JUNE 2021 - Cameraman in Cairngorms National Park for Cairngorm Youth Action Team
A fun couple of hours grabbing some interviews and a few shots for a bunch of social media shorts. A couple of the videos below
JUNE 2021 - Drone pilot Western Isles, Uist and Mingulay. For Scotland from the Air
A great fun few days in slightly challenging weather for Scotland from the Air. A great team and enjoyed flying the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 camera on this shoot with some shots taking off and landing on the boat to Mingulay too, which is always good for keeping you on your toes.
Mingulay is an amazing place with a great feel about it and the Puffin colony was spectacular too.
Drone on Mingulay
JUNE 2021 - Drone pilot and cameraman in Glencoe for BBC ALBA
A couple of great days in Glencoe on our Dana Tv series with the great team from SOLUS Productions. Myself on Drone and long lens again with Hamish on main camera and directing. Kenny starring and Matt along for the ride. Rowan in production with us and Andy Nelson doing Hamish’s safety on the rock route while I scrambled up curved ridge myself on the first day to get good angles for filming the team on Agags groove a V.Diff climb. The following day we filmed some running on the Devils Staircase.
Agags Groove on the Buichaile Etive Mor
JUNE 2021 - A bit of Mountain Safety on Starwars
A good mate Liam at www.mountainandwatersafetyspecialists.co.uk offered me 6 weeks on Starwars! But it would affect my filming work too much, so I declined. But then he offered 3 days and I was keen to be part of a Starwars set so off I went to join in for a few days:)
I’ve done a lot of work doing mountain and water safety on the large film sets over the years for Liam, on films such as Outlaw King, 37 Ronin, Mary Queen of Scots, Pokemon, King Arthur, James Bond, The Crown and more. All good fun working with lots of mates from the climbing world:)
I have a few images from the set but unfortunately I’m not allowed to show them until well after the Starwars show goes out. But I can share me going for my pre filming cover test in the Starwars Caravan park lol:)
West coast of Scotland, waiting for cover results before I can get on set the following day.
JUNE 2021 - Cameraman and Drone pilot in Edinburgh today for BBC Education
A trip round Edinburgh filming the sites for plates for animations. Bit of Geography/Geology for schools today with volcanic rocks and plugs. Headed a bit further south for other bits of rock formations and Bass Rock. Beautiful sunny day although very windy. The boat I had booked to Bass rock didn’t go, so a return journey needed one day:)
Edinburgh Castle
JUNE 2021 - Gleneagles making a short social media film
A rushed windy day here but fun all the same. Made a short mid summers day film and also filmed a few of the golf club holes and fishing.
The wee drone in the wind
JUNE - 2021 Drone filming and ground Camera with Mark and Hank Land End to John O'Groats
A fun little stint of filming as part of a larger team. I was to film (with Camera and drone) Hank (James Lowsley-Williams) and Mark Beaumont as they raced from Lands End to John O’Groats while trying to break the record. Always very interesting seeing these elite athletes doing these challenges. I filmed the Edinburgh to Inverness leg while a group of other individuals and teams filmed the other legs.
Link below to the film:)
JUNE 2021 - Cameraman in Cairngorms National Park for BBC Education
Been doing a few of these shoots over the summer for BBC education. It is an animated series but I shoot all the plates for it so they can animate over it. Fun shoot and I get a nice walk in the mountains while I do it:)
Loch Avon looking great:)
Taking a still for a walking through shot
JUNE 2021 - Drone filming near Fort William in Glen Nevis and a bit of long lens too.
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.
MAY 2021 - Drone operator on the Isle of Rum for BBC ALBA
A fantastic trip on the Isle of Rum doing some aerial cinematography while Hamish filmed with the ground camera and directed. We had some amazing weather for filming. Here we all carried our camera kit, batteries and tents, food, stove etc. This made the first day pretty big when we arrived on the morning ferry then did the whole of the Rum Cuillin filming on the way. A few pretty knackered by the end but we were rewarded with an amazing sunset from our high camp.
The next few days saw us walking, rock climbing and swimming and visiting ruins and bothies. We also got a tan:) A few pics below:) TV show out in the Autumn
Sunset Camp
Hamish filming Kenny on the Rock Climb, Rich Parker out of site doing some safety
MAY 2021 - BAFTA winning drone pilot for aerial filming!
Well this was amazing a team of us drone pilots working for Windfall films making a film for BBC won a BAFTA for our aerial filming under Factual: Photography woooohooo. It was a great team to work with Johnny Shipley as director and David Dugan as the Exec producer, both from Windfall films. Then swapping ideas with the other drone team members and seeing everyones setups was great. Most were on the Inspire 2 like myself.
If you are interested I’ve written a little bit about my own experience below on the shoot and what went in to a few of my bigger shots.
I had the job of meeting the Shepard Andrew at the top of Scarfell for the start of the gather on the main days shoot (Day 3 on site). We went up different routes as he chased sheep on the way. He arrived 30 mins early just as I had arrived and I asked for 5 minutes to set up he said “you can have 1 minute” haha. I managed just! Took off into very cloudy conditions and wind, ‘took off’ sounds a little dramatic, I basically hovered over the ground. Knowing that at 4:30am no one else would be daft enough to be up there, I was sure not to meet anyone. We could see 50m at best and had to walk with the drone just flying 5-10m ahead of me just off the ground. I got some lovely shots in the mist and extremely atmospheric and totally different from the planned shots that we agreed on two days ago on the recci. Andrew did say “not the best for gathering sheep in” just as I was shouting at him to remember and cheesily touch the top cairn for my shot, I got the impression he was only half keen to do this. But he did it anyway haha.
The drone landed and he continued onto the next set of drone pilots. I’d warned them he was early so they were ready, as we all had radios. My drone was extremely wet now I hadn’t quite realised how wet the cloud was as didn’t feel like rain. Picture below
So now I leap frogged three drone positions to set up at another spot down out of the cloud at the foot of the valley. I was there with David (exec producer) as he was keeping me company as I was a solo pilot. I got the drone setup ready to take a few GV’s as I waited for the sheep again. The drone wouldn’t record due to water in the microSD port. Then came 20mins of panic trying to dry inside it and get my drone working again!! Finally it started recording and all functions were good. So I flew up the cliff above for some GV’s. One of these formed the opening shot of the program. Then it switches to another drone pilots shot of sheep hanging out on hill side. After this into some of my shots of Andrew in the mist as the gather begins:)
On this spot I gathered a bit of a shot plan to try and create a long shot as my summit plans hadn’t come together as I’d liked (but did give a great different feel to the shots). You can only plan as best you can as the tricky bit is it’s live in essence and there is no reshoot and you don’t know exactly where or how quickly the sheep will move lol. So lots to think about. The key being to move very slow (but never stop, Johnny’s direction also had said please keep it moving) and try to keep interesting shots and develop things in a nicely framed shot. This started with a reveal over a slight knoll amongst boulders and fly over the rise and to see the sheep. As should be an easy cut if no sheep in it to start. Then the shot develops after I realise the sheep are slightly nervous of my drone (much less nervous that they are of the sheep dogs though but you can slightly tell in the film too). I move round the side and swoop round the back and down the left side then use the boulders very low to ground, notice a little turbulence in wind as drone starts moving up and down a little by itself. The low ground and boulders manage to create a bit of a second reveal then I start rising to where the crush or narrows are.
This is where the sheep come to a halt and I notice shepards standing blocking the way, I slow my rise trying desperately to keep the sheep in shot as they do not move forward into the space I had left and planned in my shot. In my head I am saying “move move” to the sheep and the shepards blocking the way, “you are about to destroy my shot!” I might have been mumbling a few swear words too but my memory is faint on that front.
Then finally the shepards clear and the sheep start running forward “thank ….!”. I’m almost as high as I can go (Drones have a legal maximum height above the ground) and fortunately I’m spinning with the shot so I can keep the spin as I stop going up and begin to come done again. This means the stop is not so noticeable to the audience but will display a change which will link with the sheep now moving on. I then lower down and stop the spin and blend it into the beginning of a tilt up to start to show where the sheep are going which we haven’t seen yet. I pull away from the sheep to show them going away from this location. Once the shot shows the sky which won’t link as well with the next shot my continuous shot stops at 7 minutes and 30 seconds. Which is my longest shot I’ve ever had on a film and the longest shot in this film.
I remember being very chuffed the next day after first seeing the film on TV that this long shot was spoken about on twitter in relation to the program lol.
There were two days filming and the first was a smaller gather from opposite side of the valley and we used several shots from this too but we had a smaller team. Johnny had bought 360 Gopros to attach to sheep etc. I got one on a dog that morning but the dog wasn’t happy with it haha. It looked like a teenager asked to wear really uncool clothing to a friends party and just feeling awkward and not at all cool.
We switched it to put it on Andrew and a sheep. One shot which it caught was when Andrew was wearing it when he got to the top of the valley about 3-400m beyond me so I’m well out of shot. Andrew sits down and starts rolling a cigarette and is speaking to his dog and taking in the scenery and as he takes the cigarette up to his mouth because Johnny had 360 cameras then in the edit he could tilt up to its lighting and tilt back down to the view as the smoke is blown out. It’s a great shot and it’s actually been directed from the edit suite which is different:)
Hopefully its back on TV sometime and you can give it a watch.
The Team:) Although many members of the team not in the shot but most of the hill going ones.
The very wet drone after the misty shots at the start of the film!
MAY 2021 - Cameraman and aerial filming on Springwatch
Had a fun few days filming with a lovely crew. Iolo Williams presenting, Ruth directing and Raymond on the long lens. Lots of people involved with this show around the UK and we were at Alladale Nature Reserve in Scotland. Highlight was hearing and seeing the Black Grouse Lek even though it involved getting up at 00:30 and sitting in a cold hide on a mountain for 5 hrs hahaha.
MAY 2021 - Live drone filming with ITV Competitions and Andi Peters
Always exciting doing a bit of live drone filming with ITV. You definitely don’t want any boo boos while a few million are watching eeeek!
We filmed live for a morning at Loch Ness then at John O’Groats the following day. Adam Young was directing, Dan on camera and Rich (who I’ve done a few jobs with) on sound:)
It went well with only twice I had to land due to heavy heavy rain:)
MAY 2021 - Cameraman and drone pilot in Arrochar alps with ITV 'This Morning'
A great day filming with Josie Gibson on the Cobbler, with Dominic Gatt doing the directing. We had Emma a contributor with us and her friend Nick. Was a bit more of a day out that most expected but made for some great footage:) Then a swim in Loch Lomond to finish the shoot. A big day and myself doing camera, sound and drone.
MAY 2021 - Drone pilot for the SNP with Matt Brown Productions
A fun few days working for Matt Brown who does a lot of filming with the SNP. My job was to get drone shots of cool looking spots as the campaign bus travelled round Scotland before the election. Scott from MBP was doing the ground camera and interviews with the candidates. A lot of fast paperwork and often creating incident numbers with Police Scotland and Air traffic control permissions to make a lot of the flights near cities etc. So was quite a full on week and often where we went changed last minute haha.
The footage was used on social media and some ended up on the News channels throughout the week. Not sure if our filming influenced the election but they did win, there might be other factors involved?;) hahahaha.
APRIL 2021 - Cameraman and Drone Pilot Tongue Spaceport with BBC Countryfile
My second job filming with Countryfile. A few jobs recently I have ended up doing camera, sound and drone on jobs like this due to the cover restrictions on numbers. Makes for a busy but fun day. Here I was working with Tom Heap who thankfully for me took on the organising and going through the script for me while I just ran around with cameras as we met all the different contributors.
The show was about the possible new spaceport that may get built here and also the other ones around Britain. Was pretty interesting as I actually didn’t know anything about these lol. Tom was great to work with also.
APRIL 2021 - drone pilot North West Scotland for SOLUS productions and a BBC ALBA Episode
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:)
APRIL 2021 - Drone pilot and cameraman in Glasgow for ITV 'This Morning'
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!?!
APRIL 2021 - Filming instructional Kayak films with Glenmore Lodge by drone and Camera.
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
APRIL 2021 - Cairngorms National Park - Make it Yours - lots of aerial filming
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:)