APRIL 2025 - Drone pilot on a Redbull film with Kriss Kyle and Danny Macaskill

A fun day doing the aerial filming for a Redbull film. The film features Kriss and Danny and is building to something. Can’t tell you what it is but you’ll find out in the coming months I am sure. Was a good team with Ben as off site DOP, Molly as director, Don as A Camera, Ant as B camera, Grace as athlete relations, Meredith producer from Redbull, Will as assistant to camera and Miles do some FPV drone.

Filmed at Helensburough, Dumbarton and out at Arrochar. A few screen shots below from the drone and phone.

Myself, Danny and Kriss:)

APRIL 2025 - Beluga Lagoon music video out.

Here’s the finished film from the previous blog. Pretty pleased with how Andrew edited it together with his music:). Blaine is looking good in the shots and whole thing looks stunning. Camera operators are both myself and Andrews as he was on his camera too. Obviously during me doing the drone pilot bits Andrew filmed with his camera. That floating light had a bird carrying it on a longline:)

MARCH 2025 - Drone pilot on a music video for Beluga Lagoon

Another few days filming with Beluga Laggon. We had a fun few days as we paddled into a remote spot in the Scottish Highlands to film some night scenes and bad weather scenes for a man lost somewhere remote. I never really know entirely what I’m filming when doing these with Andrew and the story is in his head and often they are a little wacky the stories until you see them then sometimes they are a little less wacky when on screen with the music. But sometimes not lol.

Blaine was our main character here but Mark had come along for the banter anyway and ended up as chief smoke machine operator. I mean an actual smoke machine not a euphemism. We got some great shots of Blaine and some fun making my drone carry a little bunch of lights that were to represent some weird object in the night sky for Blaine to follow. It looked pretty good through the ground cameras. Few pics below.

Our paddle out was pretty horrendous in a head wind and complete pishing with rain. Underwear wet in 20 mins type rain. But we made it. Took 30 minutes to paddle in and 3.5 hrs to paddle out hahaha.

Blaine doing a bit of acting

The bad weather comes in for a bit:)

Blaine following the mysterious light

MARCH 2025 - Drone pilot on a Netflix Documentary

A fun few days as a drone operator with Richard Elliott on a Netflix Documentary Glencoe/Etive direction. A local story but can’t tell you anything about it at present unfortunately but should be very interesting.

The Netflix team needed hi-end kit as they were shooting everything in 8K Prores RAW. So the Inspire 3 with X9 Camera were the best option for them. Richard and I worked together here as they were looking for dual operation drone to do some car tracking shots and other shots in the area. A great crew to work with and an enjoyable time there.

A few pics below and a picture of a lovely toilet. Great name for a toilet/sink making company:)

Richard holding one of his drones as we colour match the cameras.

MARCH 2025 - Speyside Way film released

Great fun filming this Speyside way film for Cairngorms Business Partnership. Quite a bit of drone pilot filming here to show the landscape of the different sections along the way from Seaside to the mountains of the Cairngorms. Not a route I have done, I have only paddled the Spey many times, so nice to see the different parts of the footpath/cycle path. Also did a bit as a camera operator to catch the ground scenes and pub, distillery scenes. Was in the Cairn Distillery which was nice to see as a new place. They let me sniff the 70 year old dram but not taste lol. Then an edit of the project until we had what the team wanted:)

Definately worth a walk through the Speyside Way or a cycle also. Enjoy the wee film that Visit Cairngorms shared for Spring coming. Has almost 100k views on facebook now:)

FEBRUARY 2025 - Aerial Filming for a Music video in Scotland with 'Beluga Lagoon'

Had fun making this film with Andrew. A music video for the track ‘Isla’ from the ‘Slugs Bonnet’ Album. I filmed the aerial shots as the drone pilot here which we got a lovely day for. Andrew does the dancing on the hill. Which was a bit exciting at times for him as some reasonably drops off to the sides and tricky seeing anything in these masks. Lindsay his wife is Hula hooping and holding the signs, which Andrew filmed near home. The final shot we did last week. The one with the traffic cone.

All beautifully edited and turned to black and white by Andrew in the edit suite and obviously timed to his music to make a very entertaining, fun and different video. Be interesting to see what happens inside Andrews mind hahahahaha.

FEBRUARY 2025 - Camera operator on a Beluga Lagoon music video

A great fun few days with Andrew and Blaine filming a new music video for a new song, not yet released. I was out with my new cameras which now match Andrews cameras which is a great bonus. The Sony FX6 and FX3

We were filming several scenes of Blaine all dressed up in tweeds and a flat cap crossing the wilderness with his backpack and stick. Starting in the sun and with the weather getting more grim as he goes on. Well that’s the story anyway but was filmed in reverse because you have to go with the weather you have. Canoes were also at hand to get us to some locations.

Always great fun with this pair and a good crack. We also entered the pub quiz in the Clachaig and came third. One of the questions was “What does the Acronym BBC stand for?'“ Now there are a few answers to this question. The poor quiz master got quite embarrassed with all the laughing. But we did get it right in the end with “British Broadcasting Corporation”:)

Oh and we finally filmed the last clip of Isla music video. I think we did the first clip in September or October hahaha. I see it will premiere Saturday night 1st march as Andrew drops in the final clip to his edit, tomorrow on Beluga Lagoon Films on Youtube.

A few pics below with some screen shots from my camera of Blaine striding out over the moors:)

Blaine dwarfed by the great Highland mountains

Blaine striding out through the lush mossy birch forest in the sun.

Camera operator Kirk with my new shiny camera and 200mm lens:)

DECEMBER 2024 - Aerial filming Rannoch Moor, Glencoe

Rannoch Moor near Glencoe. A lovely winters morning with ice covered trees so I decided to make a little flight with my drone to see the beauty of Loch Ba which was slightly frozen too. I think on this morning it was -8 degrees as we drove homewards. A loch I have paddled across a few times with my Canadian canoe. It is a very cinematic and very Scottish landscape to film.

I was just returning from filming a Beluga Lagoon practice with a choir so it seemed apt to put a little Beluga Lagoon to it. This track is 'Eas A'Chual Aluinn' (soft version). The version without piano which Andrew possibly made for use in films of his. It is very atmospheric:)

I used a DJI Mavic 3 pro CINE for these aerial shots.

www.belugalagoon.com to see more of Andrews work

NOVEMBER 2024 - Roaming in the Wild back on player:)

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:)

AUGUST 2024 - Drone operating in Orkney and Shetland for 'Jules and Greg's Wild Swimming' BBC Scotland

A superb few weeks up on these islands with wonderful locals, well worth a visit up here if you have not been yet. Season 2 of Jules and Greg’s Wild Swimming and this year it was Islands. I missed the first 2 weeks on the Western isles as I was is Norway on the Dana shoot for the same company the great Solus Productions.

We had the same team as last year with obviously Jules and Greg doing a super job of presenting and generally being lovely guys to hang out with for the few weeks. Then we have a brilliant and great fun team to work with. As last year Tony was at the helm directing again, Jim producing, Sean as DOP (main camera and gyros in water), also water safety, Colin on sound, Raonaid doing a bit of everything and myself filming the aerials and a little bit of second camera too:)

We swam in lots of different spots for the TV program with beautiful beaches, saunas, rum, vikings, shipwrecks, cliffs, waves, town swims etc and many swims on time off too:) So good being the only people on a lot of these beaches and we met some super characters along the way. A few pictures below to give you a flavour and it will be on BBC Scotland in January coming:)

AUGUST 2024 - Aerial Filming in Norway for Dana BBC ALBA

An amazing two weeks in Lofted in Norway with a very familiar crew of the Dana TV now:) We are on season 4 now and got to head to Norway for what will be episodes 1 and 2 of this new series out later in Autumn.

Coineach is joined by Calum Gibb from Skye to climb, scramble, boulder, surf and bidi in Norway. Hamish was filming on his sony cameras while I filmed with my drone from the air. Rich and Becky did the mountain safety. For the first time in four years we actually got a day off to go climbing ourselves too which was brilliant:) Few pics below of the awesome trip. Looking forward to see what Hamish has done with it all in the edit:)

Our home for the two weeks

First days climb with Calum on it

The guys on Stentind ridge:)

Kenny on Ridge

MAY 2024 - Waveport Kayak advert for the new Hydra boat

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:)

MAY 2024 - Filming Take That and Olly Murs with Ross King for Lorraine ITV

A fun wee job at Glasgow Hydro with the ‘Lorraine’ TV Show. Albertine directing today and Ian doing the sound. A three camera setup for the interview. These things are always a bit rushed so arrived 90 mins early and did a few drone shots then got in with Katie the Take That PR person to setup up well in time.

We met Ross King and did a few pieces to camera with him. Super nice guy and he had his mate Kenny along to play the bagpipes.

Then we sat in for the Take That interview with Howard, Gary and Mark. Lovely guys and very easy to chat to. They have an ice bath they jump in before doing the show too. We toured the stage after to see the set up and chat through their show. A fun time.

Then I had ten minutes to setup an interview with Olly Murs at the far end of the corridor. Thankfully everyone helped move the kit:) Olly is a super nice guy and the interview went well.

Then we were all done just before they started getting reading to get on stage. These jobs always pass in a blur of adrenaline as I rush around for 4 hours then all finished and off home haha. Watch on Catch up as it was on Lorraine this week:)

Ross interview the Take That lads

My ten minute set up for Olly interview actually looks great :)

Me and Take That

Glasgow and the Hydro

April 2024 - Aerial Filming in Glencoe for a BBC ALBA Documentary

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:)

MARCH 2024 - Drone operator for a train spotting travel show for BBC

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

FEBRUARY 2024 - Filming Avalanche rescue film

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

DECEMBER 2023 - Filming Edinburgh Christmas markets and Edinburgh Castle light show

Filming the Christmas Markets and Castle light show with ITV ‘This Morning’. Was a date night for Roger and Janey from ‘My Mum your Dad’ TV program. Was fun going round the markets and seeing everything and going on the big wheel, and Ice skating. The highlight for me was flying my drone at the Castle to film the amazing light show. The Castle is very hard to fly from as in the centre of the city and an active military building too. But it was closed off for our exclusive use for two hours and with all the permissions there we could film the stunning light show. Just a couple of shots below for you to see:)

NOVEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in the Western Isles, Scotland. Filming Highland Cows for National geographic.

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.

NOVEMBER 2023 - Aerial filming in Industry, Nigg Bay, Queensferry crossing, Orkney, Glasgow.

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

OCTOBER 2023 - Aerial filming in the Lake District for a Light Show

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)