April 2024 - Aerial Filming in Glencoe for a BBC ALBA Documentary

A nice few days with Solus Productions filming a revisit to a documentary from 8 years ago with a lady called Gladys. She was born in Ireland then adopted and brought to the west coast of Scotland and speaks Gaelic. She has been trying to find her original family all her life and some things come to light since the previous documentary.

Tony was directing, Phil on the main camera and Rowan producing. I was doing drone then some second camera during the interviews indoors.

Classic drone shot Glencoe

Speak Bridge

Great Grannie and Grandads house:)

MARCH 2024 - Drone operator for a train spotting travel show for BBC

A wild and fun day out filming Francis Bourgeois for a BBC travel show going from south off England right to the north. I was aerial filming for my local patch from Dunkeld up to Inverness and being the nice guy I am handing over some stock footage for their day to Thurso:)

The first thing Francis said to me was how well does it fly in these winds. I said its managing fine just now but as it got windier it was struggling a bit but it was getting very winding as the day went on.

Great crew and always fun filming trains as they do tend to get the adrenaline going as they only pass once and you have to catch it on film and make it look lovely at the same time!

A successful day though:)

Francis chatting to Tom’s camera near Kingussie.

Dalwhinnie

FEBRUARY 2024 - Filming Avalanche rescue film

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

DECEMBER 2023 - Filming Edinburgh Christmas markets and Edinburgh Castle light show

Filming the Christmas Markets and Castle light show with ITV ‘This Morning’. Was a date night for Roger and Janey from ‘My Mum your Dad’ TV program. Was fun going round the markets and seeing everything and going on the big wheel, and Ice skating. The highlight for me was flying my drone at the Castle to film the amazing light show. The Castle is very hard to fly from as in the centre of the city and an active military building too. But it was closed off for our exclusive use for two hours and with all the permissions there we could film the stunning light show. Just a couple of shots below for you to see:)

NOVEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in the Western Isles, Scotland. Filming Highland Cows for National geographic.

A lovely day out filming Highland cows on north Uist with a great bunch of people. Carriane MacDonald and her mate and Angus MacDonald and his wife.

The plan was to film the cows going over to a tidal island for the winter. They’d walk a few kilometres down the road then head onto the sand and make the 3km crossing over the tidal sand at low tide. This all needed to be done at low tide. I’d got a friend of a friend Archie to drive for me so on the drive I could fly from the car and keep up. As the cows wouldn’t stop for us. Angus would lead the cows while Carriane and her mate would push from behind.

The day went very smoothly once I swapped the inspire 2 drone for the Mavic 3 Pro CINE so I could fly in the winds gusting 40 mph at times. I even had to rush off the island as the wind got worse and worse they cancelled all the ferries for the following days. Great to see these lovely looking cows doing the crossing though.

This will be shown on next years ‘Europe from the Air’ on Nat Geo channel or Disney Channel.

NOVEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in Industry, Nigg Bay, Queensferry crossing, Orkney, Glasgow.

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

OCTOBER 2023 - Aerial filming in the Lake District for a Light Show

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)

OCTOBER 2023 - Aerial Filming the floods in Scotland

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.

SEPTEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in Scotland a drone showreel

Been a while since I made a drone show reel. A new drone showreel of a selection of work I have been up to over the past while.  The clips were all shot for actual jobs I was working on for several different companies.  'Scotland from the Air' was my title then I realised one shot is not from Scotland but heyho.  I was thinking Holy Island is north of Hadrians wall but on googling Hadrians wall I learnt (seemingly a common misconception, was for me lol) has always been entirely within England:).  But I filmed at Holy Island twice this year on two different jobs so wanted at least one shot in there:)

The showreel has been all filmed by drone using the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera, the DJI Mavic 3 pro CINE and the DJI Mavic 2 pro. Hope you enjoy:)

SEPTEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming Scotland for Nat Geo on TV Now

So a bit of my filming was on last night for this TV Show on the National Geographic program. Was working with Nathan Budd on the Isle of Orkney flying from a boat for the day over the old WWII sunken ships, with the Inspire 2 drone with X7 Camera. Amazingly we got great weather for this as the day I arrived on Orkney to was horrible and the day after the shoot it was also horrible lol. So we were very lucky.Can probably see it on the Disney channel now:)

AUGUST 2023 - Aerial filming in Scotland for Jules and Greg Wild Swimming for BBC

So a large part of my August was taken up as the Drone pilot for this TV show produced by Solus Productions with Tony directing, Jim Producing, Sean as DOP, Colin on sound, Rowen as production, and Kitty and Niamh in trainee positions. It will be released later this year or the start of next year:)

Then Jules (the teacher in Balamorey) and Greg (Victor in Still Game) were our talent who travelled round Scotland filming with different cold water swimmers to find out why they all do it. We were in Fife, Aberfeldy, Kenmore, Aviemore, Loch Ness, Skye, Mull and Iona:)

Was such a brilliant crew and made for a very fun job. Jules and Greg are superb fun too. Plus we all got in swimming in a lot of the places as we went too. A few pictures of some of the BTS.

Aerial Filming the Boat swim day:)

The awesome Solus Productions crew:)

Loch Ness

AUGUST 2023 - House makeover with Banjo Beale and ITV This Morning.

A fun couple of days doing a makeover for the first time. Funny things to film as big rush at the start then steady filming all day then a mad rush of filming the painting etc etc at the end. Good bunch of people here which made for a fun day and Margaret the person who was getting the makeover on the budget of a £100. Is hopefully happy but you’ll need to watch in the autumn to see:)

Callum, Banjo, Rhian and Me out filming the intros at the Kelpies nearby while the work continues in the house.

Before

AUGUST 2023 - Aerial filming in the Swiss Alps for GCN

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

AUGUST 2023 - Aerial filming for 'Scotlands home of the Year'

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.

JULY 2023 - Drone operator on the Fife coastline swimming in the tidal pools.

Lovely job here on the first episode of Jules’ and Greg’s Wild Swim with Solus Productions who I normally shoot the drone on Dana for.

Was a fantastic team here and lovely to see these tidal pools along the Fife coast. Was very pleased that Greg is super sound and so is his wife as I am a big ‘Still Game’ and ‘Chewing the Fat’ fan:)

I was tasked with catching footage of the pair swimming in these tidal pools with others. Also getting some driving shots and shots crossing the queensferry crossing. More to come on the next episodes.

JULY 2023 - Drone Pilot on Skye and Rona for Ben Fogle Sacred Isles

Great fun working with this team from the central belt with Tern TV. Craig Directing and Seamus MacCrackin as DOP. I was doing the aerial filming as we did several different activities on the Isle of Skye and Rona. the Mavic 3 Pro was put to test as at times it was too windy for my Inspire 2 with X7 Camera. Gusting 45mph on the Quirking and still held a stable image just had to do the landing in the lee of the hill.

I think it comes out in the autumn.

The team on the boat to Rona

JUNE 2023 - Drone pilot Shetland for the final episode of Dana.

Compared to my last time in Shetland we had amazing weather this week here. The Dana team headed to Shetland by boat and plane.

Hamish Directing as usual and first camera, Kenny presenting with Owen alongside, Rich and milky on safety and my self doing the aerial filming. Produced by Solus Productions for BBC ALBA.

We climbed on some spectacular sea cliffs and even did a first accent in one of the UK’s most Northerly spots:)

Kenny leading up an E3 at Esha Ness

Esha Ness Lighthouse

Shetland team

JUNE 2023 - Aerial filming Cairngorms for Dana BBC ALBA

A great few days in the Cairngorm mountains filming with an awesome team with Hamish Directing and camera, Kenny presenting with his mate Jenna and Rich on safety with his wife Gillian doing a bit of portering.

We headed in to climb the scramble up onto Angels Peak after staying in the Garbh Corrie Bothy for the night. Well most of us in tents. then we climbing up Ben Macdui and onto Craggan Coire Etchancan to camp just above it. the team then climbed Talisman and we walked out in pouring rain:) Fortunately the weather stayed reasonable for the rest of the trip but just involved very early starts to avoid the worst of the rain each day.

Angels Peak

Coire Etchachan

JUNE 2023 - Drone pilot in Morayshire for 'This Farming Life' at Thorabella Farm open day near Dallas.

Fun day filming with Nicky and Ollie at Thorabella Farm open day. Hundreds of people turned up to look round the farm and see the animals. Weather was perfect too. I spent most of the day with a ground camera but also several drone flights during the day to see the farm from the air:)

The farm as people start arriving:)

JUNE 2023 - Myself as a drone pilot in the papers for advertising the new National Geographic series 'Europe from Above'

Appeared in a few papers over the weekend to advertise the National Geographic series called Europe from above. I shot a few of the UK parts of it mainly in Scotland with Barra airport, Up Hella Ya in Shetland, an Archeological dig on Holy Island where a few. Great to be involved in this and the second series for me. Below arte a few paper articles and seemingly it ran in around 100 regional papers too. Nice phot of me in the Sun lol.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22629778/brits-never-heard-traditional-events/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12178487/UKs-ancient-traditions-leave-modern-day-Brits-baffled.html

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-unknown-traditional-uk-events-30193275

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-unknown-traditional-uk-events-30193038

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1779034/top-traditional-uk-events-competitions-cheese-rolling

Me and my Inspire 2 drone with the X7 camera that I use to shoot the series.