FEBRUARY 2022 - Drone pilot London to St Andrews while aerial filming trains

So this week I have been working for Richard Elliot aerial filming. Richard does a lot of filming of LNER trains and needed a hand from myself and Pete as we had to cover London to St Andrews. A lot of driving for this job but fun. There is always a bit of adrenaline filming trains as they usually come allow pretty fast and and gone quickly. Easier near london as the next one is along 5mins later but in Scotland its a bit more exciting as when you miss it. It might be 2-4 hrs before the next one lol.

This was for creating their new TV advert

APRIL 2020 - The Great Mountain Sheep Gather

Tonight at 7pm on BBC 4, Easter Monday. Well there has been no filming or work for 5 weeks now due to the Virus for me. But tonight I have some footage on TV at least. 100 minutes of filming of sheep being gathered in from Englands highest peak. This was an awesome job to be involved in. Perfect for me being a mountain instructor and a drone pilot. 6 drone crews were involved which was what made it so special for me working with so many people and learning bits from everyone at some point.

Normally filming as a drone pilot you are looking for a 10-15 second long shots. But the format of this show by Windfall Films is known as slow television and tries to film things real time with no presenter etc. So we were asked to get as long a shot as possible for each shot. That doesn’t mean hold the same framing for ages. It meant getting a shot framed and filmed and in a nice way move into a re-framing and new shot then do this again and again as long as you can without messing up your framing or flying hahaha. I was using the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 camera on wide angle, solo operator. We all got long shots but I was lucky and got the longest shot of the program that made the cut with 7mins 30seconds in there:)

Can’t wait to do some more jobs like this in the future.

The Shepherd Andrew and a helper and the all important dogs. 4:30am walking up the hill. Man he walks fast even when rolling a cigarette!

MARCH 2019 - Filming the Adventure Syndicate

A day out filming with Lee and Jenny. I even had to get on my bike for over 20 miles. Trying to keep up with ex British mountain bike champion and the women who holds the around the world female record!

Was a fun day out to make an advert. Tiny clip of a few shots below:)

JULY 2018: Drone Filming on Sark Island in the Channel Isles

Off to Sark island with the DJI Inspire 2 and X7 Camera to be a drone pilot on a NHK Television show about European Islands.  This is my fifth Job with Japanese Television, most of which have been NHK and they are great to work with.  Brilliant team of folk.

Permissions were tricky here but got permission to fly from a boat no closer than 150m from the Island.  Fortunately I no longer just have one set wide angle lens I have four prime lenses so I can appear much closer to a subject.  One of the days I took to using the X7 Camera for a bit of steady cam cinematography on the Island and it work really well running alongside the horse and carriages (as no vehicles apart from tractors on the Island).  Also managed a whole bunch of dolly shots and crane shots with it.  The director was super chuffed as they had only the FS7 Mark 2 (great footage from this machine) with sticks for shooting and a bit of handheld but never quite the same as with a gimbal and a steady walking man:)

JUNE 2018: DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera arrives

Very exciting this month as the new DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera with four prime lenses and all the other bits arrives at Perfect View Productions Ltd ready to up the came of the company.   It is a real beast and some beautiful imagery from it hopefully in July I'll pop some of my own footage out as busy with a few jobs for Television with it first.

JUNE 2018: World Heritage TV Program on the Lake District

I headed to the Lake District to film for Japanese television about the World heritage site.  We travelled round a fair bit and visited a few key places of Peter Rabbit and his author.  We also filmed a wedding.