Pilot flying a camera or Professional aerial film-maker?

Pilot flying a camera or Professional aerial film-maker?

By: Eric Monroe (Shadow74)

As much as the idea of strapping your GoPro to the front of a T-Rex 450 and doing 3D might seem fun, let's be totally honest for a second…….nobody "really" wants to watch that footage.  :)  Of course no one is saying that you can't do that, but don't be disappointed if no one is blowing up your phone with requests for you to work on their next feature.

If you are entering into this field with aspirations of flying professionally, I would like to share a few things that I have learned from experience.

I have personally flown R/C for almost 30 years and found out quickly that just being able to fly a camera around is not going to be enough in the world of professional aerial filming. Being able to gather specific shots that require targeting still or moving objects rather than just b-roll of landscapes is not only necessary, it is difficult and will challenge even the most experienced pilots.

Flying the camera in ways other than just flying forward and lifting up over something is also key to gathering great aerial footage.  Practice is the only answer, I have flown hundreds of batteries in my yard doing nose-in circles around a lawn chair….fun huh.  :)  It is one thing to go out and fly in a wide open space, it is entirely another thing to fly a quarter of a mile into a forest on a narrow walking trail while occasionally cutting leaves on each side with your prop tips. (no matter how much you have flown, this is still nerve racking) 

Vision:

What might be a great shot to me, might not be a great shot in the eyes of the client.  When working as an aerial film-maker you must be open to the vision of who it is that you are flying for.  Input could come from the director, the producer, the DP, the client or maybe all of the above.  This is not to say that you are just a drone only taking direction from everyone else. Obviously your creativity and talent as an aerial film-maker is the reason that you were called in the first place, just be aware that ultimately these decisions lie in the hands of the client.  If the clients vision poses a safety risk to you, bystanders, your equipment etc. by all means.....SPEAK UP!  You are the pilot in command and in the end that responsibility falls on you. Injuring someone or destroying your aircraft/camera equipment is not worth "getting the shot".    

Investment:

Any way you slice it, getting into this field is expensive. I started off with just a small quad-copter and a GoPro. (more about the GoPro in a little while)  I was able to get some "nice" shots with this setup but realized quickly that I was VERY limited.  My copter was small and lightweight which made it unable to gather smooth footage unless it was perfectly calm and also limited me to carrying a small camera like the GoPro, Contour, etc. In order to be more flexible I had to have a bigger, heavier, more capable copter that would allow me to fly in some wind without getting tossed around.  It would have to be able to carry a larger payload such as a DSLR camera/lens, 2-3 axis pan-tilt gimbal, FPV/downlink gear, radio triggers, etc.  Everyone knows that bigger, faster, stronger, better.....is lots more money, unfortunately there is no other way around it. So the money is spent on a large heavy lifting copter, and everything is all set to go film professional aerial video right? What happens if/when you crash, or have a technical difficulty with the copter that prevents you from flying? (while everyone on set is standing around, getting paid to wait on you.) If you are filming b-roll of architecture or landscapes, most likely the building will still be there when you get back.  On the contrary if you are on the set of a commercial, music video, movie etc. having a backup machine on standby is the answer.....and now your costs have doubled.  It is not a good idea IMHO to go into this profession with only one machine.  I heard it said once that "The devil LIVES in technology".....and to quote the famous Murphy's Law "If anything can go wrong, it will." and to boot it is usually at the most inopportune time.  Having backups will allow you to repair your broken gear later and get the job done efficiently the day of the shoot.

Single-rotor vs Multi-rotor:

This could mainly be a matter of preference in the end.  Mac or PC?  Chevy or Ford?  Both are able to get the job done.  Both have positives and negatives.  I might write an entire article on this subject at a later time, but for now let's just go over a few things.  Single-rotor helis have many more opportunities for problems and require (in my humble opinion) A LOT more knowledge.  For instance, you have to know how to set-up thottle/pitch curves to obtain a proper throttle/collective mix, level a swash plate, measure and adjust head speed.....just to name a few. Single-rotor helis also have endless ways of creating vibration which is one of an aerial film-makers worst enemies, so you must be able to set-up your machine with absolute mechanical precision in order to have it perform well for gathering aerial footage. With so many moving parts, troubleshooting exactly where vibrations are coming from on a single-rotor heli can become more than stressful at times.  Things such as improper gear mesh, bent tail boom, bent tail rotor shaft, bent feathering spindle, bent fly-bar(s), bent main shaft, out-of-round main gear, bent torque tube, improper belt tension, improper balancing of flybars, rotor-head, main rotors, tail rotors, improper main rotor tracking or any combination of these things can cause vibrations in a single-rotor heli.  Multi-rotors have an advantage here because they have no moving parts other than motors and fixed pitch props.  As long as you have balanced motors/props you are generally good to go.  This is not to say that multi-rotors do not require a skill-set.  There is just a lot less to do in the way of trouble shooting vibrations and mechanical set-up on a multi-rotor.  One advantage that single-rotor pilots do have, is the ability to do an auto-rotation.  If something goes wrong up there, or you hit your battery's cut-off by mistake, you do have one chance at saving your heli and all your camera equipment with an auto-rotation.  If something happens in the air with a multi-rotor 9 times out of 10 you are going to crash. (I got lucky once with one of my quad-copters.....when in flight I lost a single blade off one of the props and I was able to land safely. I also watched a video of a pilot flying a large octo-copter that lost a single blade off of one of his props and he landed safely. Not a comforting moment.)  If you run a multi-rotor's battery to cut-off however, your copter and Mother Earth are going to get to know one another rather quickly. 

Which camera to fly?

This will most times be up to the client.  GoPro cameras are great and for many situations are the right choice for the job. The barrel distortion of the wide-angle lens can be somewhat of a negative at times, as this is not always a desired look. Hence the need to have a large copter capable of carrying a decent selection of cameras from small to large in size.  As technology continues to push forward, the choices that we will have as aerial film-makers will just continue to grow.

My 2 cents.....

This is an amazing profession to get involved in.  It is continuously changing and always presents a challenge.  Just make sure that you have the proper gear and that you are overly prepared.....being ready for just about anything.  The risk is obviously a bit higher than other things that you might find yourself doing, but the satisfaction of a job well done is also high.

Here is an example of a video that I did for my own production company, using a couple of aerial shots to help add to the quality of the video.

Multi-rotors FTW!  :)

Cheers!

Eric Monroe  (Shadow74)