JUNE 2023 - Drone pilot Shetland for the final episode of Dana.

Compared to my last time in Shetland we had amazing weather this week here. The Dana team headed to Shetland by boat and plane.

Hamish Directing as usual and first camera, Kenny presenting with Owen alongside, Rich and milky on safety and my self doing the aerial filming. Produced by Solus Productions for BBC ALBA.

We climbed on some spectacular sea cliffs and even did a first accent in one of the UK’s most Northerly spots:)

Kenny leading up an E3 at Esha Ness

Esha Ness Lighthouse

Shetland team

JUNE 2023 - Aerial filming Cairngorms for Dana BBC ALBA

A great few days in the Cairngorm mountains filming with an awesome team with Hamish Directing and camera, Kenny presenting with his mate Jenna and Rich on safety with his wife Gillian doing a bit of portering.

We headed in to climb the scramble up onto Angels Peak after staying in the Garbh Corrie Bothy for the night. Well most of us in tents. then we climbing up Ben Macdui and onto Craggan Coire Etchancan to camp just above it. the team then climbed Talisman and we walked out in pouring rain:) Fortunately the weather stayed reasonable for the rest of the trip but just involved very early starts to avoid the worst of the rain each day.

Angels Peak

Coire Etchachan

JUNE 2023 - Drone pilot in Morayshire for 'This Farming Life' at Thorabella Farm open day near Dallas.

Fun day filming with Nicky and Ollie at Thorabella Farm open day. Hundreds of people turned up to look round the farm and see the animals. Weather was perfect too. I spent most of the day with a ground camera but also several drone flights during the day to see the farm from the air:)

The farm as people start arriving:)

JUNE 2023 - Myself as a drone pilot in the papers for advertising the new National Geographic series 'Europe from Above'

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.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12178487/UKs-ancient-traditions-leave-modern-day-Brits-baffled.html

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.

MAY 2023 - Aerial Filming Cairngorms and Moray with BBC 'This Farming Life'

Great day out doing the spring aerial filming for ‘This Farming Life’. I visited two farms with my Inspire 2 with the prime lenses and cycled through my set of 16 batteries 2.5 times haha. A lot of footage.

The last time filming with these guys was in the autumn and now back for a different weather season. We started up in Dallas at a farm with Water Buffalo, goats, rabbits, bees, pigs and more with Ollie and Nikki filming several Spring shots. Emma and Alison from BBC keeping me right on what they needed out of the day.

Then we headed to Newtonmore with Robert and Jenni to film Alpacas and spring lambs. Great bunch of people and good fun content to create for the program.

In between being a drone pilot getting kissed by an Alpaca, not my type but a nice gesture:)

Drone filming the sheep in Newtonmore and Robert driving to check the lambs:)

MAY 2023 - Australia camera and drone filming with ITV 'This Morning'.

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:)

APRIL 2023 - Drone pilot in Scotland heads to Malta :)

Headed to Malta for a great film job with ITV This Morning. Here we are filming a piece about film locations and Malta has been used for many: Gladiator, Game of Thrones, Troy and many more. Joe for Gavin and Stacey is the presenter here. Such a lovely lady and very good fun to work with. Dom is the director from ITV This Morning and his dad is from Malta who we met along with several other family members hahaha. Handy having a director who knows all the places in Malta and having a Maltese second name helps too:)

Here I was doing the main camera work. Mostly on the Gimbal. I was also doing the sound as budget was tight. Then the drone work on top too.

Was interesting doing the drone permits for here but fortunately I have been registered here for years. Every flight must be authorised by their civil aviation authority so there is a lot of online paperwork to set up a job. But straight forward after you do the first few and get used to the system.

The tourism board helped us lots and sorted our permits and an amazing hotel to stay in. A bit better than normal being the number 1 hotel there:)

Our 5 star hotel ‘The Phoenicia Malta’ such an amazing place and lovely people.

The outdoor pool and the end of a few hundred meters of lovely gardens:)

Our film team with Mario the guide (with encyclopaedic knowledge of the island) Dom in the back and Joe the presenter up front.

April 2023 - Filming at Dumfries House with Camera and drone for ITV This Morning

A lovely day working with Will (director) and Daisy (presenter) at Dumfries House, one of the King’s properties where the Princes Trust does several activities. We were there to film in the Gardens, Farm, Chinese Bridge, and the lovely house.

Always good working with Will and lovely to meet Daisy who is brilliant and cheery:)

The Maze at Dumfries house

The Team Will, Daisy and myself:)

Daisy on the steps of Dumfries House

April 2023 - Aerial filming North West Highlands on the 'The Old Man of Stoer' for Dana.

Second episode of ‘Dana’ for Solus Productions that will be on BBC ALBA in the autumn. Here we head to the Old man of Stoer in the NW highlands. First climbed by Tom Patey and Brian Robertson in 1967. We planned to climb the other popular route on it and a few grades harder than the original which is the E1 that goes up the face to the left of the original and is a very photogenic route. Joining the team was Calum who is from Skye and the first contributor apart from Coineach (Kenny) who presents that speaks Gaelic.

The weather definitely made us work here and Rich and milky headed up a day early on a lovely sunny day to fix the ropes for Hamish to jug up infant of Kenny and film. Hamish Macleod was directing and doing the main camera, while I shot two second cameras from the shore. We then got them to climb it again so we could get my drone shots without the extra ropes etc on the route. with heavy swells and often rain we managed to get the sequences done in the end:) Hopefully make a great episode. Rich Parker and Malcolm Airey did the safety for this. Shetland next I believe but into June for that:)

Kenny and Calumn on top:)

Kenny and Calumn with a weirdly short looking stack lol.

Team on top Hamish with camera.

March 2023 - Drone filming Torridon, Highlands. First episode of Dana season 3

Off to Torridon with the great Dana team. Hamish Macleod directing and doing camera, Kenny presenting in Gaelic, Tori as second presenter, Rich Parker doing the safety. Was pretty disgusting weather but a fun trip and got the most out of it we could:)

Torridon:)

Hamish filming

February 2023 - Filming Comic relief in the Cairngorms - Drone and Camera operator.

What a brilliant fun week with this team of Rylan, Oti and Emma. Also the whole safety team who I know from my work in the mountains, and Graeme and Kirsty who guided them on camera. A very wild weather week with 108mph on the summits. People, even heavy ones, get blown through the air at 100mph so pretty windy.

We hiked and filmed and I was covering the socials for Comic relief and for the uploads to BBC Breakfast and news crews each day. While along the way the a BBC crew were filming the documentary to go out a little later. The celeb team were new to the hiking and camping etc so was fun to see how they got on and how great they are with chatting to cameras and always being observed. Great week and Hamish Frost did the stills and Rupert Shanks helped me out.

Hamish, me, Rylan, Oti and Emma at the end.

Rylan getting a rare moment to himself to take in the surroundings on Cairngorm summit.

Emma and Oti on the summit of Cairngorm.

January 2023 - Camera operator and aerial filming on Lewis and Harris with the Hebridean Baker

So off to the Western Isles for some filming and cooking. I seem to get out to the isles often in my line of work which is fantastic. Here was to do a cooking show for ITV This Morning with usuals Julia organising the food and Ian doing the sound. A new PD to work with Rhian who is wonderful and a new presenter for me Coinneach the Hebridean Baker who is a lovely guy:)

We started in Harris filming on Luskentyre beach which is always lovely and to Harris distillery and up to Lewis for the other days with Callinish stones and Stornaway etc. Quite a bit of jumping round the weather as it is January so good bit of rain but thankfully sun too and rainbows:)

Luskentyre Beach

Amazing backdrop for cooking.

January 2023 - Drone pilot Kishorn for BP job for Chris's company Sky Hook TV

Chris gave me a phone to head along to Kishorn to pilot his Inspire 2 while he camera operated and all flying from a boat. Great to see Chris again as first time since we worked together on a job Filming sheep several years ago. This was his job I was just working for him and his company Sky Hook TV

Was a fun job and after some initial rain we got some stunning weather. Such a cool place at Kishorn where oil rigs are set in a backdrop of amazing mountains and Britains highest road on Being Bhan. The filming will be used in a BP advert.

Two BAFTA winning drone pilots on the same boat:)

January 2023 - Drone pilot in Shetland for National Geographic

So back on with the ‘Europe from Above’ series and filming the Up Helly Aa Viking festival in Scalloway, A pretty challenging shoot with it being mainly at night time and it was pouring with rain once the parade started lol.

Filmed with the DJI Inspire 2 and X7 camera mainly here with a few shots in town with the mini 3 pro. Then once the rain was so heavy I flew one of my old Mavic 2 pro’s over the empty sea just to get some shots.

Filming started early with the show of the boat and marches by the vikings. Then in the evening the march happened all pretty quick and I relied on several vikings drinking to remember to remove my GoPros from their boat before they burnt it lol. Luckily they did and left them in a pub for me to find.

Was a great bunch of people and my very first time in Shetland. I’ll be back. An interesting very rough 12 hrs return ferry trip:)

Dawn start at Scalloway.

An island with two sheep

Screen grab from the GoPro.

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.

January 2023 - Camera and drone operator in Sardinia with Gino for ITV This Morning

Always great to head to Sardinia to shoot with the ever very funny Gino and the great ITV ‘This Morning’ crew. I was doing camera and drone here and Ashley Gadd from fresh audio was doing sound, Harry Bott was directing and Julia Alger was managing the food side of things for Gino.

Surprisingly for this time of year we only had one indoor cook and the rest was pretty sunny for January and we had a great time touring round different areas in the inner part of Sardinia. Mainly within 30mins oil Gino’s house.

Gino kept us entertained and ever professional and quick at what he does.

November 2022 - Self shooting PD on the Moray Coast for BBC 'Paramedics on Scene'

Another day filming for a BBC TV Show’ Paramedics on Scene’. This time filming in a room in the fire station as its bigger than ambulance station in Banff:) Was a good crack and had some pretty good weather to get some drone shots of the area too.

On this shoot the interview was done through my laptop and hotspot on the phone while I did the 3 cameras, 3 lights, sound and after the drone:)

November 2022 - Camera operator and aerial filming in Thurso for BBC 'Paramedics on Scene'

A super windy day up here in Thurso but managed a bunch of drone shots early morning. Then had a laugh meeting the Ambulance teams and setting up for an interview. The interview was about previous incidents that had been filmed and the interviewer was on my laptop hot spotted from my phone:)

Involved setting up in a small living room type area and moving chairs and getting 3 lights up then three cameras and sound:) A fun day out.

November 2022 - Camera Operator and Drone pilot Northumberland with John Torode

So John is back on the road on his bike as we tour a few spots in Northumberland and cook several lovely dishes. John is always great and easy to work with and so are the ITV This Morning crew. Will Thomas, directing, Natalie managing the cooking and Ian on Sound.

Was a fun week and weather amazingly held for us for November:)

Bamburgh Castle, the amazing spot for one of the cooks:)

John on Holy Island for a cook:)

October 2022 - Camera Operator and aerial filming Scotland for ITV This Morning on Rewinding

Here working with Martin (Producer director with ITV This Morning who I have done many shoots with) and Dr Scott an Aussie vet presenter and my first time with.

We had a great week filming about rewinding and travelling about areas, planting trees, feeding squirrels and swimming in a freezing river. Great to be back up at Alladale too.

Our great team at Alladale:)