The Upper Cumberland Regional Airport saw a flurry of activity recently as a full camera crew spent the day dodging puddles and keeping their equipment out of the sporadic rainfall.
They were on location to film an episode of the upcoming TV reality show, "Day Jobs" from Great American Country (GAC) to air this fall. The show will take various country music artists back to the jobs they held before they started their career in music and let viewers live a day in that life.
"It's really a celebration of the folks who do those jobs every day," said the show's executive producer Sarah Brock, who was at the airport with a small crew during the filming session at the airport.
"We're trying to stay out of the way of the job. Sometimes when you see reality show shooting, it looks like a swarm of folks. We're really trying to let the artists do the job and work side-by-side with the coworker who does this job for a living every day. So far it's been a great experience. All the artists have been having a really good time, all the places we've shot have been really receptive and we felt good when we left, so it's been great."
There will be seven episodes total, with multiple artists featured in each episode. During the filming session at the Sparta airport, the star was Aaron Tippin, singer of top of the charts hits like "Kiss This" and "Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly."
Before his music career took off, Tippin's day job was being an airplane pilot, so he and his wife Thea and two sons Tom and Ted spent the day with friend and fellow pilot Bill Austin showing the camera what it's like to take off into the wild blue yonder.
"Aaron has a very interesting day job because there's no way he could just walk back into that without keeping up his skills," Brock said. "Because he has his own planes and because he does his own maintanence, we shot a lot of that. His sons were there and his uncle, Billy, which is really nice because both (of Tippin's) sons really love planes and it was nice to see them work with their father. You could see that he's passing that on. He got that from his father. (Tippin's children) have been flying since they were just little kids in car seats."
The cameras caught scenes all over the airport, from the lobby and Austin's hanger to the ramp area and taxi way. A small crew even went up in the air with Tippin and Austin in a 30 minute flight, though they had to get creative in order to fit everyone inside who needed to be filmed while also hiding the filming crew.
"Audio guys usually have to really hide themselves because they've got a good amount of equipment. Obviously the camera guy is with the camera, so he doesn't neccessarily have to hide, but our audio guy had to hide in the bathroom with the door closed and he got sick. There's no window, no air, so he got a little sick, but he's a trooper," Brock chuckled. "It wasn't anything to do with the bumpiness of the flight, he was just trapped in a small room."
Tippin is familiar with the Upper Cumberland Regional Airport, having two planes there himself and having filmed there before as well. No extra security was needed during the filming since knowledge of the filming project was limited and because Tippin is a common visitor at the gated airport.
"We just didn't advertise that he was going to be here," airport manager Jim Kmet said. "He is a regular here anyway. He comes and goes almost daily. No one thought security was going to be an issue."
Kmet stayed busy in the background during the shoot that lasted from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., coordinating access to the airport so filming didn't interrupt the normal traffic flow and helping to facilitate the safety of the film crew. Though he was an integral part of coordinating the shoot, Kmet won't be appearing on screen in the episode when it airs.
"I have a face for radio," he joked.
“Day Jobs” will premiere Wednesday, Sept. 14, on GAC. Check your local listings for exact times.