Affectionately known as Just Jane
Being a professional drone pilot opens a world of opportunities, seldom seen by the general public.
One such film shoot was for the TV company Daisybeck Studios based in Leeds West Yorkshire. Daisybeck produce some incredible shows including The Yorkshire Vet, Springtime on the Farm, Fletchers Farm and a one-off show, Digging For Treasure Live. https://www.channel5.com/show/digging-for-treasure
The show featured real life treasure hunters using metal detectors to find hidden treasures. Presented by Dan Walker and Michaela Strachan the show travelled around the UK filming historical locations looking for hidden treasures.
For one of the segments myself and DOP Lee Chapman filmed the iconic World War 2 Lancaster Bomber known as Just Jane. Whilst lee was inside this incredible plane filming interior shots, I flew the DJI Inspire 2 around the aircraft trying to gather as much content as possible in a slow cinematic style. Once gathered I hitched up my FPV drone, at the time a Protek35 with a GoPro strapped to the top and began to fly some stunning circuits around the plane flying super close and fast, but not too fast as to spoil the effect of flying around this incredible piece of WW2 history. My main concern was to under no circumstances hit the plane, its irreplaceable and I didn’t fancy ringing Simon Ritterband at Moonrock insurance (https://moonrockinsurance.com) to say I had a little bump!
Well, the shoot went off without a hitch and here’s the proof.
So, after this we headed off to our main filming locations which was in a Norfolk farmers field and then down to central London on the banks of the river Thames.
Our location here was Southwark Cathedral.
Now up until London I flew the DJI Inspire 2 at the Lincolnshire aviation Museum, the DJI Mavic 3 pro in Norfolk and then in London for several reasons flew the DJI Mavic 3 pro on the banks of the River Thames and at Southwark Cathedral flew the DJI Mavic Mini 3 pro.
Now, filming in London is never easy as you need to apply through NATs (https://www.nats.aero) to get permission and clearance from the police. This can take up to 21 days, so planning is essential. However, in my experience its usually only a few days to get things in place but they do require a flight plan of where and when you will be flying and on the day of the flight you need to call the police control room to get your CAD number.
They want a call prior to taking off and again once the flights are all completed.
The CAD number is needed to give to the local police if they turn up on site and ask if you have permission, and in my case they did. Two heavily armed police officers came down to our filming location and after giving them my CAD number proceeded to ask the presenter Michaela Strachan for a photograph, very nice chaps indeed.
Whilst we were flying off Port London Land and over the River Thames, when the tide went out, we also gained permission from them, again essential if you don’t want to get into more trouble.
The DJI Mavic Mini 3 was used outside the Cathedral due to the proximity of the general public. I don’t hold an OSC so the DJI Mini 3 pro which is under 250g was perfect letting me take off from the Cathedrals grounds and fly out over the Thames.
Both the Norfolk and London locations had very large crews for such a shoot filming as Live. On set there were around 4 studio cameras and my drone up in the air with everything being fed into a mixing desk truck. A massive setup but given the size of the DJI Mini 3 pro nobody in the truck noticed the different aircraft, a testament to DJI’s incredible drones.
The other interesting fact about this show was because we were shooting as live as well as the camera crew, I also had a headset on where I could hear the director calling the camera shots and warning myself when they would come to me. Not easy as I had to make sure I had enough battery power whilst up in the air to last the shoot. I’d warn the director when I needed to land, do a quick battery swap then get it back in the air again.
If you watch the show on catch up, you might even catch a glimpse of me huddled up in a corner of the church yard trying not to get on the shot.
Many thanks again to https://daisybeckstudios.com for trusting me to be their eyes in the skies once again.
Just another day in the life of a drone pilot that will live with me forever.
