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.
Roaming in the Wild returns to BBC Scotland and iplayer for everyones viewing pleasure. Was great fun making these films with Andrew and Mark. Doing fun trips with two good mates, what is not to like:)
A friend Jono has built a high ropes course inside the Kelpies to help bring more people to the Kelpies for Scottish Canals. The course is brilliant and gets you up into the mouth of the highest one via a network of obstacles like wire bridges and ladders and nets. It finishes with a jump on a decelerator cable which I found pretty exciting. It is weird how inside a manmade structure it feels more scary to me:)
Jono commissioned me to make a main film, website opening film and 10 stories/reels for Instagram also. Which I edited together and should be launched soon on his website and Scottish Canals site. Jono’s is Zone Events and the website will go live before the end of the year:) Few pics from the day below.
Drone pic of the Kelpie with people in the mouth
Inside the Kelpie mouth
The Kelpies from above
An amazing few days as a drone pilot over Aberdeenshire way filming Guy Martin (lovely person) working with SARDA (Search and Rescue Dog Association). We spent a day doing crag rescue at Pass of Ballater, a very familiar crag for me having climbed there many times as a teenager and beyond.
Mark Chadwick was leading the safety (also a SARDA member) and Stu MacIntyre and Paul Noble were doing the chat to Camera alongside Guy Martin as well as a few others. Great fun crew from North One TV and the SARDA team were great to.
Once we had done stretcher lowers and carries mixed in with first response first aid, the guys then went to do dog handling at Glenshee for a day. I went and filmed trains then I joined them again another day for a trip up to Derry Lodge to do a search and rescue involving a helicopter and up on Derry Cairngorm mountain in the mist.
A very friendly pilot was happy with me flying with him in the air. We just laid down where we would be and what to do if change of plan in his flights etc. So much fun filming a helicopter in the air. Only done it a few other times in the past, All in all a great few days and hopefully make a fun TV program when it comes out. A few pics below of the days out with some screen grabs.
Air to Air filming with the DJI Mavic 3 Pro CINE
Myself and Guy Martin
Crag Rescue
A fun wee day in not the best condition with very low cloud or fog as we do a bit of filming of Fin, son of Pia and Gerry Moffat as he heads to freshers week at St Andrews. A few screen shots below:) Footage is to be part of as bigger documentary.
The red gown pier parade.
A fun day if a little full on with midges to start the day lol. Today I had to be up high in the mountains by 8:30am to catch some runners as they went by. I was taking shots of the sunrise on the way up and my hands were black as if I was wearing gloves as I flew. Was so hard to get a decent shot without scratching.
I arrived at my position for filming and then had to walk back and fourth 200m for an hour until they arrived due to the midges. Fortunately 30 minutes after the runners arrived so did a subtle breeze and the sun to scare away the nasty midge:)
The film is an advert for a duathlon for next year taking place up here and organised by Jenny. The rest of the day with two different groups with a few folk I knew we all had fun getting a bunch of shots together for Jenny’s film that Markus Stiz will edit together:) A screen grabs from my footage of the stunning day below.
Sun just hitting the mountains 6:30am and my hands totally covered in midgies
Runners silhouetted in the sun
Reflection of the runners after they all swam here too.
A superb few weeks up on these islands with wonderful locals, well worth a visit up here if you have not been yet. Season 2 of Jules and Greg’s Wild Swimming and this year it was Islands. I missed the first 2 weeks on the Western isles as I was is Norway on the Dana shoot for the same company the great Solus Productions.
We had the same team as last year with obviously Jules and Greg doing a super job of presenting and generally being lovely guys to hang out with for the few weeks. Then we have a brilliant and great fun team to work with. As last year Tony was at the helm directing again, Jim producing, Sean as DOP (main camera and gyros in water), also water safety, Colin on sound, Raonaid doing a bit of everything and myself filming the aerials and a little bit of second camera too:)
We swam in lots of different spots for the TV program with beautiful beaches, saunas, rum, vikings, shipwrecks, cliffs, waves, town swims etc and many swims on time off too:) So good being the only people on a lot of these beaches and we met some super characters along the way. A few pictures below to give you a flavour and it will be on BBC Scotland in January coming:)
An amazing two weeks in Lofted in Norway with a very familiar crew of the Dana TV now:) We are on season 4 now and got to head to Norway for what will be episodes 1 and 2 of this new series out later in Autumn.
Coineach is joined by Calum Gibb from Skye to climb, scramble, boulder, surf and bidi in Norway. Hamish was filming on his sony cameras while I filmed with my drone from the air. Rich and Becky did the mountain safety. For the first time in four years we actually got a day off to go climbing ourselves too which was brilliant:) Few pics below of the awesome trip. Looking forward to see what Hamish has done with it all in the edit:)
Our home for the two weeks
First days climb with Calum on it
The guys on Stentind ridge:)
Kenny on Ridge
A great week in Switzerland aerial filming Freja Shannon and Ariane Moreau. This is to be one of the Brit rock films for this year directed and film by Alaister Lee who was on the cliff filming as I was at the bottom flying up the climb. Love working with Alistair on these films as always fun filming and challenging at the same time, plus he is a good crack to hang out with. Kim Ladiges was the guide who hset up the ropes for Al to go up and down during filming. A sound guy.
A good bunch of people and some pretty epic shots were had on the Petit Clocher du Portalet. The team were climbing Caesar route, can’t remember the full name but a 7c route following several crack lines up the impressive face.
Definitely got my bit of adrenaline flying with clouds coming in and out making for exciting moments with the drone. The other people climbing were good with the drone as I flew most of the days (a lot) and because we had chatted to them all they seemed pretty happy.
Few pics below of the area and the film will be out in November time, I think.
The Spikey peak the team climbed.
Looking down the route from the drone perspective
The Climbers Freja and Ariane
What an absolutely brilliant night at the Barrowlands. The band and the audience created such an amazing atmosphere. The best night I’ve had out in a long time. My first time at the Barrowlands too.
I headed down to Andrews house the night before to catch up and do a little bit of filming in the house to form part of a documentary that Andrew is making about his build up to the Barrowlands. The music and several albums produced by Beluga Lagoon is often Andrew playing several different instruments and singing (occasionally with a female voice joining for a song) and then his mate Gregor putting it together in his music editing suite and adding some bit of playing from himself sometimes too. So when it comes to playing a live gig Andrew needs to pull together a bunch of friends to play on stage. Even though Andrew plays several instruments during an evening he cannot play several at the same time lol.
So the band comes together of Jim (his Dad) on guitar, Willy on Bass, Matt on Drums, Gregor on Guitar, Ian (fingers) on piano and Betty adding in some female vocals on some songs.
The band which has played a few smaller village halls of 200 to maybe 300 people. But Andrew a wildlife filmmaker has a break this year from filming for others and decided to give a few bigger gigs a go. I believe there was a little bit of pushing to do this from mates and family but possibly from the fans to who can struggle to get a ticket. So he booked Aviemore for 1100 people. Bigger than all previous concerts put together and to Andrews surprise I think, it sold out in 3 minutes lol. So then Stirling was booked for 800 people again sold out in a few minutes, then he thought maybe I could sell out the Barrowlands. Which sold out in 3 minutes for 2000 tickets and I believe from the website traffic within the first hour it could have sold out 3 nights in the first hours.
So on arriving at Andrews we had a good chat with Lyndsay and the kids then went and met Matt drummer in the put and Mark (from roaming in the wild) and Shona for a few beers. Mainly to help the nerves and sleep for the next day.
The next day we left the house at 9am to go set up in the Barrowlands. The sound crew and lighting crew were there on arrival setting up the stage and Andrew started getting his home made lighthouse (made by Jamie) and fire pit setup on the stage. Andrew being a filmmaker is quite into visuals too so likes to add to it.
Later my pal Rupert arrived, another filmmaker from Aviemore who would be the other half of our filmmaking team that night. We chatted through what we would do and got a song list from Andrew and what he wanted covered. The song list changes for every concert as Andrew know several fans come to each gig. This will keep changing as the year goes on and there are some pretty interesting changes too. This night he would also be trying out Isla and Margo & Barry tunes from the new album which came out only 6 days before this night.
Rupert and myself then started filming Barrowland stuff for setup shots. I did a few drone shots inside and outside too. Then the line outside formed and we did interviews and were amazed at how much Beluga Lagoon music had influenced people. We then headed inside to film the band getting ready. Andrew was remarkably calm and had plenty to say (usually he goes quiet towards the concert start). There were a few nerves in the team but most pretty happy to be at the Barrowlands backstage where many famous folk have been before them. Managed a bit of chat with the band. Gregor and Willy mainly just putting their faces to close to the camera and Willy often saying something inappropriate lol. But also some nice bits in-between. I then headed on stage and set 4 cameras going as things were about to start.
The band then hit the stage with Willy pushing Andrew up the ramp in a shopping trolley we found at the back stage door lol. Crowd erupts and the music starts. Have to say when oil;ming with the steady cam right at the front with the speakers right next to you it pretty emotional and just awesome. I couldn’t stop smiling.
The evening from here was just bouncing and rather than an audience build up like our past venues it just went full tilt straight away and stayed there. The following night in the pub with Andrew one lady said she’d seen loads of bands there over the past 30 years and can’t remember ever seeing the whole 2000 people jumping. Usually just folk st front going wild. few dancing in middle and folk at back sipping on a pint. So it was truly bouncing. What was brilliant was when they played Isla (Evan joined with his fiddle) and Margo and Barry from the new album the whole place was singing the songs back to Andrew and they had only been out for 6 days lol. Anyway what an awesome night and will be great to see what Andrew does with the footage as he pops together a wee short documentary for his youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@belugalagoonfilms8620
The Beluga Lagoon Band at the end of the night:)
The Barrowlands:)
A few great days with amazing weather filming the new advert for Wavesport Hydra 12’ kayak (a shorter touring boat) and some shorter clips of the tandem kayak and Ethos river kayak. Working with Ed Smith on this. He is a great photographer who has a gallery in Kingussie and we often do jobs together with myself doing the moving images:)
Matt from Wavesport is brilliant to work with and super chilled. We had Alex and Joe as models for the first day then Josh and Bronagh the second day of filming:)
just got a few days editing now to pull the footage together into something lovely hopefully:)
A fun wee job at Glasgow Hydro with the ‘Lorraine’ TV Show. Albertine directing today and Ian doing the sound. A three camera setup for the interview. These things are always a bit rushed so arrived 90 mins early and did a few drone shots then got in with Katie the Take That PR person to setup up well in time.
We met Ross King and did a few pieces to camera with him. Super nice guy and he had his mate Kenny along to play the bagpipes.
Then we sat in for the Take That interview with Howard, Gary and Mark. Lovely guys and very easy to chat to. They have an ice bath they jump in before doing the show too. We toured the stage after to see the set up and chat through their show. A fun time.
Then I had ten minutes to setup an interview with Olly Murs at the far end of the corridor. Thankfully everyone helped move the kit:) Olly is a super nice guy and the interview went well.
Then we were all done just before they started getting reading to get on stage. These jobs always pass in a blur of adrenaline as I rush around for 4 hours then all finished and off home haha. Watch on Catch up as it was on Lorraine this week:)
Ross interview the Take That lads
My ten minute set up for Olly interview actually looks great :)
Me and Take That
Glasgow and the Hydro
A brilliant two weeks away in the sun to film series 4 of Dana for BBC ALBA. This time Coinneach heads abroad for some climbing. His partner is fellow Gaelic speaker Somhairle who is a bit newer to climbing but is very keen. Also a Tiktoker with 55k followers!
The same Solus Production team was assembled with Hamish directing and main camera, Rich Parker doing safety, myself on drone and Rowan producing. Additionally we had Becky join the safety team for this trip.
Benidorm I had only heard of as a popular British beach destination and I hadn’t realised until we arrived there just how good the climbing is all around here and the mountaineering. Unfortunately we had a bit of flu within the group with mainly Kenny so we had to cut the trip short to head back again to complete the episodes.
Have to say it was so good to see the sun after such a terrible wet and windy winter in Scotland. here’s hoping for more sun:) A few pics below of our time there:)
Sella Valley
The whole team Bottom to top Sorely, Kenny, Rich, Hamish, Becky and me.
A nice few days with Solus Productions filming a revisit to a documentary from 8 years ago with a lady called Gladys. She was born in Ireland then adopted and brought to the west coast of Scotland and speaks Gaelic. She has been trying to find her original family all her life and some things come to light since the previous documentary.
Tony was directing, Phil on the main camera and Rowan producing. I was doing drone then some second camera during the interviews indoors.
Classic drone shot Glencoe
Speak Bridge
Great Grannie and Grandads house:)
A wild and fun day out filming Francis Bourgeois for a BBC travel show going from south off England right to the north. I was aerial filming for my local patch from Dunkeld up to Inverness and being the nice guy I am handing over some stock footage for their day to Thurso:)
The first thing Francis said to me was how well does it fly in these winds. I said its managing fine just now but as it got windier it was struggling a bit but it was getting very winding as the day went on.
Great crew and always fun filming trains as they do tend to get the adrenaline going as they only pass once and you have to catch it on film and make it look lovely at the same time!
A successful day though:)
Francis chatting to Tom’s camera near Kingussie.
Dalwhinnie
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
Filming the Christmas Markets and Castle light show with ITV ‘This Morning’. Was a date night for Roger and Janey from ‘My Mum your Dad’ TV program. Was fun going round the markets and seeing everything and going on the big wheel, and Ice skating. The highlight for me was flying my drone at the Castle to film the amazing light show. The Castle is very hard to fly from as in the centre of the city and an active military building too. But it was closed off for our exclusive use for two hours and with all the permissions there we could film the stunning light show. Just a couple of shots below for you to see:)
A lovely day out filming Highland cows on north Uist with a great bunch of people. Carriane MacDonald and her mate and Angus MacDonald and his wife.
The plan was to film the cows going over to a tidal island for the winter. They’d walk a few kilometres down the road then head onto the sand and make the 3km crossing over the tidal sand at low tide. This all needed to be done at low tide. I’d got a friend of a friend Archie to drive for me so on the drive I could fly from the car and keep up. As the cows wouldn’t stop for us. Angus would lead the cows while Carriane and her mate would push from behind.
The day went very smoothly once I swapped the inspire 2 drone for the Mavic 3 Pro CINE so I could fly in the winds gusting 40 mph at times. I even had to rush off the island as the wind got worse and worse they cancelled all the ferries for the following days. Great to see these lovely looking cows doing the crossing though.
This will be shown on next years ‘Europe from the Air’ on Nat Geo channel or Disney Channel.
A collection of some of the engineering works I've been filming from the air over the last year. Making the Industrial stuff look as beautiful as possible:) Had some awesome inversions at Nigg Bay to make things look awesome:)
Filming the guys cleaning the cables on the Queensferry crossing for Nat Geo was a highlight. I'm good with natural heights in the mountains but always makes me shiver seeing folk working on man made structures for some reason:)
Few shots of renewables too and flying from boats, Glasgow City and the Kelpies. All the footage is from different projects
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:)