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 day out with cameras and drone to film a few adverts on FAQ’s for mountain bike courses at Glenmore Lodge. We spent the morning filming near Aviemore the actual biking part then we filmed indoors with interviews of the guys chatting about the courses. A fun day out, a few pics from the day below.
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 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 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
Warren stood on the summit of Sgor Gaoith (1118m) in the Cairngorms National Park during our brief spell of clear weather whilst filming:)
This was fun film to make. I made it with Warren from Casio Watches. He had some ideas and was looking for a drone pilot here in Aviemore but after chatting for 30 minutes on the phone or so he decided that maybe we could make the film together.
So we came up with a storyboard and script. He mainly wrote the words as he knows the watch and will have to speak the words himself. I decided on locations and how we could shoot it and make a story out of an instructional film. Trying to keep the editing interesting and flowing.
Warren then arrived in Aviemore and we started filming the different bits which started with a walk up Sgor Gaoith (1118m) a munro nearby, The weather was nice and cloudy allowing us to film the navigation parts with the watch. But I desperately wanted a view too. It didn’t seem to be happening. Then we reached the top in the cloud doh. We were just starting a sandwich when the cloud started dropping down. Sandwiches stuffed away and a mad rush as we started getting our filming done in one of the most stunning days I’ve ever seen above the cloud in the Cairngorms. We got some great drone shots and speaking to drone shots too. A theme of this film. Means trying to match lines afterwards which is tricky but fortunately Warren repeated the words back exactly to the ground camera mic after. We got our bits and the cloud came back in and was gone. It gave us 30-40mins. I heard from friends who are Mountain and Ski guides that day that they unfortunately never saw a view so we were so lucky!!
The comments on Youtube here about all the crew that must be on the summit behind the camera is hilarious, worth a read lol. It was just me carrying the camera and drone and my winter kit and Warren carrying his winter kit and our lunches:)
We then headed down to film the next bits the day after. We had three locations for the cliff. The top of the cliff was Uath Lochains, the cliff was Farletter crag a couple of miles away and the frozen loch at the bottom of the cliff was Loch Morlich, 6 miles away haha. And yes Warren did actually throw the watch off the cliff from 10m up, a few times. And he had to post that watch to Milan for a high end budget advert (not watched as much as this one lol) straight after our shooting as only two in the world at that time.
Filming the mud fall was interesting only had one go at it and also had to try our best to stop it from looking totally cheesy which it had high potential for! I think we got away with mild cheese lol
The final bit was in front of the fire in my house. Pretty good to have all these varied locations on my doorstep.
Then I went at it editing it together and matching swipe pan edits etc. Then a colour grade and sounds added in and sent over to casio who were very pleased. Its got some nice views too, 1.6 million.
A fun day out seeing round the factory where they make the famous shortbread. Donal MacIntyre was the presenter who is a great laugh and Will Thomas was directing.
The factory is in Aberlour so a job pretty close to home. The smell all day was amazing. Made you so hungry.
Aberlour
Donal, Will and myself outside Walkers shop on Aberlour high st.
A freebie from our day out:)
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
Been a while since I made a drone show reel. A new drone showreel of a selection of work I have been up to over the past while. The clips were all shot for actual jobs I was working on for several different companies. 'Scotland from the Air' was my title then I realised one shot is not from Scotland but heyho. I was thinking Holy Island is north of Hadrians wall but on googling Hadrians wall I learnt (seemingly a common misconception, was for me lol) has always been entirely within England:). But I filmed at Holy Island twice this year on two different jobs so wanted at least one shot in there:)
The showreel has been all filmed by drone using the DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera, the DJI Mavic 3 pro CINE and the DJI Mavic 2 pro. Hope you enjoy:)
So a bit of my filming was on last night for this TV Show on the National Geographic program. Was working with Nathan Budd on the Isle of Orkney flying from a boat for the day over the old WWII sunken ships, with the Inspire 2 drone with X7 Camera. Amazingly we got great weather for this as the day I arrived on Orkney to was horrible and the day after the shoot it was also horrible lol. So we were very lucky.Can probably see it on the Disney channel now:)
So a large part of my August was taken up as the Drone pilot for this TV show produced by Solus Productions with Tony directing, Jim Producing, Sean as DOP, Colin on sound, Rowen as production, and Kitty and Niamh in trainee positions. It will be released later this year or the start of next year:)
Then Jules (the teacher in Balamorey) and Greg (Victor in Still Game) were our talent who travelled round Scotland filming with different cold water swimmers to find out why they all do it. We were in Fife, Aberfeldy, Kenmore, Aviemore, Loch Ness, Skye, Mull and Iona:)
Was such a brilliant crew and made for a very fun job. Jules and Greg are superb fun too. Plus we all got in swimming in a lot of the places as we went too. A few pictures of some of the BTS.
Aerial Filming the Boat swim day:)
The awesome Solus Productions crew:)
Loch Ness
A fun couple of days doing a makeover for the first time. Funny things to film as big rush at the start then steady filming all day then a mad rush of filming the painting etc etc at the end. Good bunch of people here which made for a fun day and Margaret the person who was getting the makeover on the budget of a £100. Is hopefully happy but you’ll need to watch in the autumn to see:)
Callum, Banjo, Rhian and Me out filming the intros at the Kelpies nearby while the work continues in the house.
Before
Fun day popping round a few houses in the North east of Scotland to get drone shots for Scotlands home of the year. Nice to meet the owners and see these places. One was near my parents house and one was near my house lol.
I had free rain just to be creative with my drone for an hour or so at each location. looking forward to seeing the show:) Unfortunately I can’t show the houses until after.
Fun day filming with Nicky and Ollie at Thorabella Farm open day. Hundreds of people turned up to look round the farm and see the animals. Weather was perfect too. I spent most of the day with a ground camera but also several drone flights during the day to see the farm from the air:)
The farm as people start arriving:)
Appeared in a few papers over the weekend to advertise the National Geographic series called Europe from above. I shot a few of the UK parts of it mainly in Scotland with Barra airport, Up Hella Ya in Shetland, an Archeological dig on Holy Island where a few. Great to be involved in this and the second series for me. Below arte a few paper articles and seemingly it ran in around 100 regional papers too. Nice phot of me in the Sun lol.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22629778/brits-never-heard-traditional-events/
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-unknown-traditional-uk-events-30193275
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-unknown-traditional-uk-events-30193038
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1779034/top-traditional-uk-events-competitions-cheese-rolling
Me and my Inspire 2 drone with the X7 camera that I use to shoot the series.
Great day out doing the spring aerial filming for ‘This Farming Life’. I visited two farms with my Inspire 2 with the prime lenses and cycled through my set of 16 batteries 2.5 times haha. A lot of footage.
The last time filming with these guys was in the autumn and now back for a different weather season. We started up in Dallas at a farm with Water Buffalo, goats, rabbits, bees, pigs and more with Ollie and Nikki filming several Spring shots. Emma and Alison from BBC keeping me right on what they needed out of the day.
Then we headed to Newtonmore with Robert and Jenni to film Alpacas and spring lambs. Great bunch of people and good fun content to create for the program.
In between being a drone pilot getting kissed by an Alpaca, not my type but a nice gesture:)
Drone filming the sheep in Newtonmore and Robert driving to check the lambs:)
Had a few days spare so thought I’d edit up a wee drone showreel of the past few winters for you to see. Summer one coming later:)
Drone showreel of aerial filming in Scotland during the winter months:)
'Winter in the Scottish highlands' is a drone showreel from the past winter seasons around Scotland filming.
This was filmed mainly on the Mavic 2 pro DJI Drone and sometimes the DJI Inspire 2 drone with X7 Camera. All filmed by myself Kirk Watson. I am a qualified drone pilot, drone operator or aerial cinematographer living in the Scottish Highlands.
Music is from https://www.belugalagoon.com the track is called 'King of the Cold'
Dana on BBC ALBA is available on iplayer (at times) season 3 out in autumn
Roaming in the Wild BBC Scotland is available on iplayer (at times) or Amazon prime
Ephemeral with Guy Robertson, Greg Boswell and Hamish Frost climbing is available at: https://filmfestivalflix.com/product/brit-rock-iv-purchase/#tab-description
Here's the clips if you are wondering where they are taken:)
1: Caledonian pine forest Cairngorms National Park
2: Caledonian pine forest Cairngorms National Park
3: Glen Tilt and yes a fox appeared in my shot which was beautiful
4: River tilt and Atholl Highlander Sandy Ried's car
5: River tilt and Atholl Highlander Sandy Ried's car
6: River tilt and Atholl Highlander Sandy Ried's car
7: River tilt and Atholl Highlander Sandy Ried stood on bridge
8: Glen tilt
9: Red deer at Blair atoll castle
10: Sgùrr nan Gillean, Skye
11: Looking towards Sgurr a' Bhastier, I think:)
12: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn heading up Sgurr nan Gillean, Skye.
13: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn heading up Sgurr nan Gillean, Skye. For TV show Dana
14: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn heading up Sgurr nan Gillean, Skye. For TV show Dana
15: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn heading up Am Basteir, Skye. For TV show Dana
16: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn heading up Am Basteir, Skye. For TV show Dana
17: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn stood on summit of Am Basteir, Skye. For TV show Dana
18: Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Matt Glenn stood on the Basteir tooth, Skye. For TV show Dana
19: The Campsies in December at sunrise. For Roaming in the Wild BBC Scotland.
20: Andrew O'Donnell and Mark Taylor rafting the Glazert river. For Roaming in the Wild BBC Scotland.
21: Andrew O'Donnell and Mark Taylor rafting the River Kelvin. For Roaming in the Wild BBC Scotland.
22: Andrew O'Donnell and Mark Taylor rafting the River Kelvin. For Roaming in the Wild BBC Scotland.
23: Guy Robertson and Hamish Frost walk into An Teallach for a new route. For award wining film Ephemeral by Alastair Lee of Posing productions link above to purchase from Britrock film tours.
24: Guy Robertson and Hamish Frost walk into An Teallach for a new route.
25-27: Guy Robertson climbing on An Teallach.
28: View into Loch Avon in the Cairngorms
29: Coire an Lochain, Cairngorms National Park.
30: Coire an t-Sneachda, Cairngorms National Park.
31: Beinn Eighe with Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Rori Hawthorn teaser of Dana season 3 on BBC ALBA out in Autumn.
32: Beinn Eighe with Coinneach MacFhraing (Kenny Rankin) and Rori Hawthorn teaser of Dana season 3 on BBC ALBA out in Autumn.
33: Ben Nevis North Face
34: Guy Robertson soloing an ice route on the Ben.
35-37: Greg Boswell on a first ascent of some hanging ice on Ben Nevis. Hamish Frost and Guy Robertson are below belaying. Alastair Lee filming from above. Full film available on link at top, Brit Rock.
38-42: Cairngorm Plateau with Andrew O'Donnell and Mark Taylor of Beluga Lagoon ski mountaineering and I am in a few shots flying and skiing. This was the Cairngorms episode of Roaming in the Wild. Can see on Amazon Prime.