Let's go back in Time! It started back in 1991. I was 7 years old (me, on the right side of the picture) when I saw a brand new McDonald Douglas MD-11 of our proud national carrier Swissair at Zurich Airport. That feeling, that fascination never left me since then. I grew up in a so-called "Swissair Family". My Grandfather and Uncle worked for the airline back then and I always wanted to see more, I wanted to hear, smell and feel the aircraft almost every day. As the years passed by, I also found a passion for filming, thanks to my father, who filmed anytime and anywhere with his big JVC GR-C1 camera.
I thank him every day that he passed me his passion for filming and for all this great footage he took, of an airline, which doesn't exist anymore today - The first hard hit in my life, the 2nd of October 2001. I will never forget that day when most of the Swissair planes were just parked or grounded in Zurich due to financial problems. There were a few more hard hits like 9/11 which was one of the worst days in aviation history or the loss of Flight SR111 - the MD-11, HB-IWF in September 1998. Through all these dramatic events, I felt a strong connection to aviation even more and realized what the aviation world means to me.
Later on, I tried to be like the amazing Swissair-Film-Team. They used helicopters and chased planes from the sky to get the perfect shot. They used camera cars and I just loved the way they produced these great corporate movies. Since the grounding in 2001, nobody has produced movies like that at the Zurich Airport. So in 2008, I thought, let's do that again. I captured a day of the operations at ZRH with a friend on my side, Vanessa who was my assistant, mixed some Music, and rented a helicopter, for aerial shots. It was an amazing experience and I learned more and more about filmmaking. The news was spreading and I was invited to produce two flight deck movies for Swiss International Airlines and Edelweiss Air.
2009 - 2013 Then, I met a great guy at the Airport. Beat Reber, an Aviation Expert and today Project Manager of my small company. He saw me on the Airfield while I was shooting my second Zurich Airport movie "ZRH-zero nine" and he offered me some support. A great friendship between two aviation enthusiasts was born. I was still learning, how to make great aviation- or airport movies, and still had to learn a lot and used the helicopter for a second time to improve my aerial footage. In 2010 was the first "success" - "Zurich Airport - Summer Time". The combination of great aviation footage mixed with the people of the Airport and great music. Aviation fans loved it, or I guess, it's still being loved today. It's the first movie that I produced together with Beat. On our historical side was the first landing of the Singapore Airlines A380 in Zurich. We captured that event in a helicopter. The first production with actors was in 2011. A movie about 3 people who fly from Zurich to Shanghai. It shows all the happenings around a plane, while passengers board or wait for their journey. So we used an Airbus A330-300 of Swiss International Airlines and taxied around the Zurich Airport to get an authentic atmosphere. (click the pics for the videos)
Today, it's a bit quieter with all these Zurich Airport productions due to personal changes. Also, times changed. The World is faster, and quicker, and not many spend almost 10 minutes watching an aviation movie on YouTube anymore. Instagram, TikTok, etc. changed a lot. We are still producing for airlines, like Qatar Airways, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, etc. Our big, self-financed productions may not return so soon, but the passion for being creative in the aviation world will last forever!
Ruesch Productions / Founder - Producer / Andy Ruesch
