JANUARY 2022 - Drone pilot in the Cairngorms and Glen Africa for an Amazon Prime TV Show

So a few days with the drones for an Amazon Prime TV show called Car and Country. Nice bunch of people and we did a bit in the snow in the Cairngorms then headed up Struy estate (A place I actually made 31 films for a few years back lol) to do some Landrover driving and staying in Eagle Braes lovely Log Cabins.

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:)

JANUARY 2019 - ITV 'This Morning' Torode on the Road

Heres just a wee clip I filmed on my TV of the last in 5 video clips from This Morning on ITV which I filmed, did sound, drone and lighting, Anthony Brown Directed and did second camera. Natalie Bloxham produced and generally sorted all the cooking stuff ready for John Torode to do his magic with actually cooking. My first cook show and I thought it would be sort of pretend cooking. But no it was incredibly great tasting food every time:)

We filmed at the beautiful Alladale Estate which was awesome and covered in snow. I did my first live broadcast through the Inspire 2 with X7 camera. The Cendance controller with its SDI output worked perfectly for it. Got an Adrenline rush there:) Next stop Sardinia with ITV and Gino D'Acampo for my second cooking show:)

DRONE SHOWREEL 2018

A new aerial showreel for Perfect View productions from jobs working as a Drone pilot in Scotland over the past year.  I had a bit of spare time this week so good to put this together.  I hope you enjoy it:)

New drone showreel of Scotland for www.perfectviewproductions.co.uk. This showreel shows a few highlights from the last 12 months of work with my drones:) The first eight clips are the Cairngorms near home. This was my first trip out on my own with the new DJI Inspire 2 with X7 Camera before a few jobs I had with it so I could get used to it. The best new thing apart from the great footage from 14 stops of dynamic range is the fact I have four prime lenses. You’ll see from the clip of myself walking on Facial Ridge the 50mm (35mm equivalent to 77mm) is great for giving a different look from the standard wide angle drones all have. Brings the background closer to me in this shot. Same lens was used with the shot of the top of Shelterstone crag and the couple on the summit of Ben MacDui. The next five clips are of the Strathspey Steam engine (based in Aviemore). This was an awesome day on the job where I had sole use of the train for my filming:) I used the DJI Inspire 1. Then we head to the Western Isles for seven shots with the opening shot of the CalMac ferry coming into Stornaway. This is within the ATZ of the local airport so I had to co-ordinate this flying with Air Traffic control to do this. They were super friendly like everyone out on the Western isles:) Some great beaches and seascapes out here. A wave sport kayak clip from the Moray Coast was thrown in here to from an advert I made. Into a bit of Rock Climbing next while filming for Glenmore Lodge and their youtube channel. First two shots are at Reiff climbing then onto Stac Pollaidh for a mountain day. The long shot of panning round into Dave and Jon climbing is one of my favourite. The shot was too long to play in full for a showreel. It does make for a very atmospheric shot though. These were all filmed with the DJI Mavic Pro. (easiest drone to climb a hill with:) The 32nd shot with the old tree, is a sunset shot of Cairngorm with the 50mm lens on the X7 Camera. 3 shots of an Army truck for a TV program. With the Mavic and Inspire 1. The third shot was in an amazing corridor of trees that were super tall. This was filmed on an estate in Aberdeenshire where the crew stayed and filmed for part of the show. Two tree shots to swap from summer to winter. Summer shot from the X7 camera and the winter one from the Mavic. I do love the trees covered in snow in the winter. Few winter shots of Glenmore lodge filming of Mountaineering skills and Ski mountaineering. We then finish on several shots from the summit of Sgor Gaoith in the Cairngorms. These shot were with the Mavic Pro for a Casio GPS watch advert. The tops of the hills were clear for only 30 minutes that day (I know this from friends running ski mountaineering courses up on the tops that day) and we happened to be there on the summit just as it cleared. Great shots and would be very hard to re-create again but hopefully I will:) If you ever need a drone pilot for your shoot give me a shout and check out my website www.perfectviewproductions.co.uk