Reasons to Love New York
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In most cities, filmmakers now shoot their overhead footage with drones.
Cerullos aviation career began with a 13-month tour in Vietnam flying attack helicopters.
I used to go between trees, taking down branches, he says.
He was shot down and awarded a Purple Heart, and he came home to Long Island in 1968.
Occasionally, cameras are pointed at Cerullo, who joined the unions that became SAG-AFTRA in 1978.
It took us three months to get that permit.
Come on, guys.
Just watch the movie.
He has larger anachronisms to worry about.
Improvements in special effects have made Cerullos job easier, but his best war stories are from pre-CGI assignments.
We had to come back and do it again the following weekend with a whole new boat.
The production rented the penthouse where she was supposed to live but not the apartment below it.
So whoever lived there started throwing tomatoes at us.
Somebody had to go downstairs and buy them out, too.
After 9/11, Cerullo couldnt work for six months because New York was a no-fly zone.
Everybody was paranoid, he says.
They thought we were going to crash into the building like kamikazes or whatever.
But we still got the shots we needed.
Even though he earns the same daily rate no matter the job, Cerullo prefers the harder ones.
Just shooting B-roll is fine, I guess.
ForSleepless in Seattle,okay, I got to get a little close to the Empire State Building.
Thats nice, I suppose.
But I like the stuff thats a challenge.
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