Flying high above the chaotic spectacle of 1980s and 90’s Los Angeles, a young couple revolutionized breaking news with their brazen live reporting from a whirling news helicopter. Marika Gerrard and Zoey Tur covered most of the city’s most dramatic events and shaped the image of LA across the world for two decades. An entirely unique view of LA presented through stunning aerial footage and remarkable home videos, director Matt Yoka’s captivating documentary WHIRLYBIRD reframes many of the city’s pivotal moments, including the 1991 LA riots and the OJ Simpson freeway pursuit.
Back in the early 1980s Zoey Tur, pre transitioning to a woman in 2013, was Bob, an adventurous adrenaline-fuelled young news reporter, newly married to his business partner Marika. Together they launched the Los Angeles News Service, and broke news stories across the city by aiming always to be the first to report live from a breaking news event. Time is of the essence with such a news event and arriving one minute after another reporter can make the difference between making money from your footage to earning nothing. This created a lot of stress when trying to travel around LA’s often gridlocked streets – aiming to satisfy the public’s increasing demand for live news coverage. Zoey’s solution was to train to be a helicopter pilot and take to the skies, reporting from up high with Marika the camera operator, almost hanging out of the helicopter to capture the best footage.
This proved to be very good for business and over the two decades, the pair made a lot of money covering seminal LA events such as the Rodney King riots, OJ Simpson’s freeway car chase in his white Bronco, the Northridge earthquake and Madonna and Sean Penn’s Malibu wedding. Their footage is likely to be the imagery in your mind as you recall these events – remember truck driver Reginald Denny being pulled from his cab and almost beaten to death downtown during the LA riots? Zoey’s fearless attitude to getting close to the action plus a 24/7 alertness and good reporting skills meant that the couple became the best in the business, even as the skies became increasingly full of helicopter reporters. Their live footage of the OJ Simpson car chase was watched by over 80 million people. The focus of the footage on drug busts, murders, shootouts and gang crime gave a somewhat distorted view of life in LA, particularly amongst some ethnic communities. However, their bad news sold.
Director Matt Yoka mines a huge video archive of news footage and combines it with their extensive collection of intimate family home videos to tell the compelling story of the couple’s journey with their young family through LA’s history.
Over time we see how the super high stress 24/7 environment begins to take its toll on the family, both mentally and physically. The relationship gradually disintegrates, largely due to Zoey’s increasingly unreasonable behavior, but also as a result of constantly witnessing LA’s trauma. Zoey came from an abusive paternal background and as she says. ”My greatest fear was becoming my dad, and I’ve become my dad.” The couple end up divorcing in 2003, and they closed the business. In 2013 Bob transitioned into Zoey. The background to Zoey’s transition is not fully explained although maybe it doesn’t need to be. She cites a trip to the Burning Man festival one year as being quite an awakening experience. Maybe in part, she just couldn’t deal with the man she had evolved into. Zoey’s now a lot more comfortable in her skin and bitterly regrets her past unreasonable behavior. The family are all interviewed separately so it seems the wounds are not yet healed.
This documentary is a fascinating insight into the heartbeat of 1980s and 90’s LA. A good bird’s eye view of life.
You can buy "Whirlybird" on Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube, Redbox,
or rent it on Apple iTunes, Google Play Movies, Vudu, Amazon Video, YouTube, Redbox, Kino Now online.Review: Ris Fatah Queerguru Contributing Editor Ris Fatah is a successful fashion/luxury business consultant (when he can be bothered) who divides and wastes his time between London and Ibiza. He is a lover of all things queer, feminist, and human rights in general. @ris.fatah
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