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.
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)
Of filming for Director Dave as he makes his new feature film. I previously worked on other features with him. Was great weather and a good day out with a few of the Action actors. Several shots of cars moving and establishing shots and films opening:)
Inspire 2 drone still working well on features
Day 1 of filming team:)
Drone and pilot:)
Here i was working with Trenchone Industries Ltd to do the drone work for a Glenmorangie advert up in Tain. Some great fun filming through the warehouse in long shots with lots of action and flying round the copper stills. A little exciting as the compass on the drone didn’t like all the metal.
Combine cutting the barley right next to Glenmorangie House for the whisky
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
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:)
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
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
Tonight at 7pm on BBC 4, Easter Monday. Well there has been no filming or work for 5 weeks now due to the Virus for me. But tonight I have some footage on TV at least. 100 minutes of filming of sheep being gathered in from Englands highest peak. This was an awesome job to be involved in. Perfect for me being a mountain instructor and a drone pilot. 6 drone crews were involved which was what made it so special for me working with so many people and learning bits from everyone at some point.
Normally filming as a drone pilot you are looking for a 10-15 second long shots. But the format of this show by Windfall Films is known as slow television and tries to film things real time with no presenter etc. So we were asked to get as long a shot as possible for each shot. That doesn’t mean hold the same framing for ages. It meant getting a shot framed and filmed and in a nice way move into a re-framing and new shot then do this again and again as long as you can without messing up your framing or flying hahaha. I was using the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 camera on wide angle, solo operator. We all got long shots but I was lucky and got the longest shot of the program that made the cut with 7mins 30seconds in there:)
Can’t wait to do some more jobs like this in the future.
The Shepherd Andrew and a helper and the all important dogs. 4:30am walking up the hill. Man he walks fast even when rolling a cigarette!
Gerry and Pia Moffat of the Thunderdragon fund who I worked for in Scotland, Nepal and Bhutan last year started a fundraiser for the 11th step film and it hit its target of $25000 plus a few extra thousand which is great. Now the project and hundreds of hours of footage from myself and a few other DOP’s (Ben Figueiredo and Tyler Allyn) will go into post production to produce a finished film for around easter time, where it has its opening night at a festival near New York.
To follow how the film is going goto: https://thunderdragonfund.org
Trailer for the upcoming film is below, with music from Beluga Lagoon:)
Had a great day at Cawdor Castle getting some aerial filming and ground shots of the Castle for Gordon of WOW Scotland. A beautiful Castle near Nairn in Scotland.
Had a great few days working with this team again and this time in Dorset and in the sun. Great we all know each other as it makes the working a lot easier. John made some amazing dishes which we always get to taste and we visited some lovely spots.
Was using my GH5 and steady cam for a lot of the filming here plus the Mavic 2 pro Drone :)
John about to cook in the Vine yard:)
The Team in Dorset
Fun time on this with director Michael and DOP Sam and myself on the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 camera shooting for this documentary/music video. Bit of filming with the band in the morning then with their landrover later. Weather played ball for us which was great:) A few screen grabs below.
The band walking over Feshie Bridge
Tonight at 7.30pm some of my drone work from filming on the Isle of Bute with the Syrian refugees will be on.
This was a great shoot to a new Island for me and with a great bunch of people including Ali who I filmed the most of. We also ate in Helmi’s for a lunch a brilliant Bakery/cafe run by one of the Syrian families, well worth a visit if you are there:)
The filming was organised by Caledonia TV in Glasgow who I have done quite a bit of drone work for over the years:)
Myself and Ali on Bute
A few days ago Glenmore Lodge released the Surf Champs 2018 film. This was a great fun day up in Thurso on the North Coast of Scotland filming teenagers to folk in their fifties surf Kayaking. Great atmosphere and fun to watch and to film. Pretty fun drone flying too. Trying to get close but not get wave spray on my drones:) I used my DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera and the Mavic 2 pro. And used all of the combined 27 batteries haha.
Little teaser film I made for the British Kayak Surf champs for Glenmore Lodge and the British Kayak Surf association. I think the full film will be out next week or so:) This was a lot of fun with the drone. I flew every battery on two drones to empty haha. Thats 27 batteries:)
Spent five days with Andrew and Mark from Beluga Lagoon films on the North coast of Scotland as they cycled from Jon O’Groats to Cape Wrath on a tandem bicycle.
It was a week of mixed weather and a variety of landscapes and fun from lots of fog to sunshine, broken chains, dinner in a cave, boat trips, camping wild and swimming in the North Atlantic:)
To break up the cycling a bit we got into my mate Dougs boat and went out to see the North Coast as seen from the sea and get a look at the massive rugged cliffs out there.
A few pics from the week below:) It will appear on BBC iplayer later in the year as one of three adventures with this pair. Check out Beluga Lagoon on facebook to see other films by Andrew:)
The team on Doug’s Boat
The wide shot of the team on the boat flying in towards the shot below for some tight flying:)
Then through the arch:)
This past summer I was invited onboard 'Ocean Swift'. A boat entirely built by a mate JT (John Taylor) and his Dad. As in he even built an oven to ben the glass windows to fit!!
It is now probably the fastest Catamaran for its type there is:) To find out more about the boat goto: epoxycraft.com/ocean-swift-a-self-build-like-n…/ and ocean-swift.net
During this week at see every single place I saw was new to me, even where we left from on the main land:)
Joining us onboard was the Wildlife filmmaker Andrew O'Donnell Of Beluga Lagoon (who filmed this wee trailer with myself) and his mate Mark and then Zoe who is an Antarctic person like myself and JT. We traveled out to St Kilda on his Catamaran via, corrievreckan whirlpools, Mull, Staffa, Uist, Monarch Isles, etc. On St Kilda we had three mates working there so it was good to see them and see the spectacular island:)
Longer film to come when I get a moment to my own projects:)
So Winterwatch and the rest of the watches come to the Cairngorms for the year and I am lucky enough to get the aerial filming contract for the series:)
This was a great week as the crew and presenters are all superb people and a good crack.
Me taking the place of the Welshman on the presenter line up:)
Had a great week working on a Casio online advert with Warren from Casio and several other mates:). Warren outlined his story and then we bounced it back and forward between us to fill it in with locations extra ideas transitions etc.
We were challenged by the weather this time after doing an advert back in march where we had perfect weather. This time we chased round the country with some long days out and about and winds up to 60mph and rain, sleet, snow, hail and fortunately some sun to keep us thinking. We got there though:)
Selection of behind the scenes pics above by Iain Rudkin (out with us to capture the mountain biking on Monday www.iainrudkin.com), Will Copestake (Out with us to capture the kayaking on Wednesday www.willcopestakemedia.com) and a couple from my iPhone and one from the drone:)
Thanks to Jess Creber for biking abilities while carrying a wee one inside and Joe Kirk for a bit of biking and lapping big waterfalls in his kayak for the camera:)
