I drove over to Glen Etive the night before and stayed nearby so I could be on location early doors. The morning actually looked promising. Grey, yes, but dry enough to get the Inspire 3 in the air. We managed a couple of shots of the actors walking across the landscape, proper wide cinematic frames that make Glencoe look like it was designed by an over-enthusiastic location scout.

Then the sky remembered where we were and opened the taps.

Drone down. Lenses packed away. Everyone suddenly wearing the same expression.

We moved to another area and I managed a quick flight to capture some general scenery, a few gigabytes of moody Highland grandeur for the edit. But by the time we were due to film the actors properly, the rain had settled in for the day like it had signed a long-term lease.

One of the cast was Daniel Mays, an actor I’ve admired for years from Line of Duty, The Thursday Murder Club and plenty more. Watching him work was brilliant, absolute class, but from my corner of the set it was mostly through a curtain of rain while I stared at a very grounded drone.

Flying the Inspire 3 with the X9 and a full set of primes in those conditions just isn’t an option. The props simply throw rain water onto the lens and ruin your shot, and there’s also a very real chance of turning a serious bit of kit into an expensive paperweight if it gets too wet. It’s also not legal to fly when it’s raining, unfortunately.

Got a few nice general views of dramatic Glen Etive before the heavens opened.

Those days are tough. You’re on a film set buzzing with creativity, everyone grafting, problem-solving, building something together, and you’re the one department that can’t contribute. I always feel useless in those moments. You’re getting paid to be there, so you want to earn it.

One extra twist to the day was that we were filming on the very estate where my great-grandad had been the gamekeeper. He apparently didn’t blink an eye at weather like this, just got on with it in tweed and determination. I like to think I’m cut from similar cloth. It’s not the rain that bothers me, it’s the fact my drone and its lovely glass lenses are a bit more delicate than an old Highland keeper with a flask of tea and a stubborn collie.

A lot of people trying to hide from the lashing rain

So I did what you do: helped move kit, lugged cases up and down hills, tried to be vaguely useful and not just the bloke hovering around with a fancy umbrella.

I’ve had wet days before on features, like a horror film I worked on in Aberdeen with director Dave. That was with the Inspire 2, and the Inspire 2 was renowned for the rain getting instantly into a little circuit board and making it unflyable. The image would go, the aircraft would still fly, and that circuit board cost £650 each time to replace, so it definitely did not fly in the rain. If you got caught out while you were up there, you could just lose that money instantly. On that job the rain kept pausing for two or three minutes at a time, so we’d sprint the drone up, grab a handful of shots, land again, and hide from the next squall.

Back in Glencoe there was no such mercy. Just steady, relentless rain from call time to wrap. The director, Brick, was great company, and the first assistant director, a proper London geezer, kept spirits up with the sort of cheerful authority that makes a wet hillside feel almost organised. The crew told me it had rained every single day they were there, yet the actors kept smashing through their lines take after take, somehow keeping their energy high. Proper professionals.

Thankfully it’s incredibly rare to lose an entire day like that in Scotland. Usually the weather gives you something to work with, even if it’s just a narrow crack in the clouds. But every so often the Highlands remind you who’s really in charge, and even the fanciest flying camera has to admit defeat.