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.
Back from Rum and after a few days off we start filming another episode of Dana. This time purely rock climbing and in Glen nevis. the sun is out again too and after a midge start they all run away from the sun thankfully. Episode out in the Autumn.
Kenny on Storm in Glen nevis. Picture from the Mavic 2 pro drone
Storm in Glen nevis. Kenny’s climbing partner climbing here.
Well it seems apt that my first few days of work since the 16th of March on “The Crown” is a promotional film called “ We miss you!! We are preparing to welcome you back” all about welcoming people back to the Cairngorms National Park, where I live:)
The film was organised by www.visitcairngorms.com and I had two days to shoot it and get round 18 businesses spread over the large park. I came up with a script giving each business one line to say from the message Visit Cairngorms had. This would allow me hopefully quicker filming at each place as I wanted some action shots with the drone also. Mark at Visit Cairngorms luckily did all the logistics and timings on a spread sheet so I could just travel round to people who knew I was coming and knew their line:) We wanted to keep the message positive with a brief mention of COVID as everyone gets plenty of the rules through the media and press to educate everyone on the best practices, and it keeps changing depending on where the country is at while fighting it.
Enjoy:)
Headed out filming with Ground Level Up ( www.groundlevelup.com check out their site ) a great film production company from Glasgow. I was lucky that their own drone operators were busy so I got the opportunity to head to a new country for me, Albania. A great country and a beautiful place to film. We had a lot of fun filming here over several days and met some great folk in a remote area of the country.
The Inspire 2 with X7 Camera doing its thing:)
Spent a few amazing days filming aerials for a TAG Heuer advert that included Astin Martins , helicopters and social media influencers. It was a superb crew to work with on this busy few days with many different activities. Filmed in Cine DNG on the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 camera. I piloted while Richard Elliot did an excellent job camera operating the drone. Mountain and Water Safety specialists were on hand doing the safety for the kayaking, walking and tyrollean too:)
A few pictures below of the days:)
Spent a few weeks travelling all around Scotland for an NHK Japan (like a Japanese BBC). This was all shot on Cine DNG RAW 6K and will be ramped up to 8K for Japan’s 8K channel. The program was shot entirely by drone.
It was a great tour of history of Scotland and a great bunch of people to work with. We flew in remote parts of Scotland (Skye, Orkney, Cairngorms) and right in city centres and also inside buildings. Amazingly for September we filmed in 40 locations and got all our shots!! Unheard of in my experience with Scottish weather especially when lots of sites were programmed in for certain days and could not be changed. Often filming at Historic sites before visitors arrived or after they were closed.
We shot with the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 camera with Jordan summers camera operating for me and Takashi on focus pulling (Takashi is a world expert on 8k shooting and has been to the BBC HQ to teach people how to work with 8K formats). It was great to have him there and did an amazing job of keeping things in focus. Riwa was our director, Junku the producer and Cosmo the Sound man.
There were some real money shots from this program with amazing light early morning and late evening. A few pics from the shoot below.
A few days ago Glenmore Lodge released the Surf Champs 2018 film. This was a great fun day up in Thurso on the North Coast of Scotland filming teenagers to folk in their fifties surf Kayaking. Great atmosphere and fun to watch and to film. Pretty fun drone flying too. Trying to get close but not get wave spray on my drones:) I used my DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera and the Mavic 2 pro. And used all of the combined 27 batteries haha.
A few days filming with Plant Life in the Cairngorms. Was super interesting meeting the different people here and learning several new plants and flowers. One of the rare ones below, the Twin Flower which the guys are helping to protect and become more spread out before it goes extinct!
Filmed with GH5 and Cosmo pocket on the ground and the Mavic 2 pro for the aerial footage:) Down to the editing bit now, although one day out with a mountain leader who hs had training from Plant Life.
The Twin Flower:)
Spent five days with Andrew and Mark from Beluga Lagoon films on the North coast of Scotland as they cycled from Jon O’Groats to Cape Wrath on a tandem bicycle.
It was a week of mixed weather and a variety of landscapes and fun from lots of fog to sunshine, broken chains, dinner in a cave, boat trips, camping wild and swimming in the North Atlantic:)
To break up the cycling a bit we got into my mate Dougs boat and went out to see the North Coast as seen from the sea and get a look at the massive rugged cliffs out there.
A few pics from the week below:) It will appear on BBC iplayer later in the year as one of three adventures with this pair. Check out Beluga Lagoon on facebook to see other films by Andrew:)
The team on Doug’s Boat
The wide shot of the team on the boat flying in towards the shot below for some tight flying:)
Then through the arch:)
Some of my Antarctic aerial filming got into the newest Godzilla film. Brilliant to be a drone pilot for part of a big blockbuster with so much history. One of the clips shown below which appears in the film has a mountain ridge in the foreground which is aptly called Reptile ridge:)
So spent a few days with the DJI Inspire 2 filming on a Rolls Royce advert which was fun. Got to ride in my first Rolls Royce, very comfortable. Slightly beyond my price range haha.
We did a lot of dual operator during these days with Sammy the DOP doing my Camera Operating as he is also a drone pilot and obviously knows a bit about cameras. Dual op is often required once we start using the longer lenses and especially following fast cars.
We had to change locations several times to avoid the rain so it was great using some local knowledge and contacts to figure out the best spots. I did a bit of Camera assisting in-between drone flying to help out setting up camera kit, lights and focus pulling:)
Great fun few days and a super switched on crew from SWR Media Magazines Ltd, which was great:)
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:)
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:)
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.
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.
Wave sport Kayaks are bringing out a new Touring Kayak and wanted myself to make an advert for them. So over two days we filmed it using a variety of locations. I used the Lumix GH5, go pro, steady cam rig and the DJI Mavic Pro.
I spent a very interesting day up at Eagle Brae filming the building of a Log Cabin. A proper log cabin too with huge logs and put together by Canadians.
