Yeah they got lucky. The producers/director/DP were all from New York and came out to Los Angeles to get crew and film this, so they were kinda out of there element. This shoot was 5 overnights in a row, and one night we were filming on an active bridge/road in LA. They assumed that the weather was always nice in California so didn’t check ahead or prepare, and suddenly we had a lightning/thunder storm starting in the distance. We had a giant Condor crane with lights up over the bridge, and as the lighting strikes got closer the Gaffer got spooked and brought the condor down. Within an hour, it was pouring rain and they didn’t have any pop-up tents so we had to rush to throw all the gear in different cars and get out of the rain. We wrapped early that night (early on an overnight means 4AM instead of 6AM).

I found out later that a woman and her dog died that night in LA from being struck by lightning. Shit can go wrong very quickly, especially when you’re not working with professionals.