File this under: Too odd to live in obscurity. A film crew from Portland brought a Seattle man to the Sierra to put hooks in his flesh, suspend him from a hot air balloon, and film it. See for yourself in the clip above. Considering that we know people who take great pleasure from various BDSM activities including putting hooks through their flesh, that part isn't especially shocking. But from a balloon? Holy Toledo.
Who did this? A company called Precarious Egg. (Imagine that.) It brought 34-year-old Zane Whitmore to Mammoth Lakes to film the stunt as part of a documentary, Feet Off the Ground, about people who suspend themselves like this in various ways. According to a message Precarious Egg sent SF Weekly, Whitmore was pierced twice across the shoulder blades and hooked to a tethered balloon. It flew for about an hour and 15 minutes. (He was hauled into the balloon's basket before it landed.) The film crew says the balloon reached heights of 10,800 feet "above sea level." Considering that Mammoth Lakes is already almost 8,000 feet above sea level, that cuts the real elevation to about 3,000 feet. But still: Holy Toledo. And we'll add a "God almighty!"
Veteran Hollywood stunt man Kai Shelton (Into the Wild, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl) was on hand to assist Whitmore, as was Allen Falkner, known as "the father of modern suspension" and founder of a club called Traumatic Stress Discipline. The stunt took Precarious Egg's Matt Morgan and Sean Devine two years to plan and coordinate.
Says Whitmore: "I felt like I was flying." (Duh.) "As I drifted down low, I was struck by how much movement I saw on the ground, by how much life exists in the desert. It was actually a very peaceful experience."
