ITV Wild Bill
Low-level drone filming of high-speed car chases across Lincolnshire for the ITV drama starring Rob Lowe
Play filmAnother epic filming experience
Drone filming on the ITV drama Wild Bill was another epic filming experience.
Flying our DJI Inspire 2 as a two-man crew, our task was to film several high-speed car chases with experienced stunt men at the wheel as our drone tracked them through the Lincolnshire countryside.
We were required to fly super low and track with the cars at a distance of just a few feet.
Rob Lowe and the team at ITV were a joy to work for and looked after all our team with cakes and coffees in between filming.
Another wonderful day in the life of a drone pilot and crew.
A two-man drone crew on the car chases
Chasing a stunt car at speed, a few feet off the ground, is a job for two people and a DJI Inspire 2: Phil Fearnley flying the aircraft and his brother Ian Fearnley operating the drone camera.
On a tracking shot the pilot has one job: put the aircraft exactly where it needs to be, at the right height and the right speed, and keep it there. Looking at the picture as well is asking for trouble.
That is why we work as a two-man crew. The DJI Inspire 2 is built for exactly this, with separate controls for the pilot and the camera operator. With Phil flying and Ian operating the drone camera independently, the drone can run alongside the car while the camera pans to hold the driver, swings ahead to show the road, or lets the car burst through the frame.
Every run is rehearsed with the stunt co-ordinator and the drivers first. Everybody knows the route, the speed, the start and end marks and the escape line before the cars move, and the roads are closed and controlled by the production.
The flat, open farmland of the Lincolnshire Fens helps. There are long straight roads, big skies and very little to hide behind, so a low drone can stay with a car for a long way and the audience can see the whole chase unfold.
Rob Lowe, a US police chief in Boston, Lincolnshire
Wild Bill dropped a Hollywood star into the Lincolnshire Fens and let the two get on with it.
Rob Lowe plays Bill Hixon, a high-flying American police chief who leaves Miami with his 14-year-old daughter Kelsey to become Chief Constable of the fictional East Lincolnshire Police, based in the market town of Boston.
He arrives to cut crime figures and budgets and get out again, and finds a county and its people that are a good deal harder to shift than he expected. It is part crime drama, part fish-out-of-water comedy, and Lincolnshire is at the centre of every episode.
The six-part series was created by David Griffiths, with Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble as lead writers, and made for ITV by 42, Shiver and Anonymous Content, with Rob Lowe as an executive producer. It was shown on ITV in June and July 2019.
Filmed in Boston and the Lincolnshire Fens
Wild Bill was filmed on location in Lincolnshire and in London, with Boston town centre turned into a television set from November 2018.
Boston is one of the great towns of Lincolnshire: a historic port on the River Witham, a few miles inland from The Wash, watched over by the tower of St Botolph’s Church, known to everybody as the Boston Stump and visible for miles across the flat fenland.
When the production arrived, the Market Place filled with trailers and extra market stalls, and local people and stallholders appeared on screen alongside Rob Lowe.
Beyond the town the drama made full use of the Fens: mile after mile of rich, dark farmland, drains and dykes, cabbage and potato fields, and long straight roads running to the horizon under enormous Lincolnshire skies.
It is a landscape made for aerial filming. From the air the geometry of the fields and waterways, the isolated farms and the church towers on the skyline show exactly where you are, and nowhere else in England looks quite like it.
We provide drone filming and aerial photography across the whole of Lincolnshire, from Boston, Spalding and the Fens to Skegness and the coast, Lincoln, Grantham, Louth and the Lincolnshire Wolds. If you are planning a drama, documentary or commercial in Lincolnshire, we would love to hear from you.
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