BBC One DIY SOS
Play filmIncredibly rewarding work
Drone filming on the BBC One show DIY SOS is incredibly rewarding. To see the joy on the home owners’ faces once Nick Knowles and his band of tradesmen have worked their magic is just heart-warming.
Our brief on these shoots is to provide great general views of the sites and locations: the street before the work starts, the build in full swing with hundreds of volunteers on site, and the finished homes on reveal day.
We filmed two Big Builds for the programme, one in Manchester and one much closer to home in Holmfirth, near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire.
Nick Knowles and the team were a joy to work for and we look forward to many more future Big Builds.
One of our first ever television shoots
DIY SOS was one of the very first television productions we flew for, back in 2015, before drones had become the industry standard they are today.
It is hard to remember now, but in 2015 a drone on a television set was still a novelty. Aerial shots usually meant a helicopter or a crane, and most crews had never worked alongside an unmanned aircraft.
Turning up on a busy BBC One build with a drone meant earning the trust of the production team, the site managers and a street full of tradespeople, and showing that we could fly safely and legally around a live building site.
What the drone gave DIY SOS was scale. From the ground you see one house and a crowd. From the air you see the whole street, the lorries, the skips, the scaffolding and hundreds of volunteers in hi-vis all pulling in the same direction. It is the shot that tells the story of a Big Build in a few seconds.
Those early flights for the BBC helped set the standard we still work to: careful planning, the right permissions, and a calm, professional presence on set. We have gone on to fly for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, HBO and many more, but DIY SOS is where a lot of it began.
The Veterans Street, Newton Heath, Manchester
The Manchester Veterans Special was the biggest project DIY SOS had ever taken on. Canada Street in Newton Heath, north Manchester, was a run-down street with many of its terraced houses boarded up and empty. The plan was to turn it into a community for ex-service personnel, many of them living with life-changing injuries.
Our part involved several visits to the street with our DJI Inspire 1, filming it before work began, during the build and again when the homes were finished, so viewers could see the whole transformation from above.
Hundreds of volunteer tradespeople gave their time. Empty houses were rebuilt inside and out as homes for veterans, the fronts of more than sixty neighbouring houses were given a facelift, and a walk-in support centre was created on the street, run by Walking With The Wounded and the Royal British Legion.
Prince William and Prince Harry joined the volunteers on site in September 2015 and picked up the tools themselves. The two-part special went out on BBC One that October and was watched by 9.6 million people, the biggest audience in the history of the show. DIY SOS returned to the street in 2017 to build its final home.
Holmfirth, near Huddersfield: a Big Build on our doorstep
Our second Big Build was much closer to home. Holmfirth sits in the Holme Valley a few miles south of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, a stone-built Pennine town on the edge of the Peak District that millions know as the home of Last of the Summer Wine.
Here DIY SOS took on the home of a former police officer and his family, adapting it after a life-changing stroke so that he could live at home with his wife and three sons. The programme went out on BBC One in December 2015.
For this shoot we flew a heavy-lift drone. In those days, if you wanted broadcast-quality pictures from the air you carried a full-size camera on a large multirotor, and it took real care to operate one in a narrow Yorkshire street full of people.
The whole of Holmfirth seemed to turn out. Local builders, joiners, plasterers, electricians and suppliers from Huddersfield, Kirklees and right across West Yorkshire gave their time, and the street was packed on reveal day. As a Yorkshire drone company based just over the hills in Calderdale, it was a proud day to be part of.
What DIY SOS: The Big Build does
A family who badly need help, a house that no longer works for them, and a whole community that turns up to put it right, for free.
DIY SOS has been on BBC One since 1999, presented from the very first episode by Nick Knowles. It began as a show that rescued DIY jobs gone wrong, and in 2010 it became The Big Build, taking on far more ambitious projects for families facing illness, disability or bereavement.
The idea is simple and it works every time. The team put out a call for help, and local tradespeople, suppliers and neighbours give their time and materials for nothing. In a matter of days a house is stripped out, extended, adapted and rebuilt around the family who live there.
Then comes the reveal, when the family walk back up their street past everyone who helped. There is rarely a dry eye, on either side of the camera.
Behind the scenes on the Big Builds
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