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.
Spent a couple of days and a night staying in Blackrock Cottage in Glencoe. This was my great Grandads and Grandmothers housed they were the last people to live in it. So I went along with my mum and mothers cousin Helen to take a bit of footage just for a wee personal project. Was great for my mum to have slept in the same room her mother would have slept in when she was a kid.
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.
A mate Nash opens a shop in Boat of Garden called Ride Cairngorm so I go along to make a couple of wee films for the opening and his webpage. Danny MacAskill and the Drop and Roll team were there to put on a show. Was a great day with over 4000 people there throughout the day.
This little project came about back in January as myself and the Casio Northern UK Rep Warren Halliwell started putting together a story to film about the new CASIO Rangeman for www.casio.co.uk. It's tricky planning days for filming when you want to get up onto the Cairngorm plateau at almost 4000ft with a drone and other cameras especially so far in advance.
The day we filmed the tops of the hills only cleared for 30minutes after several hours walking in the mist on the hill. Those 30 minutes gave us our spectacular opening shots, these would be hard to repeat. (friends were out skiing on the tops all day and said that was the only time it cleared for them too. My drone filming, story telling, camera and mountain/ropework skills all came into play to bring this film to completion.
It has done well with over 434K views so far:)
Hollywood comes to Scotland for the new Pokemon film and we did the safety in many locations for them. I stepped back into my MIC (Mountain Instructor) role to join the www.mountainandwatersafety.co.uk team of which there were quite a few on this big budget feature.
Click the right side of the image to scroll through the three shots:)
Spent a day around Speyside and the Moray Coat filming some shots for Visit Scotland. We had to hit the drone shots in-between snow and sleet showers but we got it done in the end:)
Bow Fiddle rock near the end of the day
I spent a week travelling around with Angus Hudson BSC DOP, Erin Murphy (directors assistant), Julia Green (sound), and Nick Everett (Focus puller and DIT) as we filmed plate shots for Mary Queen of Scots that we shot earlier in the year. It's always a chance when you come to take winter shots for the film in the middle of winter because sometimes it might have all melted for the week. Scotland did not disappoint us and the weather was sunny, snowy, cloudy, clear everything really. We even got blizzards at sea level and it looked great.
I spent a few weeks this month searching out locations for the new Hollywood Pokemon film. Was a nice change from the usual. I drove around the country taking pictures and speaking to land owners etc. Can't reveal much really but I visited a lot of places and they will get narrowed down by the folks in London.
Click the right side of the image to scroll through the three pictures:)
I spent a couple of days working with mates Andrew O'Donnel (A very talented wildlife cameraman, songwriter, editor, story teller etc) and Blaine Abercrombie ( A talented Actor). I was to do a bit of drone filming for the film which I have done before on the previous film Sullivans Winter, Well worth a watch (I've included below under Rivers)
In Rivers I just did a bit at the end of the film as Andrew did most of his own. We also needed a canoe (mine from the back garden) and I had to do a bit of acting as a nod to Deliverance (1972 Burt Reynolds). It was great fun and worked out well.
Andrew's company is called Beluga Lagoon and his films including the BBC Social shorts are always worth watching as he has a very different presentation to any other wildlife filmmakers with a good bit of comedy in there too.
https://www.facebook.com/belugalagoon/
A super interesting time filming for Unreasonable Impact sponsored by Barclays.
Unreasonable Impact is well worth a look www.unreasonableimpact.com the people who run this and are attending on it are incredibly inspirational. I filmed with my GH5 and drone, Interviews, GV's and shots of workshops and talks. Worked with a great team, Rupert (filmmaker), Chad (photographer) and Jessy (sound person).
I spent a few weeks piecing together the footage from a few different people who worked on this project to try and come out with a professional looking film. Always tricky when you weren't there to film it yourself. Interesting to see the build on a remote place.
I first started doing some films for Galiford Try after working with them in Antarctica on the Halley VI project which I think finished in 2012. A short snippet below of this for your interest.
Aviemore half marathon was on and www.badaguish.org asked myself to make a film of it. It was a very quick hit day running around trying to get shots during the race which doesn't last very long. Good exercise for me.
Here I joint the team run by Liam and Graeme who own www.mountainandwatersafety.co.uk to cover the safety mainly on the River Etive but also in other places. There were a good bunch of us and it involved quite a lot of technical water scenarios with ever changing water levels.
Few pics below showing the changing river, no revealing pics of the actual film set until after the film comes out:) The big crane in the water was when the river came up about 3-4 meters over night! We got the crane out safely and we had attached it to the rock using climbing protection which held well:)
Clickon the image to scroll through the slide show:)
For a weeks this month I headed up the safety on Mary Queen of Scots for www.mountainandwatersafety.co.uk with a team of around 16. We had some porters there and the rest were doing safety for a large battle scene that would take place in a river and steep banks with 40 stunt people.
Building a floating camera platform
Camera platform ready and easy to position anywhere on the river
Once the film is out I shall post some more reviewing images of the behind the scenes:)
Here I travelled to Majorca with Dickson Minto to make a short film on a cycling trip they organised. Later in the year some of this footage will be used in a film for new recruits, along with other footage I will collect back in Scotland.
I do quite a bit of drone filming for BBC ALBA and this time I headed to Islay to meet Les for a documentary on the American ships that were sunk and the sailors swam ashore here during WW1.
I was working for www.caledonia.tv for this shoot who make several programs in Gaelic for BBC ALBA
The program will air in April.
I headed out to Lewis and Harris for a week with a mate Rupert (www.rupertshanks.com) to make a promotional film for Natural Retreats. We had a great time going round filming the Islands and working with some actors/staff to produce the below film. I did the aerials and second camera and Rupert did camera produced the films to there final products.
The main film is below
This month I did quite a bit of recci work and some water safety for the Netflix film Outlaw King. Back to my old trade as a mountain and Canoe Instructor:) Always interesting to see how the big budget guys do things.
I do my film safety through a company called www.mountainandwatersafety.co.uk who are the folk to go to for Film and Television mountain and water safety as they do all the big budget films that come to Scotland.
On Skye looking into spots for Outlaw King
Water safety here for cameras and stunts to try the place out
I had a day up in Glen Feshie in the Cairngorms to carry out a drone recci for the DOP John Mathieson for the upcoming film Mary Queen of Scots. It was a good day out meeting all the crew that I would be working with later in the year during the actual shoot.
Drone set up for a wee flight
We had quite a few land rovers and they were needed:)
