FEBRUARY 2021 - Drone filming Lake District with hundreds of sheep

Well tonight the TV program ‘The Great Mountain Sheep Gather’ shot in a slow television fashion to show the gathering of sheep in an almost real time by shepherds on Scafell Pike in the Lake District is on at 10pm on BBC4. The Program has been nominated for several awards now and is up for some hopefully shortly.

There were about 6 drone crews working on this. As a mountain instructor I got the joy of following the main Shepard up the mountain at 4am at an incredible speed to film our first shots on the main summit, in the wind and rain with 30m of visibility. A little taxing flying and the drone got very damp/wet. Then I leap frogged the next two drone teams to set up at another spot lower down. This is where I got a shot that ended up making it in with no cuts in 7 and a half minutes I was pretty chuffed solo flying the Inspire 2 with X7 camera shooting and in RAW. We were asked to get shots as long as possible. Totally different from normal as usually 10 seconds and sometimes just over 30 seconds for a end credit shot. So going for as long as possible you need to keep looking for new shots within shots to progress a clip in an interesting way and never ever make a sudden movement. A lot of fingers and thumbs and brain overload, but very good fun:)

JANUARY 2021 - Drone filming Perth and Dundee for BBC Education

My filming for a BBC school education project continued as I travel down the Tay filming from up stream of Perth down to Dundee. and a bit beyond:) Lovely day for it:)

JANUARY 2021 - Road Aerial filming in the Highlands for Transport Scotland

As people (by people I mean road engineers) can’t get out on mass to see where new roads will go and walk the path, if you like, then I have been doing a few fly throughs, so people can watch in isolation in their houses what the landscape looks like and get a better idea of how to quote for jobs and what is feasable.

An old oak for a launchpad

JANUARY 2021 - Drone filming in the Scottish Highlands for BBC

Filming for a BBC Geography Animation for Education. A fun few days and got to go up a mountain as this film traces the River Tay from source to sea. Unfortunately after the first few days filming it snowed so continuity has been lost for the next part of filming so just waiting for the snow to go (as it keeps falling outside haha). But the team are getting going with the animation from the first two days filming. All the shots are static shots from drone and also ground cameras to make the animation onto the shots easier.

The view on Ben Lui from the source of the river Tay.

JANUARY 2021 - Filming Carol Smillie for ITV

A fun day meeting and filming Carol Smillie and working with Adam from ITV. We were filming for their competitions and were very lucky to get a lovely day for it.

DECEMBER 2020 - Filming with the Great Beluga Lagoon lot for a new episode of Roaming in the wild.

Spent four days with these guys filming and camping in the snow. Different times filming but still great fun. Had to have separate vehicles and tents although tents is easy and gives better sleep. Most of my filming was remote from the guys as they bobbed or swished past on a raft on the Kelvin River:) They filmed themselves in the raft:) A few more episodes to do yet for their BBC series:)

A winter Camp:)

DECEMBER 2020 - Industrial filming at Nigg, near Invergordon for Briggs Marine. Some lovely aerial filming.

A fun week seeing how a massive 10km fibre optic cable is taken off a ship and coiled onto a carousel ready to be coiled onto another ship. I was filming drone for aerial shots and ground camera for some more close up shots. Unusually here just filming and handing over the footage to be edited by the in-house media department at the company. Always interesting to see the lives of other people in different industries and the technology going into these things.

An inversion one morning:)

DECEMBER - Inshriach drinks advert released for Christmas

Had great fun making this advert with Walter and Ali. All filmed with Anamorphic lenses apart from the aerial shots. Also lots of lighting fun:) Hit Play to see the film below:)

Starring Ewan MockGregorand the postie.Filmed and edited by Kirk Watson of Perfect View Productions.Original Soundtrack by Alastair Caplin.Written and produc...

NOVEMBER 2020 - Filming a drinks Advert about a gin made in a Cairngorm / Speyside distillery.

A few days filming a Gin advert for Walter at Inshriach. We had some fun here making a drinks advert using the Anamorphic cinema lenses and a drone for our opening aerial scenes.

The natural ingredients all from within the national park look super nice and obviously taste good once made into the Gin.

We had a finishing film scene with the shot below. We were going for a festive vibe without any of the Christmas decorations, and an axe obviously? haha. Have to see the advert once I edit it to find out why that is in there. You can see the still in the the Distillery in the background.

Buy some Inshriach gin here: www.inshriachgin.com

OCTOBER 2020 - Aerial Filming the Autumn colours from the air with Channel 5

A few days aerial filming on a series called ‘The worlds great rivers’ this one being the Spey. Handy being on my doorstep.

The first day was filming with Dave Craig and Jerry Craig, two local canoeists. Lots of tracking shots from the air. Andy Robbins was directing this and was shooting ground camera. The following day I was off on my own to capture different parts of the river including Spey Bay and many Distilleries. Few pics below.

Craigellachie

Cragganmore Distilery

OCTOBER 2020 - Filming tidal turbines and ships at Nigg, near Invergordon

Spent several day filming today turbines and the loading of a ship in Nigg Bay, near Invergordon, north of Inverness. Great to see these turbines being built in Scotland. Time and tide wait for no man, as they say so a guaranteed power source once in position. With Scotland having some amazing tides, probably the fastest and most extensive in Europe then its a good place to have them. this one is heading to Japan and is made by Atlantis (aptly named) and is being shipped using DShip:)

I was working for www.haraldhohenthal.com to get the footage for Harald to put the film together. Handy being close to these docks for this.

Pretty interesting to see how these 200+ tonne items get loaded on and how they balance the ship by pumping water into one side, as they lift on the other side to stop it tipping over.

The ship we were loading with some unrelated legs for wind turbines behind.

Nigg Bay and Invergordon in the background

The ship almost loaded from above

OCTOBER 2020 - Filming for Autumn Watch

A day by myself filming lots of aerial shots to be used in amongst the live broadcast of Autumn watch. I was filming at Tentsmuir near St Andrews. Lovely place and saw a few red squirrels (not while flying just while walking) and some seals far out on the tidal flats.

The wee drone out for some flying, 9 batteries of filming:)

SEPTEMBER 2020 - Western Isles with GCN and some Aerial Filming

Headed off on my fourth job with the Global Cycling Network this summer to film a documentary about the Outer Hebrides and presented by Jenny Graham (fastest women round the world on a bicycle). We were a team of four with Hugh Farrow directing, Jenny presenting, Jason driving the follow truck, setup up specifically for following cyclists. Then myself as 2nd camera and doing the aerial cinematography.

The Islands were amazing and we travelled to 7 different ones and met many locals with interesting stories. Jenny did a great job presenting with her outgoing and very positive approach to life. We started in shorts and t-shirts getting a tan then finished with the horizontal rain trying to give us a skin exfoliation:)

SEPTEMBER 2020 - With the Beluga Lagoon team for a BBC Documentary down at the Borders.

As always great fun working with Andrew and Mark from Beluga Lagoon films as we make another episode of their ‘Roaming in the Wild’ for BBC. This time to the borders and with hiking and stand up boards involved. I was filming them on there journey with camera and drone. Andrew would be getting wildlife shots with his big lenses as we went. Do enjoy this work a lot when you get to take part in the trip (behind the camera) with the team. Carrying camping stuff, stove, tent, sleeping bag, and Camera, tripod, drone and all the batteries makes for a heavy load but good bit of exercise:)

AUGUST 2020 - Recreation of Highland Cyclist Battalion with Mark Beaumont

The second GCN Job (Global cycling network) this summer again working with Stephan as director (morrocomedia). Myself as 2nd camera and Drone extraordinaire:) A fun day in the Kingdom of Fife with these guys and learning about this WW1 military unit. Mark also found a bike from a friend from this era which was great.

AUGUST 2020 - Douglas Roulston Artist Film

Been working with Douglas Roulston ( www.douglasroulston.com ), an artist from Dundee on a film about his art. This has been great fun and we have been around a fair bit. I’ll keep most of it a secret for when we get the film out. Couple of shots below. Little bit of filming in July, August and September. I am shooting it on Anamorphic lenses and aerial shots are just drone camera that will be cropped to match the anamorphic lens:)

Douglas painting on Suilven

Me

Studio filming in Dundee

AUGUST 2020 - Biking in the Cairngorms with GCN

Spent four days drone filming and ground camera while riding an e bike round and over a lot of the Cairngorms over a four day period for a Documentary for GCN (Global Cycling Network). This was pretty full on and my bum had some pretty big bruising from carrying all the kit and doing 70-110 km per day and often over mountains. plus the pair that Stephan (From Morocco media who was directing and 1st camera) and myself had to keep up with weren’t exactly slow, being the two fastest people round the world on a bicycle.

Jenny and Mark

AUGUST 2020 - ITV 'This Morning' with Nigel Havers

Had a few days with Nigel Havers from ‘Chariots of fire’ as we filmed in Edinburgh and St Andrews for a few days. We even gave a wee visit to the Chariots of Fire beach. It was good banter with Nigel and Phoebe (The director/producer). Lots of good stories from Nigel.

I was doing the main camera, sound and drone. Had to fly in a military zone which is always different as need to unlock your drone, get a police incident number and get permission from the RAF and let their air traffic control know when you are flying and when you’re finished:)

Phoebe, Nigel and myself on West Beach St Andrews.

AUGUST 2020 - 3rd episode of 'Don't be like Barry'

The 3rd film of Barry this time tackling doing Jobbies in the wild. Some popular spots are pretty horrible now with poo and toilet paper everywhere, doh. Something that has appeared all over the news of late.

Hoping to still make the next two films which will look at Camping and campfires as we always planned for a 5 episode mini series:) Scott from the Pine Marten bar plays Barry. Hope you enjoy:)

JULY 2020 - ITV 'This Morning' Caledonian Canal

Great week working on the Caledonian Canal. My first ITV job since lockdown so great to be back out there. What a fun crew too, all new to me.

Josie Gibson was the presenter with a great West Country accent, she was great fun. Sam Palmano as the producer/writer who was also great and laughed and looked like Mike Myers:)

Then we had Brian driving the boat and Rachel from Le Boat who were also awesome and great fun. So all and all a great trip. I shot with the GH5 and the Magic drone. Always fun flying from the boat:)