The projects that don’t make sense
By Robert McCulloch
It’s not every day that a job makes you want to tell almost everyone about it.
It’s even rarer that it makes you more interesting, teaches you something about yourself and restores a little of your faith in people.
And if none of that hits your sweet spot, it’s definitely not every day that you get to fly towards a gigantic wildfire in a 1964 Huey that actually flew in Vietnam, with one of the best pilots in the world.
That job was making Fire Pilots.
It’s a 27-minute cinematic short about the South African helicopter pilots who fight wildfires from above. What began as a fairly naive curiosity took us into a world of serious fires and even more serious questions about purpose, service, flow state and death.
The hardest and most rewarding part of a project like this is access.
At first, the pilots had no idea who we were and no reason to trust us. Without that trust, nothing happens. But once you earn it, and there aren’t shortcuts, their world opens up. You get to fly with them, but more importantly, you get to ask questions they are willing to answer honestly.
That’s the part I really love.
Under normal circumstances, it might take years to have the conversations we had with these pilots. This kind of filmmaking places you inside someone else’s world and gives you permission to ask questions that everyday life seldom allows.
Mike Bothma, one of the pilots featured in the film, put it better than I could:
“The human connection and emotional side of the work I do is sometimes the most difficult to share. It’s hard to find the words that convey the situations and scenarios we experience. Rob and Rick managed to do this in a 27-minute film better than I have been able to in all my years of trying, writing and talking.”
These pilots operate at the absolute top of their game.
Flying above a raging fire is difficult enough. But fires arrive with little warning and are seldom in the same place. Below the helicopter hangs a bucket carrying a tonne of water. As it swings, it can place many times that force on the aircraft. It can also hook onto power lines or dead trees, known rather ominously as “widow-makers”, which are almost impossible to see from above.
When the bucket swings too far, they call it “the tail wagging the dog.”
That’s not good.
What surprised me most was what motivated the pilots. It wasn’t recognition, status or money. They clearly love flying, testing their abilities and, in many cases, the Hueys themselves. But the deeper reward seemed to come from using those abilities to help other people.
Homes. Communities. Wildlife. Complete strangers.
Again and again.
It made me think that service might be one of the more reliable routes to purpose. Mastering something is satisfying. Using that mastery to help someone else gives it meaning.
I’d be lying, though, if I said the action wasn’t part of what attracted me.
I remember standing halfway up the mountain during one of the first fires I watched, houses below me, smoke and gale force winds. Helicopters were collecting water from the harbour, flying directly overhead and nailing their drops, slingshotting them into the steep slopes, back and forth, in a rhythmic flow. Smoke, wind, sirens, multiple choppers. It was raw and visceral.
Something happened to me standing there. Watching people operate with that level of skill, in those conditions, with real consequences below them, I felt incredibly connected to what was happening. It was exhilarating, but it was also motivating. Whatever this story turned out to be, I suddenly felt a responsibility to do it justice.
That afternoon became the catalyst. I wanted to meet the pilots, understand their world and find out what was really going on. I went back to the team and said: “Guys, we need to make a film. I don’t know exactly what it’ll be, but it’s going to be awesome.”
The other truth is that commercially driven projects can sometimes run a little low on inspiration. I’m grateful for the work that pays the school fees, but it can also leave you feeling slightly empty.
A useful test is the quality of the stories you bring home. No story, or worse, a boring one, usually means the job itself was a little tedious.
The stories from Fire Pilots had everything: action, wonder, humour, fear, emotion and even friendship. The whole bang shoot.
What the project didn’t have was money.
It was funded entirely by us and Rick Wall Films. It exists because many talented people gave their time, skills and equipment incredibly generously. The pilots did the same.
And you think filling your diesel tank at the BP is stressful. Try filling a Huey.
The film did eventually make some money, but we gave every cent away.
We still hoped to turn Fire Pilots into a feature-length film, so we weren’t ready to release the shorter version publicly, and we still aren’t. But we needed people to see it. You only really know whether something works when you experience it with an audience.
We organised a series of private screenings around Cape Town and charged R100 a ticket, with all proceeds going to Volunteer Wildfire Services. Together, we raised around R150,000.
After each screening, we invited three or four pilots onto the stage. I encouraged the audience to ask the questions Google couldn’t answer, the ones you can only ask when the person is sitting directly in front of you.
Those conversations became the highlight of the project.
The film brought complete strangers together with the people who protect their homes, mountains and communities. There was curiosity, humour, gratitude and an appreciation that flowed both ways.
As Mike described it:
“The screenings forged connections in all directions, particularly between the pilots and the public. They helped build a bridge between the people who appreciate what we do, yet know so little about us, and helped us feel closer to the people whose homes and interests we are protecting.”
It reminded me that storytelling isn’t always about providing answers. Sometimes its greatest power lies in bringing the right people into the same room.
So, did Fire Pilots make commercial sense?
Not in the conventional way. It cost us money, time and resources we could have spent elsewhere. Generosity doesn’t make those costs disappear, and there is a danger in romanticising unpaid work simply because the result is meaningful.
Not every project that loses money is a passion project. Sometimes it is just a project that lost money.
There is also a difference between consciously investing in something and simply failing to charge for it.
But I’m no longer sure that Fire Pilots made no commercial sense. It simply paid us in a different currency.
It gave us a piece of work we remain proud of. It taught us how to enter an unfamiliar world, earn trust and find the human story beneath the spectacle. It introduced us to remarkable people. It raised money for an important cause and built a bridge between the pilots and the communities they protect.
It also gave us some excellent stories to bring home.
None of that appears neatly on a balance sheet, but that doesn’t make it worthless.
We still want to finish the film and complete the story. I also want to find my way back into this creative space and build more work that inspires me, stretches me and makes me better at everything else.
Creative businesses need two kinds of work: the work that funds the business and the work that feeds it. The danger is confusing one for the other, or expecting every project to do both.
Perhaps the question isn’t whether a project will make money.
It’s what the project will pay you in and whether that return is genuinely worth the cost.
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