FEBRUARY 2024 - Filming Avalanche rescue film

A fun few days filming an avalanche rescue film with several mates. The film is a collaboration of several people including Scottish Mountain Rescue and Glenmore Lodge (National outdoor centre) plus others but I just met the ones involved in the filming bit on the mountain.

I was booked over a month ago and amazing that the day we come to film there is snow (tricky these days in the Highlands it seems) and sun and not to bad wind. We had a script pulled together from the different organisations and we went about filming it on the mountain. Always fun trying to get non actors to act but they did a pretty good job of it. Felt good to be out in the mountains too. Just working through the edit of it now.

Small team searching our man made Avalanche debris

Probing a grid over debris

OCTOBER 2023 - Aerial filming in the Lake District for a Light Show

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)

OCTOBER 2023 - Filming with Helly Hanson and Arrochar Mountain rescue

Today was filming a training day with Helly Hanson and AKA presented by Arrochar mountain Rescue team. Was all about breaking down the barriers in the outdoors. It was a fun day meeting all these people. Ed Smith was doing the photography on the day too, always good to work with Ed.

OCTOBER 2023 - Aerial filming Mountain biking near Aviemore

A fun day out with locals filming for the Capercaillie project about different groups working together for the benefit of these big birds. I was filming some mountain bikers with the drone to go with Katrina’s ground footage she had filmed before. Was fun filming and a bit of exercise.

OCTOBER 2023 - Aerial Filming the floods in Scotland

I spent a couple of days filming the River Spey in flood as often documentary makers are looking for shots of the Spey in flood so I thought I should catch some of it and plus it is very interesting to see it from the air but also devastating seeing what it has done to peoples properties too.

SEPTEMBER 2023 - A day out to ITV This Morning.

ITV This Morning is one of my best clients and a do a lot of location work in Scotland and luckily abroad for them. So as I was going to be in London I gave Will Thomas a shout (he is a PD I do a lot of work with and is the head of features). He said arrive when the show is still going live and he can give me a tour of the studios.

I had a great time meeting new folk and folk I have worked with before and seeing Alan Carr (Chatty Man) on the couch. I met John Torode as I went in the door who had been recording the voice over for our Australia films. He was on good form. Then I met Dr. Scott with Martin Harper in an edit. Will then had to get back to editing and Dom continued my tour.

I bumped into Julia doing the cooking prep for the live cooks and India in production and the head editor, Freddie, Amber, Abby and many more. When the show finished I chatted with Alison and Dermot and got a sneaky picture on the couch.

Marten Harper took me for lunch and then I joined for drinks with a leaving party for a lighting engineer leaving doo who had been there for 7 years so it was a good day to be visiting:)

Alison myself and Dermot on the Couch:)

Will (my tour guide), John Torode and myself:)

SEPTEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in Tuscany, Italy with GCN

Awesome time as drone pilot out in Tuscany with GCN. A lot less full on than my Swiss trip last month with GCN:)

Had a great time filming a gravel race called Grinduro in the lovely Tuscany area in Italy. Hank was the very enthusiastic presenter and Stefan the equally enthusiastic director. We made a few films here and the main event was filming the race itself which involved driving round and grabbing shots of Hank as we went. Hank also Gopro’d much of the race as we could not follow a lot of it down closed off gravel roads.

The race feel itself was very chilled and fun and we stayed on a campsite by the beach in 33 degree heat each day so it was lovely:)

The start line was pretty hectic with 3 other drones in the air lol. But we managed to work around each other. I used the Mavic 3 pro CINE where I could and the Mini 3 pro in places near people and buildings:) a few pics below….

Final evening Tuscany filming sunset on the beach for a sequence with Hank.

A Tuscan village and church

AUGUST 2023 - Some of my Aerial Filming in the new GCN Doc

The short documentary of the Tour Des Staions Ultimate 1000 that Oli raced in, is out today. Such an amazing effort Oli did cycling this, he had only ever cycled a race up to 380km previously.

Beautifully edited by Stefan Darque who was also directing and main camera, driving was Steve of Elmy Cycles who did a brilliant job staying awake for it. It has turned into a great little film and I believe a longer version is coming. Lots of shots from the air here from myself:) Have a watch in the link below.

AUGUST 2023 - Aerial filming in the Swiss Alps for GCN

This was a pretty fun yet crazy filming job making this documentary. Fun because we were in the Swiss alps and with a great team of people. Stefan as director and first camera, Oli racing his bike, Steve driving the van, James riding the motorbike and myself doing the aerial filming.

The crazy bit was we did a 37 hr shift on day one of the race filming, and driving for Steve then we got about 3 hrs sleep the next night and 3 hrs the following night. (James stuck to his legally insured 10hrs a day driving:) So there really should have been two crews covering this! But GCN does like getting free overtime out of everyone lol! But we just got on with it in a very happy way as we were there and needed to film it and support Oli and everyone. Hopefully it all looks good when it comes out tomorrow on the GCN channel:)

I also got to see the North Face of the Eiger which I’d always wanted to do and Oli got an amazing position in the race for it being his first Ultra race.

The race was the Tour Des Stations 1000 Ultimate. Meaning 40 racers would do 1000 km and climb 26000m in the race! Oil did it in 72 hrs which is incredible! Need to watch it to see how he did:) A few pics of the lovely Swiss alps below.

Some hairpins

The hotel from Goldfinger

The North Face of the Eiger

JULY 2023 - Camera operator in Barbados with ITV This Morning

This was a fun trip to get involved with. Possibly the sweatiest filming I’ve ever done but amazing to visit the Caribbean for my first time.

Here Harry the director had written a dating segment and we had 3 different couples out on dates to see how they got on. Laura was presenting and Nigel Francis was on sound and we had India from productions and Freddy as a researcher/helping with cameras there too. A brilliant team and we stayed at the lovely Sandles resort.

We even got a few hours off each day at lunchtime to enjoy a swim and relaxed lunch as we started early and finished late each day. With be on in the Autumn and you can see how the couples got on.

The fabulous film team:)

MAY 2023 - Filming with drone and camera in Argyll at the Taynish National Nature Reserve

Fun day filming with Ian Dow. Perfect sunny day filming for Tiny Ark a Dublin based film company who I last filmed several years ago for. The weather was lovely and sunny and had no idea these big Oak (plus many other trees) rain forest exists. They have a proper canopy and ferns growing out of the oak branches like you see in botanical gardens lol.

Had a bunch of large Landscape shots to show the position of the forest in relation to the surrounding mountains and Sea. Then got creative with far more fun shots flying under the canopy through the trees in lovely slow cinematic shots through this cool habitat.

Then we did an interview with Ian with our first midges of the year biting us as we stood still for 30mins. Then a bunch of Close up shots and slo-mo with the GH6 ground camera. A good day exploring and being creative with the forest.

Definitely worth a visit: https://www.nature.scot/enjoying-outdoors/visit-our-nature-reserves/taynish-national-nature-reserve

The canopy from above

Screen grab of forest

APRIL 2023 - Drone pilot in Scotland heads to Malta :)

Headed to Malta for a great film job with ITV This Morning. Here we are filming a piece about film locations and Malta has been used for many: Gladiator, Game of Thrones, Troy and many more. Joe for Gavin and Stacey is the presenter here. Such a lovely lady and very good fun to work with. Dom is the director from ITV This Morning and his dad is from Malta who we met along with several other family members hahaha. Handy having a director who knows all the places in Malta and having a Maltese second name helps too:)

Here I was doing the main camera work. Mostly on the Gimbal. I was also doing the sound as budget was tight. Then the drone work on top too.

Was interesting doing the drone permits for here but fortunately I have been registered here for years. Every flight must be authorised by their civil aviation authority so there is a lot of online paperwork to set up a job. But straight forward after you do the first few and get used to the system.

The tourism board helped us lots and sorted our permits and an amazing hotel to stay in. A bit better than normal being the number 1 hotel there:)

Our 5 star hotel ‘The Phoenicia Malta’ such an amazing place and lovely people.

The outdoor pool and the end of a few hundred meters of lovely gardens:)

Our film team with Mario the guide (with encyclopaedic knowledge of the island) Dom in the back and Joe the presenter up front.

January 2023 - Camera and drone operator Aberdeen and Ballater for ITV 'This Morning' crime segment.

Did an interview with a murder detective and GV’s for this in December in Aberdeen city but today we were out in Ballater to film some more pieces and interview around the village. Pretty chilly day but nice sunshine and an interesting days but some gruesome facts and scary what humans can be like.

Isla was presenting this piece and Dom directing and using my second camera. With myself on ground camera drone and sound.

Ballater from the Air

My setup for the interview with the detective and Isla.

January 2023 - Camera and drone operator in Sardinia with Gino for ITV This Morning

Always great to head to Sardinia to shoot with the ever very funny Gino and the great ITV ‘This Morning’ crew. I was doing camera and drone here and Ashley Gadd from fresh audio was doing sound, Harry Bott was directing and Julia Alger was managing the food side of things for Gino.

Surprisingly for this time of year we only had one indoor cook and the rest was pretty sunny for January and we had a great time touring round different areas in the inner part of Sardinia. Mainly within 30mins oil Gino’s house.

Gino kept us entertained and ever professional and quick at what he does.

November 2022 - Camera Operator and Drone pilot Northumberland with John Torode

So John is back on the road on his bike as we tour a few spots in Northumberland and cook several lovely dishes. John is always great and easy to work with and so are the ITV This Morning crew. Will Thomas, directing, Natalie managing the cooking and Ian on Sound.

Was a fun week and weather amazingly held for us for November:)

Bamburgh Castle, the amazing spot for one of the cooks:)

John on Holy Island for a cook:)

MARCH 2022 - Aerial filming in the Highlands at Creag Meagaidh

Today we were filming Guy Robertson soloing a few different ice climbs on Creag Meagaidh for an Alastair Lee climbing film. Was a good day out and some good exercise for the day as had to carry all the kit to the top to start:)

JANUARY 2022 - Drone pilot in the Cairngorms and Glen Africa for an Amazon Prime TV Show

So a few days with the drones for an Amazon Prime TV show called Car and Country. Nice bunch of people and we did a bit in the snow in the Cairngorms then headed up Struy estate (A place I actually made 31 films for a few years back lol) to do some Landrover driving and staying in Eagle Braes lovely Log Cabins.

AUGUST 2021 - Drone filming trains in Northern Scotland for Great British Railway Journeys on BBC 2

Always exciting filming trains as you never quite know when they will arrive in your shot and the drone only has so long in the air before the batteries change. Much easier near London but in the far North of Scotland they are not quite as frequent so you can’t retry your shot 5 minutes later. Raildar helps but only when you have internet lol. Anyway got some good shots in different spots from Inverness to Helmsdale.

Invershin Bridge and a Castle:)

JULY 2021 - AERIAL FILMING IN TAIN AT GLENMORANGIE HOUSE

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

JULY 2021 - Filming the Beluga Lagoon Team as Drone pilot and Cameraman and sound on their BBC TV Show. This episode on West Coast of Scotland

I have the pleasure of filming on all 6 episodes of ‘Roaming in the Wild’ Andrew and Marks TV show that is now on prime time 8pm slot on BBC Scotland. Great fun working on these episodes and this one takes us sea kayaking down Loch Sheil from the Harry Potter viaduct down onto the sea and round to Arisaig. We start in the mist and midges and finish in calm 25 degree sunny weather. Was a superb trip and lots of lovely filming. Andrew films all the wildlife in these episodes and often chat between the guys if I am away getting ahead to set up a drone shot or the likes. I look forward to these trips each time.

Sunset on the second night near Eilean Shona

Me and the guys. Carrying all our kit for 5 days in our Sea Kayaks:)