Planning the shot
Path, speed and framing decided at the recce: on the day it is executed, not improvised in front of a crew.
A location base camp: the flight path is decided here, not in front of a waiting crew.
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Film and production
Aerial cinematography for film, commercials and documentary, planned with the production and with the authorities.
An aerial shot in a production is not a flight: it is a scene. It is planned with the storyboard, the shooting schedule and whoever issues the permits, and it has to work on the first or second take, because the crew is standing still waiting for it.
Figures for this sector
- 8K RAW
- 8192 x 4320 at 75 fps, 14 stops of dynamic range
- 21 J
- impact energy with the recovery system, against 1,177 J without: this is what makes a shot above a marshalled area authorisable
- 0.27 s
- parachute deployment time, with motor shutdown independent of flight control
- 2-3
- people on the air unit: pilot, camera operator and, where needed, focus puller
What we do
Pilot and camera operator, separated
Dual controllers: one flies, the other frames and pulls focus, each with their own controls. Whoever operates the camera works as they would on the ground, without thinking about the aircraft. A three-channel follow focus adds the focus puller, and the rest of the crew follows the same frame on their monitors.
Two people, two jobs: the one flying watches the aircraft, the one framing watches the image.
A dolly in the air, not an automatic move
The path is saved and stays fixed, but the aircraft runs it under your command, forward and back, as many times as needed: a dolly on rails fifty metres up. Heading and gimbal are either held for you or held by you.
The path stays fixed, the aircraft runs it back and forth under command: a dolly, not an automatic move.
Repeatability locked to satellite
With precision positioning the same move lands on the same path take after take — and days apart too, as long as the same correction service is used. That is the condition for cutting together shots from different days, or for stacking passes in post.
Same move, same starting point: with precise positioning the next take lands on the same line.
Manual exposure
Shutter, ISO and aperture locked: the light does not jump mid-move and the footage cuts without grading rescue work.
The camera department at work: with shutter, ISO and aperture locked, the edit has nothing to correct.
Permits and safety
Airspace, restricted zones and distances from people checked before every call; the flight plan is handed to the production along with the footage.
Before take-off: airspace, no-fly zones and distances checked, and the flight plan handed to production.
What you get
- Footage up to 8K in ProRes RAW or CinemaDNG, shot with locked exposure
- Original RAW files delivered untouched, plus an edit on request
- 48-megapixel stills from the same flight
- Flight plan, airspace checks and aircraft class for the production file
