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:)
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
Brilliant fun week staying at a lovely Sandals resort in Jamaica. 5 Star resort and we all had 2 bath tubs and a swimming pool in our rooms. Pretty amazing. Obviously ITV doesn’t pay for this lol. Sandals sponsors it and gets it resort in the background on TV so everyone is happy:) Sandals staff are great.
Rusty Lee has an amazing amount of energy and was fantastic fun. We landed after our long flights and went straight into filming and even by 8pm in the evening Rusty was up singing to everyone in the hotel and dancing about with the hotel band as we filmed her singing ‘No Worries’. Great :)
This was a cooking show so we cooked many Caribbean dishes in different areas round resort then had a day out filming a coffee plantation and a farm. Both of which were brilliant and learned a lot. We even had a police escort to get though Kingstown in the morning rush hour lol.
We had a great team with Will directing, Rich on sound, Sara as Home Ecc, and Natalie as our Sandals fixer. We also had several folk from the resort helping especially Ian one of the managers.
We then had a last day of filming to do with a trip down a river and a trip to a local market. This got cancelled as a category 5 hurricane was heading our way and everyone on the island needed to batten down the hatches in preparation. So then started our briefings etc. I was quite excited until I heard actually what a category 5 hurricane is. It means an average wind speed of 180 mph gusting 260mph and it would destroy almost everything in its path!
So we then turned into a bit of a news crew as it came our way. But fortunately 2 hrs before hitting land (so unpredictable) it veered south and dropped to a Category 4. We were on the north of the island and maybe had 100mph winds so like a very bad UK storm. A few spots on the south of the island got a Category 3 hurricane. One town had 70% of its homes destroyed. So extremely glad the Cat 5 never hit the island as when we woke the next day it would have been to a destroyed island and probably many deaths. We probably would have been fine in our 5 star hotel as Sandals looked after everyone very well including their staff and we had big buildings that had survived a few hurricanes already. Anyway will be a trip to remember.
Rusty Lee cooking some Jerk Chicken
Sandals resort Jamaica
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:)
Had a fun night filming Beluga Lagoon In Aviemore. There were 1100 tickets sold in 3 minutes!!! They also sold out the Barrowlands in 2 minutes.
Pretty fun to see behind the scenes of there first of a row of bigger concerts. As in previously they played to 250-350 audience so this was 4 times the size of crowd and Glasgow Barrowland will be 8 times the size I think.
Andrew is going to make a little documentary of this year as they do their gigs and asked if I’d film a bit of them BTS and on the stage as they played. Andrew had three songs he wanted recorded fully and the sound was being recorded on the decks at the back. Rupert Shanks a good mate who also lives in Aviemore was keen to help to. So Rupert was on a long lens at the back while I did wides on the gimbal from the stage and elsewhere.
The concert was brilliant and the whole band put on a great show:)
A chilled night as Andrew said to enjoy the night too. Hopefully myself and Rupert will be free to film the other venues throughout the year. Was a late finish as we all had a few beers after:)
Beluga Lagoon Band doing their thing:)
A fun day and adrenaline fulled as normal with a live drone. Today I was experimenting with the Mavic 3 Pro CINE for the live drone and a bit of use of the Inspire 2 with x7 Camera. Wildly the image for the £5k drone is better than the £21k drone lol.
We were filming Carol Smillie for the ITV Competitions that run over ITV This Morning, Lorraine etc. Hadn’t filmed Carol Smillie since covid and she said she hadn’t been filmed since then either lol.
Jordan Summers was on ground camera and Rich on sound and Athene directing. Great team for the day. We also got to stay in Cameron house always a bonus.
I’ve done live drone a dozen times now or so and it still remains exciting work as you know a lot of folk are watching if you did anything wrong. Also making sure the drone is in the right spot and flying perfectly as no second take chances:) So much fun.
Inspire 2 with LiveU ready for filming
Experimenting with the Mavic 3 pro CINE live. Image is way better.
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 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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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
What an awesome trip to be lucky enough to be asked to go on. A long trip for work but very worth it. I sorted an online drone licence to use my Mini 3 Pro drone and bought a second one so I had a backup for the trip.
We did a lot on this trip with John Torode doing activities and cooks at different spots in Western Australia. John is a superb presenter to work with on these programs and he had just done two weeks filming with his wife before we arrived.
Our team was Will Thomas directing and using one of my cameras on cooks wor interviews when required. Nigel Francis a brilliant fun sound was doing the sound. Alice was producing the food side of things and Jonah (Johns son) was along to help out. Malta from Western Australia was sorting locations etc on the way. We all got on very well which makes these busy trips so much easier:)
There are many highlights from the trip and the locations and the short films we make will all be very different. Here are a few pics to give you a flavour of what we got up too. The videos will be out in September on ITV This Morning:)
The whale sharks we filmed. Pic by Ash who was doing our underwater filming:)
A cook on a boat a first for me:)
Back with the Beluga Lagoon team to film on their feature for the last bit. Again another great week working with this team:)
A few days making four films for BBC Education geography lessons:) Just me on my own following a shot list and script for plate shots for animations. A fun few days fitting things in-between the weather.
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.
