December 16th – Dennis McGrane

DENNIS McGRANE
Winter Park Ski Team  US Ski Jumping Olympic Team ’84 and ’88
Now owns a water engineering company in Lyons, CO
dennis@mcgranewater.com  303.917.1247

Michael and his Magic

Do you want to know who gave Michael Jackson his “Magic?”

Every commercial that involved ski-jumping back in the 1980s had a ski-jumper who served as the local expert.   Remember the cardboard container commercial that held a crystal that was catapulted off the Steamboat large hill?  We can credit the local ski-jumping expert, John Benzie (coach at the time), for that knoll cracking success.  What about the Miller Beer commercial filmed in Park City, Utah?   It was my Winter Park hero and University of Utah NCAA jumping progeny, Scott Clayton, who “sculpted” a ski jump out of 30 feet of snow.    The last one that I recall was in 1985 or 86 when Scott Smith and I got a call from a bigshot Hollywood producer (Joe Pytka) who was filming a Pepsi commercial that starred Michael Jackson (MJ) and was going to air during the Grammy Awards.  They needed some local stuntmen.  That be Scott Smith (“Smitty”) and me.

At the time, I was taking a couple of years off between the Sarajevo and Calgary Olympics and Smitty was on the domestic tour while the National “A” team was in Europe….opportunity knocked.   I remember calling up Scott and making him promise to hold out for $500 a jump.  After our deal was penned in ink, we were super excited until we heard MJ was making $20M for his role.   However, our regret was replaced with excitement a week later when, loaded with dozens of bags of camera gear, we headed for Lake Placid.

Once there, we went straight to “makeup” to try on MJ’s clothes…are we bad or what?

After make-up, we were told more about the cinematography:  no helmets, no goggles, no gloves, and we had to cover our skis and boots with black electrical tape.   Gulp! It got better when Joe asked, “Now which one of you boys is going to wear the camera on their head?”  I turned to see a film camera (not a Go Pro) bolted to a motorcycle helmet.   I looked at the actual cameraman and asked, “How much does it weigh?” “About 50 pounds,” he said.  At that point, I remained silent hoping Scott would volunteer.  I then glanced toward Scott only to see his mustache starting to twitch.  I said, “I’ll do it.”  After all, I didn’t want to blow the chance of a lifetime, right?  So, I picked up the helmet only to find out the camera side (right side) weighed about 5 pounds and the left (battery) side weighed about 25.   Blinded by greed and optimism, I decided this could be solved by jumping more off my left leg.

Before we knew it, we were climbing the stairs up the Normal Hill (K90ish).   “Which start,” I asked shivering Joe (he didn’t bring a hat from Hollywood).   Yep, you guessed it, top start.  If there was a picnic table up there, we would have been on it.   I had not been above start 4 since the last world cup where I placed in the “stink-hole,” 16^th (one had to place in the top 15 to earn world cup points (aka “cuppies”) back then).    My heart raced….time to use my psychological skills to visualize success.   I was not thinking clearly with my head listing hard left.  

Smitty stood tall and confident in front of me at the start.   I said a prayer, more petrified than my ski-flying experiences at Oberstdorf and Vickersund. 

My tips were on Smitty’s tails when the flagman signaled and producer yelled “roll ‘um.”   “Whatever you do, Dennis,” Smitty said, “stay close.”   Taking this at face value, we pulled out exactly together and I rode Scott’s tails all the way past starting gate number 1.   In a panic, I thought…Smitty didn’t wax!   I rose from my crouch for a brief second and the increased drag pushed me back off Scott’s tails and into the track.  We hit light speed at the takeoff, with me only 15 feet behind.   Through a cloud of snow, I see Smitty fade away from my view to the right.   I jumped left (mostly via gravity from the lead and acid taped to my ear).   Once in the air, the image of crystal exploding on the Steamboat knoll ran replays in my head.  Actually, I was contemplating whether my head was going to separate from my body if I head-planted. 

We landed without mishap and cruised to a stop.   Ka-ching…..we just went “pro” baby!!!   I think we called it “easy” money.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to take any more jumps with what I now called the “death-cam,” and each of us scored about 15 jumps total, mostly on the big hill.  Do the math.  Unfortunately, since they really needed the shot from behind for the video (see link below), they only used footage of Scott in the commercial.   When I called and asked about my paycheck for residuals from the actual commercial, they said, “Sorry kid, cameramen don’t make residuals.”  Only Scott made more $ from that point, but that cabbage still holds a personal record for me.   I think Scott spent some of his earnings moving the Ely ski-jump to Cary, Illinois.  Thank you Scott for an amazing weekend…..it was Magical!

If you want to see the commercial, called “Michael and his Magic,” check out the Youtube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ8KrT3pPvY   The commercial, was shown in 4 parts.   It begins at time = 3:30 and the ski-jumping begins at time = 5:38 min.