Major Project: Drone Shoot

 In planning our documentary we knew we wanted not only drone footage but also drone footage of our own. After carrying out some lengthy research I found that websites like Shutterstock were expensive and would exceed our budget. It also wouldn't really be our own work and whilst professional companies and documentaries do use this, we felt it was too expensive for our budget. To match our footage we would need to also select the 4k option which is £84 for just three seconds of footage in some cases. So if we used one we would need to pay for more; something that isn't very feasible.

I called on contacting someone who has helped us with a previous client project 'The Firm Awards Opening Video'. We found the drone footage to be really good and wanted to use the same person again for this project as we could also get discounted rates on the pretences we give him a credit in the project and also give him a recommendation. This will also build up a showreel for him so parties were able to benefit. Please see Firm Awards Opening Video below:




After establishing Joe would be ideal for the job we wanted to ensure he was also licenced. In order to fly a drone, especially in the London area a licence is an essential and can land you in serious trouble otherwise. According to the Government website:

Essentially your responsibilities are:
-to know how to fly your drone safely, and do so within the law
-to understand that the operator is legally responsible for every flight
-to keep your drone in sight at all times – stay below 400ft
-not to fly your drone over a congested area, never fly within 50 metres of a person, vehicle or ----building not under your control
-ensure any images you obtain using the drone do not break privacy laws
-avoiding collisions – you should never fly a drone near an airport or close to aircraft. It is a criminal offence to endanger the safety of an aircraft in flight
(GOV.uk, 2019)

This meant we needed to take cautions and fortunately doing background research allowed us to find out that Joe's company was officially registered with done safe, meaning he is a legally licenced drone pilot. Now we needed to establish where we were actually allowed to film in London, as there are still certain restrictions due to air flight zones and government buildings (and in London, there are a lot of them). This meant looking at the drone fly zones in London and we managed to find somewhere along with the themes where we could get important buildings such as the Ghirkin and Shard in shot. We found out the price to fly which came to £4.95. We lso planned a shoot of a football pitch and road which also cost the same amount so we reinbursed Joe for that and also payed for travel expeses.


Above is some of the maps research that went into finding our shoot location and where the nearest train stations were etc. The shoot was a success overall and something I believe would be difficult to improve. We planned well, were efficient on time and money. However, if I was to perhaps change one thing it would be to film these shots in central London a bit closer to some buildings. However, due to laws and restrictions it wasn't worth the risk or getting into trouble over and the way we improvised around this was effective.




References:

GOV.UK. (2019). Drones – are you flying yours safely? (and legally?). [online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/drones-are-you-flying-yours-safely-and-legally [Accessed 29 Apr. 2019].

https://dronesaferegister.org.uk/company/ZOOMD-Ltd



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