We love this combo – Alexa Mini + Kowa Anamorphic lenses on the MoVI Pro with Segway tracking magic. Shooting for the lovely folks at FatFreeMedia last Friday for a Center Parcs ad. Thanks again for having us along 🤗
Kit – 2 x Inspire 2 drones
We love working abroad so when New Holland asked us to bring our drones to France for a week in July, we made it happen… just! With rather short notice, we managed to get clearance from the French aviation authorities to film on a remote (but massive) farm near (where the fuck James? Auxerre?). This is the 3rd year in a row that New Holland and their Italian film crew have required our aerial filming services to help promote their new agricultural machinery. It’s always exciting work but can be challenging – they have very specific shotlists and often we are required to track the machines closely for long distances which needs a steady hand and good special awareness. This year we were able to offer them new creative possibilities with the Inspire 2 drone shooting ProRes with various lenses – 24mm, 50mm and 90mm (the longer focal lengths are really amazing for this kind of work). The Inspire 2 really is an impressive little beast and we can’t wait to share the footage when we can. Despite the long dusty days in 39deg C heat, it was an awesome job with a very entertaining crew! Thanks New Holland and co.
Princess Cruises, Santorini to Kotor, August 2017
Kit – 2 x Inspire 2 drones
Another short notice request came in to challenge our organisational powers (thank you to Jordan and James for being so efficient!). Our good friend and DP, Roger Laxon, from Flying Fern Films recommended for this one based on our experience of flying drones in tricky situations… and that it was!
Wild Pictures are the production company behind ITV’s ‘The Cruise’ and for the upcoming 3rd series, they needed sweeping dynamic aerial shots of the Royal Princess cruise ship out at sea. So the challenge was thus… fly from the bow of the ship (safe distance from the passengers) whilst the ship is cruising at 20 knots into a blustery wind.
Hmm… so there is a relative closing wind speed to contend with, as well as constant forward motion and turbulence on takeoff and landing. Not for the feint hearted! Drawing on our 10 years of commercial drone experience and the robust capabilities of the Inspire 2 drone,
we embraced the adrenalin and went for it. Landing in Santorini was quite spectacular… a stunning Greek island with bars, restaurants and shops perched impossibly on the cliffs overlooking a stunning sea view.
The only issue for us was the amount of luggage we had to drag through the tiny meandering streets to get down to the old port for transfer to the cruiseship.We boarded the mighty vessel with wide eyes (and a degree of trepidation!) The ship is absolutely MASSIVE – after an extensive recce and briefing with the captain on the bridge (a tech nerd’s sweet shop!) we settled for an evening drone session on the bow of the ship. A vibrant pastel sunset presented endless creative opportunities. We managed several flights in different light conditions, including night shots with a chance full moon. The impressive camera specs of the Inspire 2 allowed us to switch easily between Pro Res footage and high resolution aerial photography to give the client a variety of imagery for the series. One of the highlights of the trip was working with such an entertaining crew. Thank you to Rachel, Mark, Howard, Tom, Rhiannon, Selena and Zoe for a memorable few days aboard the Royal Princess cruise ship.
- Built in 2013
- Launched by the Dutchess of Cambridge
- 330metres in length
- Weighs 141,000 tons
- 3500 passengers
- 1500 crew
- 82,000 horsepower
- 15 yards to the gallon!
Kat & Alfie’s Redwater hit our TV screens last Thursday night in dramatic style! Who shot the aerial footage you might ask?!… We did!
Drone aerial filming specialists for TV drama series in UK
We’re set for an emotional evening on the streets of one of the UK’s favourite soap dramas tonight! We had the privilege of flying our Freefly systems Alta 8, coupled with our Alexa Mini camera to help give tonight’s special episode the WOW factor!
Join us tonight at 7pm on ITV.
Emmerdale’s Jimmy King (played by Nick Miles) checking out our Alta 8 / Alexa Mini combo whilst the crew review the shot!
Miss it? Don’t worry, you can watch Ashley’s final scene below.
We’re so excited to see Broadchurch back on the big screen again – we’re even more excited to see our aerial filming work punctuated throughout the series. We spent a number of days last year filming with our ALTA 8 and Alexa Mini drone on the windy South Coast (near West Bay). Lots of longs days and tricky locations (thanks to Graeme MacKenzie) but we had a blast working on this production… such a lovely team of people – it really felt like we were part of the family by the end. If you missed the first episode on Monday 27th Feb, see it here.
Catch the next episode on Monday 6th March.
Chris captures the sunset before a night shoot.
The under belly of the beast – Our Alexa Mini drone in action!
Beautiful weather for some tracking shots – Moments before shooting a scene for Ep. 1
Thats a wrap with David Tenant and Olivia Coleman!
James doing preflight checks on the cliff top.
Night shooting in the early hours.
Take off and landing on the beach – we love a challenge!
“Day 1 of 4 – Sunrise shots in the bag near Exeter for the Arla TV commercial with our spanking new MoVI Pro camera mount by @freeflysystems.”
“Day 2 and 3 filming some more crazy scapes across Dartmoor for the Arla ad. Strong performance from the new MoVI Pro camera mount in high winds and rain #weatherbeaten“
“Day 4 – That’s a wrap! 4 long, tough but exciting days in the wilderness with an awesome crew and even more awesome locations! Stay tuned for more adventures coming next week 
“
We are pleased to share the new Worcester Bosch racing teaser video, by Hipster, which is bristling with high energy and Top Gear styling. Hipster gave us a call in Jan 2017 with an exciting brief ‘We need some dramatic aerials shots chasing a BMW M4 around Bedford Aerodrome using the ALEXA Mini, can you help?’ Naturally, we jumped at the chance – chasing cars is our speciality, and so is the ALEXA Mini.
The weather forecast was dodgy and the first morning was spent anxiously watching the rain pelt the Hipster crew who had to cram a lot of filming into a challenging short Winter day. We set up and waited patiently in a hangar (next to Jonathan Palmer’s old F1 car) for an opportunity to fly and eventually, it came. We fired up the drone, cranked the camera to 50fps and had a lot of fun trying to keep up with the stunt driver. Delivering 425hp, the M4 looked insane drifting through the fresh surface water, leaving perfect trails of turbulent spray behind it. DP Karl Poyzer and Director Jake Barrett were watching everything happen live via a Connex HD downlink and Atomos Shogun monitor (for quick playback). It’s always nice to hear over-excited clients cheering beside us. Our finely-tuned Freefly Systems MoVI Pro stabilised the Alexa Mini perfectly, handling some fairly severe manoeuvres from the powerful ALTA 8 drone. Day 2 was spent at the incredible Milbrook Proving Ground, but sadly we can’t talk too much about that one… it’s a fascinating place to fly, but shrouded in secrecy. Thank you Hipster for an awesome job.
Client: Worcester Bosch
Campaign: Race Review
Production Company: Hipster
Director: Jake Barrett
1st Assistant Director: Laura Roe
Producer: Ryan Phillips
1st Assistant Producer: Verity Amos
Director of Photography: Karl Poyzer
Loader: Bart Bazaz
1st Assistant Camera: Fatosh Olgacher
Sound Engineer: Adam Fletcher
Data Wrangler: Nick Helmsley
Editor: Simon Dymond
Behind the Scenes Photographer: Gemma O’Brien
Runway to the sea… one of this week’s aerial filming missions for Channel 4’s ‘Location, Location, Location’ with Kirsty Allsopp and Phil Spencer.
