Speaker 1: Maybe it's just a radio thing. Variety, give people a variety,
and that's what we do on aero dot net a
r r oe dot net. It's not just a podcast
with rockstars and movie stars. Oh, it's about lifestyle and beyond.
It's variety a r r oe dot Net. Enjoy the exploration.
Speaker 2: You guys have got to tell me how this project
came together, because in reality, this is a needle in
a haystack. In other words, history has lost it and
you have relocated it.
Speaker 3: So there was an article written by Danny Wistenkowski, who
is a journalist from Saint Louis. He wrote a article
in the Riverfront Time and it was included in an
app called long Form, which did the best long form
of journalism from around.
Speaker 4: This country, if not the world that at no longer
exists unfortunately. But we read it on that and then
we bought the rights to the article and we're trying
to adapt it into a screenplay. Sorry, I'm hearing a
bunch of background noise.
Speaker 2: From you, by the way, now, I mean, but I
mean to get to get that permission to do it.
I mean, that couldn't have been a difficult thing, was it?
Because I mean, everybody wants to have their story, and
I've always believed share your story or someone will write
it for you. And you guys are the ones that
are going no, you've already written it. We just want
to share it now.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're trying to adapt it to a scripted project basically, and.
Speaker 4: It takes forever to adapt things in the scripts, but
we're screenwriters and then be able to do it.
Speaker 3: And basically Danny said, well, listen, Max still alive. If
you want to go talk to him, you can go
to Saint Louis and like interview him on camera.
Speaker 4: He'd be down to do it. And so we huffled
a crew together and went and shot with him for
four days.
Speaker 3: And twenty nineteen, and that's sort of what started the
whole process.
Speaker 4: You first did a podcast so off.
Speaker 2: That when you build that story up and you sit
down with him, I mean, it's like what because in
my mind, what I get, what I feel is that
he is calm, cool, collected, He's got his visions intact,
he knows what he's doing every step of the way
because he's a planner. Did you feel that at all?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean we walked him, we really walked him
through bit by bit. You know, he is a planner
to a certain expit, but also his plans were a
kind of a house of cars, you know, things fell
out of place really really quickly, and the whole plant collapsed.
And that he found himself high schedule and not having
jumped out of the airplane before with a parachute is
a big thing not to.
Speaker 4: Have done when you are pulling a hipes like this.
So I think you can use the term planner loosely.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say that. I would say that Mac
will admit that he was not the most criminally sophisticated
skyjacker out there. Uh, and that his plan was loose
at best when he when he tried this and and
actually pulled it off.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: And that's what inspires me because it's almost like I'm
watching grit TV. This is an old western that's on TV,
the good, the bad, the ugly, and I'm going, oh
my god, this is so cool. This is in our times.
Speaker 4: Yeah for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But when you to bring a story forward, I mean,
anybody can have a history, I mean, because we can
go into Wikipedia to get that, but you guys have
put it in story form to where we stay glued
into it as viewers. I mean that in itself takes
an art.
Speaker 4: I mean it was a lot of hard work.
Speaker 5: It started with us getting connected with Mac and getting
his story on tape. And originally we were gonna do
it as a scripted project because Elie and I are screenwriters.
But once we got his story on tape, we decided
that there was a documentary play here. We shopped it
around town with as a documentary and we partnered up
with a company called Imperative, and they're the once who
asked us to do it as a podcast. We had
never done a podcast before, but it was a fantastic experience.
Not only was it, you know, hands off creatively, we
were able to do what we wanted to do, but
it was an outstanding way to break down the story
into episodes and figure out what parts of a very
complex story were the most important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because what I like about that is the fact
that you have purchased enough time for the listeners as
well as the viewers to be able to piece this
together in the way of building the storyline instead of
slamming it into a thirty minute episode or even a
one hour episode.
Speaker 1: And they lived happily.
Speaker 2: Ever after you've got the time to share the story.
Speaker 5: Well, that was the challenge was taking six and a
half hours of content from the podcast and turning it
into a ninety five minute feature documentary. But there's so
much story, and we encourage our listeners not only to
check out the film, but listen to the podcast as well.
Speaker 4: If they love the.
Speaker 2: Film didn't want to know more, well, you know, that's
exactly what they're going to do, because when you see
something like this and you want more information, the first
thing you're going to go do is get even a
deeper story into it, because in reality, don't you think
we all see ourselves in his in his life?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I would think, though, I mean that's kind of a
that's kind of the appeal of Mac is dB Cooper's
kind of this mythical figure who is the stuff of legend.
But we actually think mac story is better because there's
a second and third act, because Mac is such an
accessible and honest and reliable narrator and he's really you know,
it says if your buddy said, Hey, I'm gonna go
ahead and try and do what Dbe Cooper did, and uh,
and that's Mac story that's what we loved about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then, as my wife would say, because she's such
a simple person in the way of asking questions.
Speaker 1: How how how did he get.
Speaker 2: Away with something like this and and to be able
to have the career should jump out of an airplane?
I mean, I mean it's I mean, that was everything
on that plane. How did he know what was even
on there?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Good, anyway, he didn't.
Speaker 3: He didn't really get away with it, but he had
the gut to basically ask for it, and at the
time he was they didn't know how to deal with
skyjackers like him, other.
Speaker 4: Than to just give it to him.
Speaker 3: You know, we've always said mac is a disruptor. Before
disruptors were a thing.
Speaker 4: You know, airplanes were a new type of technology.
Speaker 3: All these people who came in to hijack them were
basically disrupting that form of technology in the world sage
around them.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about that time period
because I was a young adult in that time period.
I do remember all the hijackings that were taking place.
So and then to read about this, I'm going, oh
my god, this is like a page from my childhood.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, over three hundred Yeah, over three hundred guyjacking worldwide
during that time period. So it's really crazy how accepted
it was, how common it was, and then also how
few people got as far as acted with, you know,
with getting the money and actually making an escape. What
happens after that, You'll have to check out the film
exactly it goes.
Speaker 1: Right, Please do not move. There's more with Eli and
Joshua coming up next. The name of the documentary American Skyjacker.
We are back with the creators Eli Chorus and Jason Schaeffer.
How did he know when and where to jump?
Speaker 2: Because I am such a prepper that it's like I
would have to know exactly when to make that move.
Speaker 4: I mean, he didn't.
Speaker 3: He was delayed by the car hitting the plane and
having to get a new plane, and then he's just
kind of guessed and was hoping he wasn't over water. Basically,
he saw life when he jumped out of the back,
but he was hoping.
Speaker 4: He wasn't over water to kill him. Oh yeah, but
you know, the goal was never to really jump in
a specific place.
Speaker 3: It was to make the pilot think he was going
to Canada and then jump out and disappear for a
little bit really, and he just wanted to get back
to Detroit.
Speaker 2: Ideally, at his age, does he still look at himself
in the mirror and think, you know, I'm the one
that hijacked that airplane or is it something that Yeah,
that was only in chapter fifteen of my life. There's
a lot more to me than just that.
Speaker 3: Oh. I think he's reformed himself and he understands how
stupid it was.
Speaker 4: But I also think there is a sense of pride
that he was able to survive something like that.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I think that Max definitely regrets it.
Speaker 3: And there is a certain tragic element to this whole
story because the man did waste his.
Speaker 4: Life ultimately, yeah, in prison.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, it was a pretty remarkable
way to get there, you know.
Speaker 2: But you had to have been inspired to hear that, yeah,
he tried to escape prison, because I mean, I'm going, yes,
that's my a hero man. He wants out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's the natural human inclination.
Speaker 4: And I think that he actually exercised it. And that's
kind of Mack in a nutshell too. It's like he
exercises those fantasies we have.
Speaker 3: In our minds for a little bit and throw out
because they're terrible ideas.
Speaker 4: He actually goes through with it.
Speaker 2: Don't you think though, that his voice adds so much
to the storyline in the way that we're hearing the authenticity,
whereas a dB Cooper Ah, like you said, it's mystical.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it is.
Speaker 4: He is the story.
Speaker 5: Without him, you know, we wouldn't have this story, wouldn't
be telling if he didn't have it coming from the
man in his own words.
Speaker 1: Right right.
Speaker 2: And that's where I respect you because I mean, how
many times have we all watched these rock documentaries and
it's everybody but the person sharing the story and that
and that you guys went the extra mile and said, no,
we're getting the real dude. We're gonna put him. Yeah,
we're gonna make it happen.
Speaker 5: Yep, you know that's right.
Speaker 4: There's a there's a documentary that came out years ago,
about twelve years ago called lec Million. It's about a guy.
Speaker 3: Who pretended to be a boy who had been he
disappeared in San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 4: But this guy was a French guy and he was
in a bunch of trouble and he just basically said
he was.
Speaker 3: This boy and had grown up and been abducted and
taken to France, and the family said it was him,
even though it wasn't him anyway, the documentary told entirely
from his perspective, him looking down.
Speaker 4: The barrel at the camera, and he made that conscious
choice to kind.
Speaker 3: Of nod and homage that film, because when somebody's talking
directly to you, you engaged them more, and by him
looking down the barrel of the camera, he engages with
the audience.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: He knew who they were, He knew who was on
the other end of that camera, right right.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: So now, of course, being in broadcasting for all these years,
and then I hear what he used as the lines
when he's on the airplane. I sit there and I
see somebody of leadership quality, because he was able to
control a group of people in the fused amount of
seconds on the clock, and that, to me, that's a leader.
So I mean, did you feel that when you were
with him, that he had that in his voice, in
his heart, in his soul.
Speaker 4: I didn't really.
Speaker 5: I didn't really feel that, particularly, you know, because the
second there's this whole second part to his story where
he almost assumes the role of a follower as opposed
to the Peter. So I feel like, you know, it
does take a certain amount of kutzpah, as they say,
to do what he did and try what he tried.
But you know what also appealed to us is Mac
is very open about the fact that he was in
over his head from pretty much moment one and doing
his best to stay above water.
Speaker 2: Did any of it feel like, oh, this is just
another teenager in adult clothes that's pulling off a stunt,
because it really does sound like a stunt that we
would have pulled off, and that we would have been
sitting around in the fire circle drinking on some beer
and all of a sudden said I got an eye.
Let's go hijack an airplane. Really, yeah, I'll do it.
I'll be the one that's going to do it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean that that was a lot of
emphasis for it. I mean, I think there was some
disillusion that it was like.
Speaker 3: Going to the military and not having anything really worked
out job wise. You know, there's something we left out
of the film that was in the podcast that he
was he was briefly married and he just really couldn't
get his life together.
Speaker 4: And I think that the easy get rich quick scheme.
Speaker 3: Which everybody kind of wants, seep down with something that
he was going to jump on, and this was the
best way for him.
Speaker 4: To do it.
Speaker 2: It's taken fifty three years to share this story, and
yet what you guys are doing with American Skyjacker, it
feels like it's in mind.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: That's great, sad to hear it, but that in itself
means that you're no different than than than he was
in the way of looking down the barrel of that camera.
You know exactly who you're trying to reach as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think we're just trying to put
the audience there.
Speaker 4: You know, that was the goal. That's the goal with
the pod. That's why we have high end sound design. Yep,
that's why we.
Speaker 3: Have max helling the majority of the story, and that's
why we made a decision with the film to have
him look down the barrel of the camera and go
kind of moment by moments because it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
you can say this guy hijacks the plane and jumps
out of the back, but everything like that.
Speaker 4: But let's break it down, let's blow it down, let's
go down to the minutea of.
Speaker 3: Like each of those moments, like each of those decisions
you have to make to go through that process and
pull this off or try to.
Speaker 4: Pull this off.
Speaker 5: What is that like?
Speaker 3: And that's an intense, unique experience for an audience to
go through.
Speaker 2: Well, you guys are so spot on as to where
your viewers and listeners are by having the podcast as
well as the documentary, because I mean, it is the
one place that people are going either you're either a
visual or you're an audio person, and I mean you're
spot on when it comes to this story.
Speaker 4: Appreciate it, thank you.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But in order to take it to the next level,
you are you going to merchandise it? Because wouldn't it
be great to be sporting a T shirt? I mean,
I can't be the only one who sits here and
thinks this guy is so cool.
Speaker 3: We've talked about it, you know, We've got we've got
great posters that will probably put online to sell at
some point soon. We're just getting the film out there first,
you know. I mean, obviously the initial the initial strategy
here was to do the podcast and then do different
derivatives of the podcast, and the documentary is the first
version of that. You know, there's obviously the scripted film,
maybe the limited television series something like that. Hell, who
wouldn't want to see a Martin mccally stage play too.
Speaker 2: What did you learn from this? Because I mean this
right now is just to step inside your chapter. So
what did you learn to get to do with it
as a collaboration?
Speaker 3: You know, like I think that we learned that we
could do cinematic recrease where you see the faces of
the characters and you can make it work off of
the actual person telling the stories.
Speaker 4: America Skyjacker is the first.
Speaker 3: Of a number of these that we've done where we
have the person with this incredible true crime or true
crime and story telling it. But they're all unique true crime.
It's not you know, murdery true crime where it's like
to take advantage of somebody's death or something like that.
The second one we did was called American Coyote, about
a guy who ran over a thousand people across the
US Mexico board between nineteen eighty seven and two thousand
and one. But he was a white dude from Huntington
Beach and he was a Mormon, and he was trying
to make money for his family at six when he
was twenty three years old, and he had of these
craft unique ways of running people across, and it's about
his whole experience doing that.
Speaker 4: The next one we did was.
Speaker 3: About a guy who robbed the Bolagio casino in Las
Vegas and twenty ten on his motorcycle. And he's still
two thousand or sorry, three million dollars in chips from.
Speaker 4: The craft table and got away on his motorcycle. But
he only had chips, and so that's not money.
Speaker 3: He can't go into a comedience store and buy anything
with poker chips, so you have to go back to
the casino to cash him in. So fully expecting to
get tackled by security, he walks back.
Speaker 4: In the next day, doesn't get.
Speaker 3: Tackled, starts stirrepeticiously casting out these chips, and after a
week of doing it, the host of the casino walks
up to.
Speaker 4: Him, is like, hey, you're a high high roller. You
want a suite and start living in the casino. He
robs for the next six week. Finally taught and we
have him telling history and his own works too.
Speaker 3: So this is just kind of the beginning of a
larger storytelling world that we're trying to create.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm shocked that you guys aren't releasing a country
music album because it sounds like something that would belong
in a country song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe we should look into that too.
Speaker 5: If if we can sing and play guitar baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where can people go to find out about everything
that you guys are doing? Because to me, you're preserving
Americana and that's what's inspiring to me, is what you
guys are doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I appreciate that. Uh.
Speaker 3: For American Skyjacker, go to American skyjacker dot com.
Speaker 4: You can see all the different platforms. It's on for
rent or by. It'll be on a vod soon, but
ren er buy it now, and uh it'll do more
for us.
Speaker 2: Well, man, you got to come back to this show
each time in the future because you guys are far
from being finished.
Speaker 1: I can feel it in my soul.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much, NK.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it. Man.
Speaker 2: Will you guys be brilliant today?
Speaker 4: Okay, all right, let's take care