Kirk Watson films
I am a freelance filmmaker, based in Scotland. I can self shoot promotional, documentary, educational and narrative content and edit into a final film. I am also a fully licensed, CAA approved drone pilot and cinematographer. Perfect View Productions has all their own equipment to complete a project.
Whatever your story be it commercial, documentary or fictional we can help you get your message across in a high quality and professional manner.
I spent a couple of days filming the River Spey in flood as often documentary makers are looking for shots of the Spey in flood so I thought I should catch some of it and plus it is very interesting to see it from the air but also devastating seeing what it has done to peoples properties too.
ITV This Morning is one of my best clients and a do a lot of location work in Scotland and luckily abroad for them. So as I was going to be in London I gave Will Thomas a shout (he is a PD I do a lot of work with and is the head of features). He said arrive when the show is still going live and he can give me a tour of the studios.
I had a great time meeting new folk and folk I have worked with before and seeing Alan Carr (Chatty Man) on the couch. I met John Torode as I went in the door who had been recording the voice over for our Australia films. He was on good form. Then I met Dr. Scott with Martin Harper in an edit. Will then had to get back to editing and Dom continued my tour.
I bumped into Julia doing the cooking prep for the live cooks and India in production and the head editor, Freddie, Amber, Abby and many more. When the show finished I chatted with Alison and Dermot and got a sneaky picture on the couch.
Marten Harper took me for lunch and then I joined for drinks with a leaving party for a lighting engineer leaving doo who had been there for 7 years so it was a good day to be visiting:)
Alison myself and Dermot on the Couch:)
Will (my tour guide), John Torode and myself:)
Awesome time as drone pilot out in Tuscany with GCN. A lot less full on than my Swiss trip last month with GCN:)
Had a great time filming a gravel race called Grinduro in the lovely Tuscany area in Italy. Hank was the very enthusiastic presenter and Stefan the equally enthusiastic director. We made a few films here and the main event was filming the race itself which involved driving round and grabbing shots of Hank as we went. Hank also Gopro’d much of the race as we could not follow a lot of it down closed off gravel roads.
The race feel itself was very chilled and fun and we stayed on a campsite by the beach in 33 degree heat each day so it was lovely:)
The start line was pretty hectic with 3 other drones in the air lol. But we managed to work around each other. I used the Mavic 3 pro CINE where I could and the Mini 3 pro in places near people and buildings:) a few pics below….
Final evening Tuscany filming sunset on the beach for a sequence with Hank.
A Tuscan village and church
The short documentary of the Tour Des Staions Ultimate 1000 that Oli raced in, is out today. Such an amazing effort Oli did cycling this, he had only ever cycled a race up to 380km previously.
Beautifully edited by Stefan Darque who was also directing and main camera, driving was Steve of Elmy Cycles who did a brilliant job staying awake for it. It has turned into a great little film and I believe a longer version is coming. Lots of shots from the air here from myself:) Have a watch in the link below.
This was a pretty fun yet crazy filming job making this documentary. Fun because we were in the Swiss alps and with a great team of people. Stefan as director and first camera, Oli racing his bike, Steve driving the van, James riding the motorbike and myself doing the aerial filming.
The crazy bit was we did a 37 hr shift on day one of the race filming, and driving for Steve then we got about 3 hrs sleep the next night and 3 hrs the following night. (James stuck to his legally insured 10hrs a day driving:) So there really should have been two crews covering this! But GCN does like getting free overtime out of everyone lol! But we just got on with it in a very happy way as we were there and needed to film it and support Oli and everyone. Hopefully it all looks good when it comes out tomorrow on the GCN channel:)
I also got to see the North Face of the Eiger which I’d always wanted to do and Oli got an amazing position in the race for it being his first Ultra race.
The race was the Tour Des Stations 1000 Ultimate. Meaning 40 racers would do 1000 km and climb 26000m in the race! Oil did it in 72 hrs which is incredible! Need to watch it to see how he did:) A few pics of the lovely Swiss alps below.
Some hairpins
The hotel from Goldfinger
The North Face of the Eiger
Fun day popping round a few houses in the North east of Scotland to get drone shots for Scotlands home of the year. Nice to meet the owners and see these places. One was near my parents house and one was near my house lol.
I had free rain just to be creative with my drone for an hour or so at each location. looking forward to seeing the show:) Unfortunately I can’t show the houses until after.
This was a fun trip to get involved with. Possibly the sweatiest filming I’ve ever done but amazing to visit the Caribbean for my first time.
Here Harry the director had written a dating segment and we had 3 different couples out on dates to see how they got on. Laura was presenting and Nigel Francis was on sound and we had India from productions and Freddy as a researcher/helping with cameras there too. A brilliant team and we stayed at the lovely Sandles resort.
We even got a few hours off each day at lunchtime to enjoy a swim and relaxed lunch as we started early and finished late each day. With be on in the Autumn and you can see how the couples got on.
The fabulous film team:)
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.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.
Fun day filming with Ian Dow. Perfect sunny day filming for Tiny Ark a Dublin based film company who I last filmed several years ago for. The weather was lovely and sunny and had no idea these big Oak (plus many other trees) rain forest exists. They have a proper canopy and ferns growing out of the oak branches like you see in botanical gardens lol.
Had a bunch of large Landscape shots to show the position of the forest in relation to the surrounding mountains and Sea. Then got creative with far more fun shots flying under the canopy through the trees in lovely slow cinematic shots through this cool habitat.
Then we did an interview with Ian with our first midges of the year biting us as we stood still for 30mins. Then a bunch of Close up shots and slo-mo with the GH6 ground camera. A good day exploring and being creative with the forest.
Definitely worth a visit: https://www.nature.scot/enjoying-outdoors/visit-our-nature-reserves/taynish-national-nature-reserve
The canopy from above
Screen grab of forest
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.
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.
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.
Today I was back with Ramsay and Robyn from Caledonia TV for a program about a horse stunt team in the borders of Scotland. Today was a little different where we were filming an annual ride out of 300 or more horse, which was pretty amazing to see. Very busy few hours so not much chance for pics as had to film then run to the next spot lol. Will go out late summer on Prime time BBC.
Today we were filming Guy Robertson soloing a few different ice climbs on Creag Meagaidh for an Alastair Lee climbing film. Was a good day out and some good exercise for the day as had to carry all the kit to the top to start:)
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.
A day filming the Aluminium smelter in Fort William. Pretty interesting to see around this place after passing it a few hundred times over the years. Thankfully I was fore warned by management that the main melting plant gives off a huge magnetic field and has in the past shot drones off into the distance which later crashed in the surrounding forest. I thankfully only had the occasional compass warning as I stayed well away from the central plant building lol.
Here we were filming with the presenter for a few pieces to camera to sync and a few walking shots then I was left to get a bunch of shots to help introduce the different parts of the factory and to head up the slopes of Ben Nevis to get shots of the hydro system:) A fun sunny day to be out.
Fort William Smelter
My High Vis and a helmet to be up in the woods on my own lol.
Always exciting filming trains as you never quite know when they will arrive in your shot and the drone only has so long in the air before the batteries change. Much easier near London but in the far North of Scotland they are not quite as frequent so you can’t retry your shot 5 minutes later. Raildar helps but only when you have internet lol. Anyway got some good shots in different spots from Inverness to Helmsdale.
Invershin Bridge and a Castle:)
Here i was working with Trenchone Industries Ltd to do the drone work for a Glenmorangie advert up in Tain. Some great fun filming through the warehouse in long shots with lots of action and flying round the copper stills. A little exciting as the compass on the drone didn’t like all the metal.
Combine cutting the barley right next to Glenmorangie House for the whisky
A few days filming in lovely weather in Edinburgh and Portebello for ITV Competitions. these are for pre recorded pieces to go out on Lorraine and ITV ‘This Morning’. Our presenter was Craig Doyle, super nice guy and used to play for ireland at Rugby. Adam Young directing and Matt Sharp on sound.
The team on the Royal Mile interviewing a Queen:)
Edinburgh from Holyrood Park
So another couple of days filming plates for the animation series. This time some geology of the Moon Thrust zone in the North West of Scotland. Around the area I did my honours project for geology on:)
Then it was off to the Trossachs in the South of Scotland for geography and forest filming:)
Loch Lomond
