‘The Rehearsal’ Finale Nathan Fielder’s Flight Approval Process

“The Rehearsal” has perhaps by no means been more true to its identify than in its Season 2 finale, “My Controls,” which not solely wraps up creator Nathan Fielder’s impassioned thesis on the necessity for higher communication in airplane cockpits, however casually charts his (intentional or not) two-year rehearsal course of to fly an actual passenger jet filled with actual folks, the place the stakes of airplane security are actual, too. 

Fielder tends to choose to not focus on the method behind his initiatives exterior of what he and his crew select to incorporate as a part of “The Rehearsal” itself. HBO respects that want and likewise retains pretty mum about how “The Rehearsal” was made. However the flight that Fielder captained from San Bernardino and again once more acquired the IndieWire crew excited about how aerial sequences in movie and tv get authorized in any respect. Did Fielder have to lock the community attorneys assigned to Season 2 within Nate’s Lizard Lounge at some point of the two-hour and 10-minute flight? How was “The Rehearsal” cleared for takeoff? 

The secret for any type of stunt is threat administration, one thing that turns into infinitely extra advanced the extra specialised the motion is. Few would know that higher than Wade Eastwood, the stunt coordinator for the final 4 “Mission: Impossible” movies — together with the just lately launched “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” which, amongst different issues, options Tom Cruise flying and combating on prime of a classic biplane. IndieWire reached out to Eastwood to ask about how a movie crew goes about making ready to really shoot a sequence within the sky.  

“There is no form for how you put someone on the wing where they can move around freely and do the crazy stunts that Tom’s going to do,” Eastwood instructed IndieWire. “If you get into a forklift truck and you’re going to drive it [on camera], then you have to have this certification and you wear steel-toed shoes and all that. That’s normal. But this, people don’t do.” 

Step one in proving you are able to do one thing folks don’t usually do would, really, match into an episode of “The Rehearsal.” As soon as an aerial stunt’s been conceived of, along with planning the best way to execute it efficiently, the crew additionally must generate a worst-case situation end result. One of many issues is one which Episode 3, “Pilot’s Code,” offers with instantly: hen strikes. “ There’s obviously always an element of danger. Something could happen. An engine could fail. A bird strike. You know, there’s all sorts of things that we try and eliminate as much as possible,” Eastwood stated. 

In the event you’re Tom Cruise and also you’re strapped into the wing of a biplane simply sufficient that you may nonetheless be scrambling across the fuselage, then air particles and prop blasts are a priority, too. However even with Fielder safely contained in the cockpit of a 737, partnered with a co-pilot with over 5,000 flight hours, the purpose is identical: “ We do as much as we can to make the red box turn green, if you like, on the safety,” Eastwood stated. 

It’s a backwards and forwards between the protection crew doing that threat evaluation and the choice makers who insure the manufacturing and its belongings, together with expertise, that determines the colour of the proverbial field. 

For the “M:I” movies, this entails a good quantity of testing and each video and written documentation to show a stunt is doable to the satisfaction of the manufacturing crew earlier than Cruise even begins rehearsing it on the bottom. However even “The Rehearsal,” which aspired to run a business airline flight below as strange and unremarkable a set of circumstances as doable, has to reply an identical set of questions: Have they got the precise gear, and are there sufficient redundancies and educated personnel to slender the danger all the way down to an appropriate, insurable degree? 

For “The Rehearsal,” we see a few of that prep work within the present’s most gorgeous flashback thus far — the 2 years that Fielder spent coaching to turn out to be a licensed commercial pilot type-rated to fly a 737, and the present’s seek for a rentable 737 secure sufficient to fly. Fielder was nonetheless most likely nicely in need of the flight hours wanted to realize his airline transport pilot’s license on the time of capturing “The Rehearsal” finale, which is the certification that the overwhelming majority of pilots flying passenger planes have. 

Besides, Fielder devoted himself to studying sufficient materials to fill a university diploma in a condensed period of time, along with his work as a comic. Though it comes out a little bit bit heartbreaking as the ultimate voiceover of the collection, from an insurance coverage perspective if Fielder’s allowed to be within the cockpit, then he should be wonderful. 

The primary reply, due to this fact, in how “The Rehearsal” acquired away with packing an actual airplane filled with actual folks (even when they’re actors) and flying it within the precise sky is that Fielder did the work to be certified to fly it, that the manufacturing discovered a airplane airworthy sufficient (fortunately, with out hen nests), and that the crew round Fielder, from his co-pilot to the present’s aviation consultants (two are credited within the episode, Steve Giordano and Robert Allen) to the crew within the chase airplane, had been skilled sufficient for HBO’s military of attorneys to agree that they had certainly mitigated as a lot threat as doable. 

“ I just have to make sure that the team around [Cruise] is as strong and as safe and as together as possible so that he can create and do what he wants to do,” Eastwood stated. Solely time and a possible Season 3 of “The Rehearsal” will inform what different stunts, aerial or in any other case, Fielder will create subsequent. 

“The Rehearsal” is streaming on HBO Max.