Kirk Watson films
I am a freelance filmmaker, based in Scotland. I can self shoot promotional, documentary, educational and narrative content and edit into a final film. I am also a fully licensed, CAA approved drone pilot and cinematographer. Perfect View Productions has all their own equipment to complete a project.
Whatever your story be it commercial, documentary or fictional we can help you get your message across in a high quality and professional manner.
A day out with cameras and drone to film a few adverts on FAQ’s for mountain bike courses at Glenmore Lodge. We spent the morning filming near Aviemore the actual biking part then we filmed indoors with interviews of the guys chatting about the courses. A fun day out, a few pics from the day below.
A fun day if a little full on with midges to start the day lol. Today I had to be up high in the mountains by 8:30am to catch some runners as they went by. I was taking shots of the sunrise on the way up and my hands were black as if I was wearing gloves as I flew. Was so hard to get a decent shot without scratching.
I arrived at my position for filming and then had to walk back and fourth 200m for an hour until they arrived due to the midges. Fortunately 30 minutes after the runners arrived so did a subtle breeze and the sun to scare away the nasty midge:)
The film is an advert for a duathlon for next year taking place up here and organised by Jenny. The rest of the day with two different groups with a few folk I knew we all had fun getting a bunch of shots together for Jenny’s film that Markus Stiz will edit together:) A screen grabs from my footage of the stunning day below.
Sun just hitting the mountains 6:30am and my hands totally covered in midgies
Runners silhouetted in the sun
Reflection of the runners after they all swam here too.
A superb few weeks up on these islands with wonderful locals, well worth a visit up here if you have not been yet. Season 2 of Jules and Greg’s Wild Swimming and this year it was Islands. I missed the first 2 weeks on the Western isles as I was is Norway on the Dana shoot for the same company the great Solus Productions.
We had the same team as last year with obviously Jules and Greg doing a super job of presenting and generally being lovely guys to hang out with for the few weeks. Then we have a brilliant and great fun team to work with. As last year Tony was at the helm directing again, Jim producing, Sean as DOP (main camera and gyros in water), also water safety, Colin on sound, Raonaid doing a bit of everything and myself filming the aerials and a little bit of second camera too:)
We swam in lots of different spots for the TV program with beautiful beaches, saunas, rum, vikings, shipwrecks, cliffs, waves, town swims etc and many swims on time off too:) So good being the only people on a lot of these beaches and we met some super characters along the way. A few pictures below to give you a flavour and it will be on BBC Scotland in January coming:)
An amazing two weeks in Lofted in Norway with a very familiar crew of the Dana TV now:) We are on season 4 now and got to head to Norway for what will be episodes 1 and 2 of this new series out later in Autumn.
Coineach is joined by Calum Gibb from Skye to climb, scramble, boulder, surf and bidi in Norway. Hamish was filming on his sony cameras while I filmed with my drone from the air. Rich and Becky did the mountain safety. For the first time in four years we actually got a day off to go climbing ourselves too which was brilliant:) Few pics below of the awesome trip. Looking forward to see what Hamish has done with it all in the edit:)
Our home for the two weeks
First days climb with Calum on it
The guys on Stentind ridge:)
Kenny on Ridge
A great week in Switzerland aerial filming Freja Shannon and Ariane Moreau. This is to be one of the Brit rock films for this year directed and film by Alaister Lee who was on the cliff filming as I was at the bottom flying up the climb. Love working with Alistair on these films as always fun filming and challenging at the same time, plus he is a good crack to hang out with. Kim Ladiges was the guide who hset up the ropes for Al to go up and down during filming. A sound guy.
A good bunch of people and some pretty epic shots were had on the Petit Clocher du Portalet. The team were climbing Caesar route, can’t remember the full name but a 7c route following several crack lines up the impressive face.
Definitely got my bit of adrenaline flying with clouds coming in and out making for exciting moments with the drone. The other people climbing were good with the drone as I flew most of the days (a lot) and because we had chatted to them all they seemed pretty happy.
Few pics below of the area and the film will be out in November time, I think.
The Spikey peak the team climbed.
Looking down the route from the drone perspective
The Climbers Freja and Ariane
Was fun this job as I was working with an old friend from ITV This Morning who runs his own company now called Opposite Land Productions. So was fun to catch up and see a few different pubs I hadn’t been in before. had a few randoms with morning and early afternoon drinking very keen to join in. I think they would have been unto have in there. Definitely characters for sure. one lady had only a few prominent teeth and very smily. I don’t think they were what was wanted for the advert but maybe a future one:)
What an absolutely brilliant night at the Barrowlands. The band and the audience created such an amazing atmosphere. The best night I’ve had out in a long time. My first time at the Barrowlands too.
I headed down to Andrews house the night before to catch up and do a little bit of filming in the house to form part of a documentary that Andrew is making about his build up to the Barrowlands. The music and several albums produced by Beluga Lagoon is often Andrew playing several different instruments and singing (occasionally with a female voice joining for a song) and then his mate Gregor putting it together in his music editing suite and adding some bit of playing from himself sometimes too. So when it comes to playing a live gig Andrew needs to pull together a bunch of friends to play on stage. Even though Andrew plays several instruments during an evening he cannot play several at the same time lol.
So the band comes together of Jim (his Dad) on guitar, Willy on Bass, Matt on Drums, Gregor on Guitar, Ian (fingers) on piano and Betty adding in some female vocals on some songs.
The band which has played a few smaller village halls of 200 to maybe 300 people. But Andrew a wildlife filmmaker has a break this year from filming for others and decided to give a few bigger gigs a go. I believe there was a little bit of pushing to do this from mates and family but possibly from the fans to who can struggle to get a ticket. So he booked Aviemore for 1100 people. Bigger than all previous concerts put together and to Andrews surprise I think, it sold out in 3 minutes lol. So then Stirling was booked for 800 people again sold out in a few minutes, then he thought maybe I could sell out the Barrowlands. Which sold out in 3 minutes for 2000 tickets and I believe from the website traffic within the first hour it could have sold out 3 nights in the first hours.
So on arriving at Andrews we had a good chat with Lyndsay and the kids then went and met Matt drummer in the put and Mark (from roaming in the wild) and Shona for a few beers. Mainly to help the nerves and sleep for the next day.
The next day we left the house at 9am to go set up in the Barrowlands. The sound crew and lighting crew were there on arrival setting up the stage and Andrew started getting his home made lighthouse (made by Jamie) and fire pit setup on the stage. Andrew being a filmmaker is quite into visuals too so likes to add to it.
Later my pal Rupert arrived, another filmmaker from Aviemore who would be the other half of our filmmaking team that night. We chatted through what we would do and got a song list from Andrew and what he wanted covered. The song list changes for every concert as Andrew know several fans come to each gig. This will keep changing as the year goes on and there are some pretty interesting changes too. This night he would also be trying out Isla and Margo & Barry tunes from the new album which came out only 6 days before this night.
Rupert and myself then started filming Barrowland stuff for setup shots. I did a few drone shots inside and outside too. Then the line outside formed and we did interviews and were amazed at how much Beluga Lagoon music had influenced people. We then headed inside to film the band getting ready. Andrew was remarkably calm and had plenty to say (usually he goes quiet towards the concert start). There were a few nerves in the team but most pretty happy to be at the Barrowlands backstage where many famous folk have been before them. Managed a bit of chat with the band. Gregor and Willy mainly just putting their faces to close to the camera and Willy often saying something inappropriate lol. But also some nice bits in-between. I then headed on stage and set 4 cameras going as things were about to start.
The band then hit the stage with Willy pushing Andrew up the ramp in a shopping trolley we found at the back stage door lol. Crowd erupts and the music starts. Have to say when oil;ming with the steady cam right at the front with the speakers right next to you it pretty emotional and just awesome. I couldn’t stop smiling.
The evening from here was just bouncing and rather than an audience build up like our past venues it just went full tilt straight away and stayed there. The following night in the pub with Andrew one lady said she’d seen loads of bands there over the past 30 years and can’t remember ever seeing the whole 2000 people jumping. Usually just folk st front going wild. few dancing in middle and folk at back sipping on a pint. So it was truly bouncing. What was brilliant was when they played Isla (Evan joined with his fiddle) and Margo and Barry from the new album the whole place was singing the songs back to Andrew and they had only been out for 6 days lol. Anyway what an awesome night and will be great to see what Andrew does with the footage as he pops together a wee short documentary for his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@belugalagoonfilms8620
The Beluga Lagoon Band at the end of the night:)
The Barrowlands:)
A fun few days filming an avalanche rescue film with several mates. The film is a collaboration of several people including Scottish Mountain Rescue and Glenmore Lodge (National outdoor centre) plus others but I just met the ones involved in the filming bit on the mountain.
I was booked over a month ago and amazing that the day we come to film there is snow (tricky these days in the Highlands it seems) and sun and not to bad wind. We had a script pulled together from the different organisations and we went about filming it on the mountain. Always fun trying to get non actors to act but they did a pretty good job of it. Felt good to be out in the mountains too. Just working through the edit of it now.
Small team searching our man made Avalanche debris
Probing a grid over debris
A fun day and adrenaline fulled as normal with a live drone. Today I was experimenting with the Mavic 3 Pro CINE for the live drone and a bit of use of the Inspire 2 with x7 Camera. Wildly the image for the £5k drone is better than the £21k drone lol.
We were filming Carol Smillie for the ITV Competitions that run over ITV This Morning, Lorraine etc. Hadn’t filmed Carol Smillie since covid and she said she hadn’t been filmed since then either lol.
Jordan Summers was on ground camera and Rich on sound and Athene directing. Great team for the day. We also got to stay in Cameron house always a bonus.
I’ve done live drone a dozen times now or so and it still remains exciting work as you know a lot of folk are watching if you did anything wrong. Also making sure the drone is in the right spot and flying perfectly as no second take chances:) So much fun.
Inspire 2 with LiveU ready for filming
Experimenting with the Mavic 3 pro CINE live. Image is way better.
A collection of some of the engineering works I've been filming from the air over the last year. Making the Industrial stuff look as beautiful as possible:) Had some awesome inversions at Nigg Bay to make things look awesome:)
Filming the guys cleaning the cables on the Queensferry crossing for Nat Geo was a highlight. I'm good with natural heights in the mountains but always makes me shiver seeing folk working on man made structures for some reason:)
Few shots of renewables too and flying from boats, Glasgow City and the Kelpies. All the footage is from different projects
A fun weekend with CC-Lab and a few film buddies. Rupert and Andrew from Scotland and Fred from England along with Amy and Olly from CC-Lab:) We were filming a wolf made of lights plus a bunch of other pieces during the day. Was pretty different and fun.
Rupert (director), Andrew (ground Camera), Me (aerial filming)
Today was filming a training day with Helly Hanson and AKA presented by Arrochar mountain Rescue team. Was all about breaking down the barriers in the outdoors. It was a fun day meeting all these people. Ed Smith was doing the photography on the day too, always good to work with Ed.
A fun day out with locals filming for the Capercaillie project about different groups working together for the benefit of these big birds. I was filming some mountain bikers with the drone to go with Katrina’s ground footage she had filmed before. Was fun filming and a bit of exercise.
I spent a couple of days filming the River Spey in flood as often documentary makers are looking for shots of the Spey in flood so I thought I should catch some of it and plus it is very interesting to see it from the air but also devastating seeing what it has done to peoples properties too.
ITV This Morning is one of my best clients and a do a lot of location work in Scotland and luckily abroad for them. So as I was going to be in London I gave Will Thomas a shout (he is a PD I do a lot of work with and is the head of features). He said arrive when the show is still going live and he can give me a tour of the studios.
I had a great time meeting new folk and folk I have worked with before and seeing Alan Carr (Chatty Man) on the couch. I met John Torode as I went in the door who had been recording the voice over for our Australia films. He was on good form. Then I met Dr. Scott with Martin Harper in an edit. Will then had to get back to editing and Dom continued my tour.
I bumped into Julia doing the cooking prep for the live cooks and India in production and the head editor, Freddie, Amber, Abby and many more. When the show finished I chatted with Alison and Dermot and got a sneaky picture on the couch.
Marten Harper took me for lunch and then I joined for drinks with a leaving party for a lighting engineer leaving doo who had been there for 7 years so it was a good day to be visiting:)
Alison myself and Dermot on the Couch:)
Will (my tour guide), John Torode and myself:)
Awesome time as drone pilot out in Tuscany with GCN. A lot less full on than my Swiss trip last month with GCN:)
Had a great time filming a gravel race called Grinduro in the lovely Tuscany area in Italy. Hank was the very enthusiastic presenter and Stefan the equally enthusiastic director. We made a few films here and the main event was filming the race itself which involved driving round and grabbing shots of Hank as we went. Hank also Gopro’d much of the race as we could not follow a lot of it down closed off gravel roads.
The race feel itself was very chilled and fun and we stayed on a campsite by the beach in 33 degree heat each day so it was lovely:)
The start line was pretty hectic with 3 other drones in the air lol. But we managed to work around each other. I used the Mavic 3 pro CINE where I could and the Mini 3 pro in places near people and buildings:) a few pics below….
Final evening Tuscany filming sunset on the beach for a sequence with Hank.
A Tuscan village and church
The short documentary of the Tour Des Staions Ultimate 1000 that Oli raced in, is out today. Such an amazing effort Oli did cycling this, he had only ever cycled a race up to 380km previously.
Beautifully edited by Stefan Darque who was also directing and main camera, driving was Steve of Elmy Cycles who did a brilliant job staying awake for it. It has turned into a great little film and I believe a longer version is coming. Lots of shots from the air here from myself:) Have a watch in the link below.
This was a pretty fun yet crazy filming job making this documentary. Fun because we were in the Swiss alps and with a great team of people. Stefan as director and first camera, Oli racing his bike, Steve driving the van, James riding the motorbike and myself doing the aerial filming.
The crazy bit was we did a 37 hr shift on day one of the race filming, and driving for Steve then we got about 3 hrs sleep the next night and 3 hrs the following night. (James stuck to his legally insured 10hrs a day driving:) So there really should have been two crews covering this! But GCN does like getting free overtime out of everyone lol! But we just got on with it in a very happy way as we were there and needed to film it and support Oli and everyone. Hopefully it all looks good when it comes out tomorrow on the GCN channel:)
I also got to see the North Face of the Eiger which I’d always wanted to do and Oli got an amazing position in the race for it being his first Ultra race.
The race was the Tour Des Stations 1000 Ultimate. Meaning 40 racers would do 1000 km and climb 26000m in the race! Oil did it in 72 hrs which is incredible! Need to watch it to see how he did:) A few pics of the lovely Swiss alps below.
Some hairpins
The hotel from Goldfinger
The North Face of the Eiger
Fun day popping round a few houses in the North east of Scotland to get drone shots for Scotlands home of the year. Nice to meet the owners and see these places. One was near my parents house and one was near my house lol.
I had free rain just to be creative with my drone for an hour or so at each location. looking forward to seeing the show:) Unfortunately I can’t show the houses until after.
This was a fun trip to get involved with. Possibly the sweatiest filming I’ve ever done but amazing to visit the Caribbean for my first time.
Here Harry the director had written a dating segment and we had 3 different couples out on dates to see how they got on. Laura was presenting and Nigel Francis was on sound and we had India from productions and Freddy as a researcher/helping with cameras there too. A brilliant team and we stayed at the lovely Sandles resort.
We even got a few hours off each day at lunchtime to enjoy a swim and relaxed lunch as we started early and finished late each day. With be on in the Autumn and you can see how the couples got on.
The fabulous film team:)
