JUNE 2021 - Gleneagles making a short social media film
A rushed windy day here but fun all the same. Made a short mid summers day film and also filmed a few of the golf club holes and fishing.
The wee drone in the wind
JUNE - 2021 Drone filming and ground Camera with Mark and Hank Land End to John O'Groats
A fun little stint of filming as part of a larger team. I was to film (with Camera and drone) Hank (James Lowsley-Williams) and Mark Beaumont as they raced from Lands End to John O’Groats while trying to break the record. Always very interesting seeing these elite athletes doing these challenges. I filmed the Edinburgh to Inverness leg while a group of other individuals and teams filmed the other legs.
Link below to the film:)
JUNE 2021 - Cameraman in Cairngorms National Park for BBC Education
Been doing a few of these shoots over the summer for BBC education. It is an animated series but I shoot all the plates for it so they can animate over it. Fun shoot and I get a nice walk in the mountains while I do it:)
Loch Avon looking great:)
Taking a still for a walking through shot
JUNE 2021 - Drone filming near Fort William in Glen Nevis and a bit of long lens too.
Back from Rum and after a few days off we start filming another episode of Dana. This time purely rock climbing and in Glen nevis. the sun is out again too and after a midge start they all run away from the sun thankfully. Episode out in the Autumn.
Kenny on Storm in Glen nevis. Picture from the Mavic 2 pro drone
Storm in Glen nevis. Kenny’s climbing partner climbing here.
MAY 2021 - Drone operator on the Isle of Rum for BBC ALBA
A fantastic trip on the Isle of Rum doing some aerial cinematography while Hamish filmed with the ground camera and directed. We had some amazing weather for filming. Here we all carried our camera kit, batteries and tents, food, stove etc. This made the first day pretty big when we arrived on the morning ferry then did the whole of the Rum Cuillin filming on the way. A few pretty knackered by the end but we were rewarded with an amazing sunset from our high camp.
The next few days saw us walking, rock climbing and swimming and visiting ruins and bothies. We also got a tan:) A few pics below:) TV show out in the Autumn
Sunset Camp
Hamish filming Kenny on the Rock Climb, Rich Parker out of site doing some safety
MAY 2021 - Live drone filming with ITV Competitions and Andi Peters
Always exciting doing a bit of live drone filming with ITV. You definitely don’t want any boo boos while a few million are watching eeeek!
We filmed live for a morning at Loch Ness then at John O’Groats the following day. Adam Young was directing, Dan on camera and Rich (who I’ve done a few jobs with) on sound:)
It went well with only twice I had to land due to heavy heavy rain:)
MAY 2021 - Cameraman and drone pilot in Arrochar alps with ITV 'This Morning'
A great day filming with Josie Gibson on the Cobbler, with Dominic Gatt doing the directing. We had Emma a contributor with us and her friend Nick. Was a bit more of a day out that most expected but made for some great footage:) Then a swim in Loch Lomond to finish the shoot. A big day and myself doing camera, sound and drone.
MAY 2021 - Drone pilot for the SNP with Matt Brown Productions
A fun few days working for Matt Brown who does a lot of filming with the SNP. My job was to get drone shots of cool looking spots as the campaign bus travelled round Scotland before the election. Scott from MBP was doing the ground camera and interviews with the candidates. A lot of fast paperwork and often creating incident numbers with Police Scotland and Air traffic control permissions to make a lot of the flights near cities etc. So was quite a full on week and often where we went changed last minute haha.
The footage was used on social media and some ended up on the News channels throughout the week. Not sure if our filming influenced the election but they did win, there might be other factors involved?;) hahahaha.
APRIL 2021 - Cameraman and Drone Pilot Tongue Spaceport with BBC Countryfile
My second job filming with Countryfile. A few jobs recently I have ended up doing camera, sound and drone on jobs like this due to the cover restrictions on numbers. Makes for a busy but fun day. Here I was working with Tom Heap who thankfully for me took on the organising and going through the script for me while I just ran around with cameras as we met all the different contributors.
The show was about the possible new spaceport that may get built here and also the other ones around Britain. Was pretty interesting as I actually didn’t know anything about these lol. Tom was great to work with also.
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:)
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:)
AUGUST 2019 - Surf Champs teaser on youtube
Little teaser film I made for the British Kayak Surf champs for Glenmore Lodge and the British Kayak Surf association. I think the full film will be out next week or so:) This was a lot of fun with the drone. I flew every battery on two drones to empty haha. Thats 27 batteries:)
JUNE 2019 - Aerial Filming for Rolls Royce advert in Scotland
So spent a few days with the DJI Inspire 2 filming on a Rolls Royce advert which was fun. Got to ride in my first Rolls Royce, very comfortable. Slightly beyond my price range haha.
We did a lot of dual operator during these days with Sammy the DOP doing my Camera Operating as he is also a drone pilot and obviously knows a bit about cameras. Dual op is often required once we start using the longer lenses and especially following fast cars.
We had to change locations several times to avoid the rain so it was great using some local knowledge and contacts to figure out the best spots. I did a bit of Camera assisting in-between drone flying to help out setting up camera kit, lights and focus pulling:)
Great fun few days and a super switched on crew from SWR Media Magazines Ltd, which was great:)
JUNE 2019: Aerial filming for Horror film
A great although rather damp filming day for a horror film based in Aberdeenshire. most of the crew are from Aberdeen and America. Was great fun and we managed to get the shots in even though it rained a lot, I suppose it will look atmospheric for a horror film though:)
