had studied logs of emergency calls at the Orrville Police Department in creating the script for the actors in the video.
He also recounted how earlier in the day Wednesday a tow truck delivered a previous wrecked car to the shooting location, dropping it off at the intersection of Matthew Drive and Hostetler Road. From there a group of Will-Burt employees pushed the vehicle down Matthew Drive. Then the employees got behind the car and shoved it into a utility pole.
By then, McAfoos said, everyone had gotten pretty cold and ran back up Matthew to get into their warm vehicles.
About the same time, McAfoos said, the dispatch center at the Orrville Police Department began lighting up with calls from nearby homeowners reporting a gang of youths were vandalizing a car on Matthew Drive and running away. McAfoos said the group had some explaining to do to the police officers.
During Wednesday night’s filming, which lasted until almost 10 p.m., the video crew filmed the action from high above the scene, using the Orrville Fire Department’s ladder truck to illustrate the improvement in lighting when the Night Scan unit arrived.
Hinterleiter said the video crew plans to film at two other sites in Orrville this week, one being at a residence in the city where a house fire scene would be simulated, and the second in a field behind Fire Station No. 2 on Crown Hill Road where the distance a Night Scan unit could throw light would be illustrated.
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