Drone Operator & Camera Operator | Scotland
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.
This was a fun few days as a drone pilot on Suilven mountain filming Kenny and with Hamish directing and on main camera and Rowan along from production, Rich Parker on mountain safety and the two boatmen.
Suilven lends itself to great shots but especially when you get a bit of clouds moving over the mountain which we got lots of:) Looking forward to see how Hamish edits this one:)
Had a fun few days filming with one of my best clients ITV ‘This Morning’. Here we were filming part of a series that tours round Britain looking into top spots for Indian food with Nisha Katona. This episode we were in Glasgow for the birth place of Chicken Tikka Masala and an amazing family run Pakora takeaway caravan. Pheobe directing on the right in photo:)
Totally unrelated but with cover hotels are pretty empty giving them a slight spooky feel. So the corridor in the bottom picture here has a definite ‘The Shining’ vibe about it eeeek!?!
Amazing tasting Pakora here:)
Definitely a bit of ‘The Shining’ vibe here!?!
A fun few days filming river kayaking with Giles from Glenmore Lodge. looking air people returning to the water after lockdowns and ways to get back into it.
On the River Garry
Fun putting this together with a few talking heads, narration and a bunch of my stock footage of drone shots within the park, a few family clips by JEGS Media and wildlife shots by Beluga Lagoon Films. I also went out with the drone for some new aerial shots.
The chat about this film started with the Cairngorms National Park before Christmas and we just finished last week. Such is the way with all these lockdowns and folk on furlough etc. Hopefully looks like everything is getting busier again now:) Looking forward to a bumper summer of filmmaking:) Enjoy:)
Here we headed into the wild with humungous rucksacks to go snow holing for several days in what would be (very lucky for Beluga Lagoon filming) four of the best weather days in the Cairngorms this winter, and there have been a few!!
It took a while getting landowner permissions and general covid go ahead etc so most of the lower snow had gone but luckily there is so much snow up top it didn’t matter.
The guys, Andrew and Mark would dig and live in a snow hole for three nights while I stayed in my tent as they are a shared household (Mark does a good bit of baby sitting in the O’Donnell household). I have to say it was absolutely amazing to be out of my house for longer than a day trip and with zero wind and sun each day life was great.
Here we would document our time up high and even I had to pop in front of the screen as snow holing is not the best activity to do without some guidance as depending on the conditions it can be a bit dangerous. Plus there are avalanches, weather, navigation, route choice etc to add to the winter experience. So luckily being a cameraman and MIC (now called WMCI) (Highest national qualification in summer/winter walking, climbing and mountaineering) and having spent many winters working and training people in the Cairngorms it was useful for this trip.
We got in some lengthy ski tours once we dumped the big bags at our base camp/hole. I leave those stories for when the episode airs though.
A few pics from the trip below.
Andrew returns from a toilet break:)
The snow hole and tent area from the drone:)
So in the past I have sold aerial footage to Country file but as yet I hadn’t filmed for them. So was great to get a call to film two segments for them. We got the first one done but the Reindeer still await the snow to return as we just missed the best snow.
So this days filming was with Alice Goodridge who runs a wild swimming company and runs the Scottish winter swimming championships and other things. She also swims everyday of the year. And this day it was -4 and blowing 20mph and the Loch was frozen over.
Usually for TV things there is often a director and sometimes a sound person, and maybe others but with this pandemic the country file team can’t get out of Bristol so are trying to use local folk, where they can, and also small teams. Which they would do camera wise anyway but usually have a director sent. So I did all the parts and had a fun day with Alice and Alistair her husband on Loch Insh. Alice swimming and getting straight in as spin drift blows over her just in a swim suit is pretty impressive. I was even persuaded to get in after a 7hr shoot day with already numb fingers and toes lol. It was very refreshing and I did indeed (as Alice says) feel much more alive after. (Although maybe not so much while in the water, more trying to stay live I think.
Fun when you can film with normal cameras, underwater and from the air. The producer Helen when she got the footage from me and was in the edit suite sent me a text. It started “you are a wonderful man. There are so many wonderful shots”. So good to hear when shooting for a new TV program and even though I have been making films for a while I still get weirdly nervous until things are in the edit suite:)
A few pics below.
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:)
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:)
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
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.
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.
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:)
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:)
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:)
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
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
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
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:)
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:)
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:)
