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:)

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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

Flying the Inspire 2 with X7 Camera, solo operator

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The Shepherd Andrew and helper Sarah at dawn

The Shepherd Andrew and helper Sarah at dawn