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a squirrel?
Courtesy photo
Local skydiver Andy Farrington wingsuits with the Red Bull Air Force, and donned the suit as a
stunt-diver for "Transformers 3."
Local skydiver a stuntman in "Transformers 3" movie
By NATALIE JOHNSON
In the past few years, the
skydiving world has seen a
resurgence of a unique sub-
set of the sport - wingsuit-
ing.
"You're basically like a
flying squirrel," said Andy
Farrington.
Farrington, whose family
owns Kapowsin Air Sports
in Shelton, recently donned
one of these flying squirrel-
like wingsuits as a stunt-
man in "Transformers 3."
"We jumped off of the
Sears Tower in downtown
Chicago, we jumped off the
Trump Tower and also we
were able to jump out of
a helicopter probably ten
times," he said. "It was awe-
some, obviously. Normally
base jumping is illegal, es-
pecially through buildings.
Normally that's trespass-
ing, but they basically gave
us red-carpet treatment
through the building."
Farrington said the scene
is about 45 minutes into the
movie, and involves a five-
person special-forces team
flying in wingsuits through
a portion of downtown Chi-
cago.
While flying through
buildings in a major city
was a new experience
for Farrington, wingsuit-
ing, and skydiving or base
jumping in general is not a
new experience. Farrington
has been skydiving since
for 16 years, since he was
16 years old.
"When my 16th birth-
day came around I made
15 jumps and got my driv-
ers license and went from
there," he said.
Since then, Farrington
joined a group called Red
Bull Air Force, which con-
sists of a group of 10 skydiv-
ers with various specialties,
whether it's basic skydiv-
ing, paragliding, basejump-
ing, or wingsuiting.
"I think between our
group of 10 people we have
100,000 skydives between
the group," he said. "We just
got done with a project over
in Europe where we were
already doing a lot of wing-
suit proximity flying, where
you fly the wingsuits next
to rocks and everything.
Normally that's yourself
and a video person but we
were doing it as three of us
and a video person."
The wingsuits stretch
wings of fabric between
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a divers arms and legs,
and between the legs, Far-
rington said. This allows
the jumper to ]hove forward
faster than tl~ey are fall-
ing down, and can extend a
jump from 10 seconds to 30.
"Normally you jump off
a cliff and that's 2,000 feet
and you get 10 seconds of
freefall.., with wlngsuits
you get 30-35 seconds of
free fall," he said.
The opportunity to work
on the set of "Transform-
ers" came rather out of the
blue, Farrington said, after
a friend and fellow skydiv-
er, J.T. Holmes, appeared
in a "60 Minutes" broad-
cast that "Transformers 3"
director Michael Bay hap-
pened to be watching.
"So he told his assistant
director to find a team,
and they called up J.T. and
asked, do you know five
guys who can do this?" Far-
rington said. "We were al-
ready doing it in a bigger
group than most people ...
so it was kind of a no-brain-
er."
Farrington said working
with Bay was a unique and
collaborative experience.
"They're obviously used
to directing normal action
scenes that you see in pret-
ty much every movie, like
cars rolling around and flip-
ping and everything, but
for them the wingsuit fly-
ing was 100 percent new,"
he said. "They're kind of
directing the scenes but we
helped."
While Farrington's face
isn't visible in the movie,
he said that it's cool to
know he's there on screen,
and appreciated not being
replaced by a computer ani-
mated skydiver.
"It's nice to see producers
there that are having real
stuntmen do the real stuff,
instead of, they could have
CGIed the whole thing and
to us it would have looked
really cheesy but maybe the
general public wouldn't see
much difference," he said.
Farrington doesn't have
any immediate plans to
work in another movie,
but will certainly skydive
soon.
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rriaay, ugust 5th
3:OOpm - 6:00pro
626 Lilly, Rd. NE
Olympia, 98506
Rubi's Delectible BufFet
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Please RSVP by Wed. Aq. 3rd
360-q91-qq35
Backpacks for Kids Drive
Garden Courte is once again rallying
support to help local area Foster children
in Thurston County by bringing in a new
backpack to our community at 626 Lilly
Rd. NE Olympia, from July 1st thru
August 19th (8:OOam-5:OOpm daily)
You can make a difference in a child's Ii~e
by yo~' backpack donation. Any size will
be accepted. . I
| .~ ,,, ~ All backpacks will be distributed to local |
" "(2-f( ~ ~' organizations of children in need
I
~AKING A DIFFERENCE ~ 1
TABLE #1
1
TABLE #2
TABLE #4
d
I Plus bargain tableS starting at 30% off
Selected clearance items in our big outdoor tents, Shop
early for the best selectiq ,n. All sales are final, No
refunds, no returns, no warrq reties, All merchandise as.is,
coming and
we need to make room!
First & Mill, Shelton
426-4373 or 426-2411
Monday-Saturday 7-6:30
Sunday 9-5
Shelton-Mason County Journal - lursday, July 28, 2011 - Pag~
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