MAY 2024 - Filming Beluga Lagoon at the Barrowlands

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:)

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.

FEBRUARY 2022 - Cameraman Filming Kayaking for Glenmore Lodge Instructional videos.

A day filming 3 films to make some Kayak rolling films as part of Glenmore lodges youtube channel. A channel which I have made over 100 films for and has several million views.

APRIL 2021 - Cairngorms National Park - Make it Yours - lots of aerial filming

Fun putting this together with a few talking heads, narration and a bunch of my stock footage of drone shots within the park, a few family clips by JEGS Media and wildlife shots by Beluga Lagoon Films. I also went out with the drone for some new aerial shots.

The chat about this film started with the Cairngorms National Park before Christmas and we just finished last week. Such is the way with all these lockdowns and folk on furlough etc. Hopefully looks like everything is getting busier again now:) Looking forward to a bumper summer of filmmaking:) Enjoy:)

FEBRUARY 2021 - Drone filming Lake District with hundreds of sheep

Well tonight the TV program ‘The Great Mountain Sheep Gather’ shot in a slow television fashion to show the gathering of sheep in an almost real time by shepherds on Scafell Pike in the Lake District is on at 10pm on BBC4. The Program has been nominated for several awards now and is up for some hopefully shortly.

There were about 6 drone crews working on this. As a mountain instructor I got the joy of following the main Shepard up the mountain at 4am at an incredible speed to film our first shots on the main summit, in the wind and rain with 30m of visibility. A little taxing flying and the drone got very damp/wet. Then I leap frogged the next two drone teams to set up at another spot lower down. This is where I got a shot that ended up making it in with no cuts in 7 and a half minutes I was pretty chuffed solo flying the Inspire 2 with X7 camera shooting and in RAW. We were asked to get shots as long as possible. Totally different from normal as usually 10 seconds and sometimes just over 30 seconds for a end credit shot. So going for as long as possible you need to keep looking for new shots within shots to progress a clip in an interesting way and never ever make a sudden movement. A lot of fingers and thumbs and brain overload, but very good fun:)

DECEMBER 2020 - Industrial filming at Nigg, near Invergordon for Briggs Marine. Some lovely aerial filming.

A fun week seeing how a massive 10km fibre optic cable is taken off a ship and coiled onto a carousel ready to be coiled onto another ship. I was filming drone for aerial shots and ground camera for some more close up shots. Unusually here just filming and handing over the footage to be edited by the in-house media department at the company. Always interesting to see the lives of other people in different industries and the technology going into these things.

An inversion one morning:)

AUGUST 2020 - Recreation of Highland Cyclist Battalion with Mark Beaumont

The second GCN Job (Global cycling network) this summer again working with Stephan as director (morrocomedia). Myself as 2nd camera and Drone extraordinaire:) A fun day in the Kingdom of Fife with these guys and learning about this WW1 military unit. Mark also found a bike from a friend from this era which was great.

AUGUST 2020 - Biking in the Cairngorms with GCN

Spent four days drone filming and ground camera while riding an e bike round and over a lot of the Cairngorms over a four day period for a Documentary for GCN (Global Cycling Network). This was pretty full on and my bum had some pretty big bruising from carrying all the kit and doing 70-110 km per day and often over mountains. plus the pair that Stephan (From Morocco media who was directing and 1st camera) and myself had to keep up with weren’t exactly slow, being the two fastest people round the world on a bicycle.

Jenny and Mark

AUGUST 2020 - ITV 'This Morning' with Nigel Havers

Had a few days with Nigel Havers from ‘Chariots of fire’ as we filmed in Edinburgh and St Andrews for a few days. We even gave a wee visit to the Chariots of Fire beach. It was good banter with Nigel and Phoebe (The director/producer). Lots of good stories from Nigel.

I was doing the main camera, sound and drone. Had to fly in a military zone which is always different as need to unlock your drone, get a police incident number and get permission from the RAF and let their air traffic control know when you are flying and when you’re finished:)

Phoebe, Nigel and myself on West Beach St Andrews.

JULY 2020 - Visit Cairngorms welcome back film

Well it seems apt that my first few days of work since the 16th of March on “The Crown” is a promotional film called “ We miss you!! We are preparing to welcome you back” all about welcoming people back to the Cairngorms National Park, where I live:)

The film was organised by www.visitcairngorms.com and I had two days to shoot it and get round 18 businesses spread over the large park. I came up with a script giving each business one line to say from the message Visit Cairngorms had. This would allow me hopefully quicker filming at each place as I wanted some action shots with the drone also. Mark at Visit Cairngorms luckily did all the logistics and timings on a spread sheet so I could just travel round to people who knew I was coming and knew their line:) We wanted to keep the message positive with a brief mention of COVID as everyone gets plenty of the rules through the media and press to educate everyone on the best practices, and it keeps changing depending on where the country is at while fighting it.

Enjoy:)

We can't wait to share the place we are so proud to call home with you again soon. #CairngormsTogether 💜Get planning ➡️ https://www.visitcairngorms.com/ Like...

FEBRUARY 2020 - A new drone showreel of places abroad:)

I live in Scotland and film a lot here.  Every so often I head abroad on a job to film in exotic places.  So I thought I should stick together a short montage of some of the work abroad I have been involved with.

We start in Antarctica with some mates climbing while working as a polar guide for British Antarctic Survey.  

Then to Sweden with Flying for Freedom who train injured and wounded service people how to fly microlights and get them to organise expeditions.  This was training for an Antarctic trip.

Next is Sardinia and filming Gino with ITV This Morning.  This was great fun as Gino is a right laugh and we were in the Mediterranean filming haha.  I was filming on the ground as DOP here also as we made a cooking show.

The Lake District next in England filming maybe not as exotic but pretty cool place with 4 other drone crews to capture the sheep being taken in from Scafell pike.  We had some interesting weather here too and took many long shots my longest shot was 14mins.  This was what they wanted for slow television.  Quite interesting keeping a shot continuously visually attractive for that length of time:)

Faroe Islands is next on a job with NHK Japan, we had pretty mixed weather as you'd expect with somewhere further north than Scotland with sea completely surrounding it. Also went to Guernsey and Sark Island in the Channel Islands on the same job which was much sunnier.  Had to fly from Georges boat on Sark as the government had only given us permission to fly over water and not on the island itself.  This made for interesting taking off and hand catching with the Inspire 2 with X7 camera.

Mallorca is next where I filmed with Dickson Minto during a road biking event.  A stunning place to go road cycling and lovely weather:)

South Africa next where I filmed some of Table mountain, a friends wedding out on western Cape (I was just filming for fun not doing a wedding video) then to Clint and Ruth's farm near Durban where I filmed the Lemon harvest and took a bunch of pictures of the fields from the air to see the quality of the orchard.  pretty cool to see what is involved in getting Lemons over to us.

Nepal and the village of Reipe, a very special place and my first time to Asia.  Here I was filming ground and air with Gerry of Thunderdragon fund on a documentary.  I also filmed in Scotland for this same documentary.  Check out https://thunderdragonfund.org for updates on this documentary coming out or to see the first in the trilogy.

Then back to Antarctica one of my favourite places, so features twice.   Here I film a bit with Scott driving the Tucker snow-cat and also climbing a mountain called Stork while we were out recording Snow petrel nests with a scientist in the area.

Hope you enjoy, I certainly loved filming it all:)

JANUARY 2020 - Thunderdragon kickstarter project hits goal

Gerry and Pia Moffat of the Thunderdragon fund who I worked for in Scotland, Nepal and Bhutan last year started a fundraiser for the 11th step film and it hit its target of $25000 plus a few extra thousand which is great. Now the project and hundreds of hours of footage from myself and a few other DOP’s (Ben Figueiredo and Tyler Allyn) will go into post production to produce a finished film for around easter time, where it has its opening night at a festival near New York.

To follow how the film is going goto: https://thunderdragonfund.org

Trailer for the upcoming film is below, with music from Beluga Lagoon:)

NOVEMBER 2019 - The Kingdom of Bhutan filming

After a week of filming in Nepal we left the super busy Kathmandu for a much more peaceful and subdued Bhutan. It is a fantastic country that seems to be beautiful in every way. Here we would be filming some of the traditional places to get a feel of Bhutan and to link in to how things have changed since Gerry’s original footage of the country. Gerry also jumps back in a kayak to film on the river. We got a very nice morning shot past the Dzong just below in the landscape picture. We used ground camera throughout and several time lapses too. we couldn’t fly a drone in the country unfortunately. Karma who has known Gerry for many years was our guide, he was excellent.

Gerry’s website to see how the film is progressing is at: https://thunderdragonfund.org

NOVEMBER 2019 - Filming in Nepal

I fly out to Asia for my first time ever to spend a week in Nepal filming a documentary as director of photography with Thunderdragon fund. I worked on this documentary in Scotland with Gerry Moffat back in April May and they were keen on my footage so I got to head to Asia for two weeks filming with them:)

The first week was in Nepal in a small local village where an old friend of Gerry’s has been involved in turning it into a kind of Airbnb style place where you stay with the locals in a beautiful hilltop village over looking the Annapurna range. It was an amazing place with lovely people.

My goal was to catch the mountains in the distance and then catch the locals working with nature in detail. I had an awesome time and the memory of this place will stay with me for a long time:) Some pics below of our stay.

The company I worked for is https://thunderdragonfund.org if you want to check out the progress of the film or to find out more about the amazing Gerry and his adventures:)

The village we stayed in is: www.annapurnahomestay.com if you are interested in looking into it or going for your own stay there:)

Riepe village on the left and Annapurna on the right of shot:)

JULY 2019 - Filming with Plant Life

A few days filming with Plant Life in the Cairngorms. Was super interesting meeting the different people here and learning several new plants and flowers. One of the rare ones below, the Twin Flower which the guys are helping to protect and become more spread out before it goes extinct!

Filmed with GH5 and Cosmo pocket on the ground and the Mavic 2 pro for the aerial footage:) Down to the editing bit now, although one day out with a mountain leader who hs had training from Plant Life.

The Twin Flower:)

JULY 2019 - Aerial filming of a Shepherd taking in his sheep from Scafell Pike

Aerial filming for slow television. A very different shoot. Several drone crews following a shepherd as he gets his sheep in from the highest peaks in England. Some quite challenging filming as our shortest shots were to be 5mins and try and get 8mins or more. Sounds easy on paper but this is quite a bit of concentration and the shots must constantly develop and no jarring moves and always keep moving! I managed a 13 minute shot at one point which I was pretty chuffed with:)

Several early morning starts, to beast up the hill with a very fit shepherd. Being a mountain instructor I always think of myself as pretty fit but the shepherd Andrew was a different level. I kept up carrying the drone but seemed to be breathing and sweaty a bit more than Andrew hahaha.

Some pics of the week below.

Flying the Inspire 2 with X7 Camera, solo operator

The Shepherd Andrew and helper Sarah at dawn

MAY 2019: Interview with Westlife for 'ITV This Morning'

I continue doing quite a few shoots for ITV ‘This Morning’ this time an interview with Westlife at Glasgow Hydro. Not something I thought I’d be doing but it was great laugh and very sound guys. The presenter Alison Hammond is brilliant too and Riaz the producer who is a real life Westlife fan:)

APRIL 2019 - Gino D'Acampo in Sardinia for ITV 'This Morning"

Headed out for another This morning cooking show the last one was in Scotland with John Torode and this one to Sardina, Italy for Gino D’Acampo. We had a great fun week once the sun came out so we could show off this lovely place in the sunlight:)

Very good Crack with Gino, a great guy and very funny. The team was also awesome Natalie as Director, myself as DOP and Drone, Will on second Camera, Rich on Sound and Julia as Home economics person. We all worked well together and should be a great six pieces starting in a few weeks time.

We finished the week with a Ferrari scene. This was awesome I have to say:)

FEBRUARY 2019 - Look back at Casio Watch film

So myself and Warren (Casio man) collaborated on our second Casio film. Also pulled into the fold was a pregnant Jess Creber (now a mother) and Joe Kirk (has a great second name) who would help out with some riding and Joe with some Kayaking and stunts.

The film below which I was very worried would not get many views as Casio popped a 9 second title at the beginning which is always going to reduce your views on youtube as people often switch off when given titles straight away much better to get straight into the story (those first 3 seconds are important:). Anyway it seems to be doing alright on youtube now with 82K views.

We shot over 5 days and had pretty long days and often had to change locations the night before and sometimes on the morning due to the weather being very fickle during the week. But we pulled it off and achieved everything that was on our storyboard we’d prepped in the previous months.

Always great fun making these films as there is such a variety to them, enjoy.

Join us as we take on the Scottish wilderness with the new WSD-F30! With a newly improved battery life of up to 3 days as well as an LCD mode with Compass, Altimeter & Barometer the F30 lets you explore and navigate longer for over a month on a single charge.

Below is the first Film that Warren and myself collaborated on. It has done very well with 795K views so far:)

G-SHOCK UK RANGEMAN GPR-B1000-1ER from Master of G, LAND Collection Part of the MASTER OF G series of watches designed for use in the most extreme conditions, the all new RANGEMAN challenges the limits of what a timepiece can be in true G-SHOCK style - the World's First*1 Solar-Assisted*2 GPS Navigation for the G-SHOCK RANGEMAN.

SEPTEMBER 2018 - Salmon fishing film

It was great to film some fly fishing on the River Tay and spend some time with the Gillies and fishermen. Filming from the air here was great and the drone always works well with the fly cast.

The film will be up soon on the website: https://www.salmon-fishing-scotland.com

Great review from Jock Monteith who runs the company:

“Having vast experience of some of Scotland's brilliant TV producers on the riverbanks of Scotland it was a true breath of fresh air to gain the professional eye and experience of Kirk Watson who is indeed a 'true' master of drone flight and has 'real' flair for creating true masterpieces at a reasonable cost. Any of my future salmon river filming requirements will be directed only to him and I cannot recommend Kirk highly enough.”