AERIAL GEAR.
UNLIMITED POWER Tethering drones to power supplies helps overcome the issue of low flight times
Tanking up Drones able to execute the sort of manoeuvres we expect of first-person racing aircraft, while carrying an upscale cinema camera, need to be powerful. That takes a toll on batteries, with flight times sometimes in the single-digit minutes. As Boswell explains, batteries are a perennial concern. “I think every drone operator treats their batteries with kid gloves because they do have a life cycle, so they’re kept at even temperatures and have to be discharged if they’re not being used within 48 hours, and things like that.” Transporting them involves some of the concerns crews face with high-capacity camera batteries, though. As Boswell continues, it’s an issue that operators will have frequently overcome. “We’re used to transporting lithium- polymer batteries with freight companies, to send them to the territories we’re working in. It just requires planning. We transport many batteries, so it’s a serious endeavour, but we leave that down to the experts. All productions have to manage the transportation of batteries around the world for every piece of kit, so they understand we’re going to have to treat the batteries differently.”
“There’s trust from productions... we’re now a tool that is working within narrative”
Film production has always relied on a combination of good technology and ideas. One of the most satisfying applications of the lighting drone, as Williams recalls, came from the BBC Universe documentary, presented by Brian Cox. “They wanted the scene to look as if he was walking through a time-lapse. He was in these rocky landscapes and we were moving the drone in the background, quite low. The shadows shifted around him, and another drone filmed him walking through this Martian terrain. Brian loved doing it, experiencing all the shadows moving without any trickery.” COMBINED SKILLS As the tech has changed, so too has the relationship between drone crews and productions, not least because FPV flying relies on cooperation between pilot and operator. “It’s the skill of the pilots and operators combined,” says Emma Boswell, “and the ACs, of course, who come from experienced backgrounds of working with remote heads. What I’m also finding, particularly over the last few years, is the trust from productions to allow us to work with the director and DOP to come up with suggestions and be creative, as opposed to just shooting establishers and transitions. We’re now a tool that is working within narrative.
polymer batteries. Tethering the drone to a ground-based power supply is a reliable way around that problem. While it imposes certain limitations, in many situations a tether makes new techniques possible – not least of which is effectively unlimited flight times. As Aerialworx’s Stef Williams says, the technology was inherited from adjacent industries. “Until now, it’s been mainly used for highway inspections, to count how many people go past a junction,” she says. “We’ve taken that a step further and made it useful for the film industry. You’re running a 500v supply up a thin cable to the drone, which then converts to its operating voltage. That means the drone doesn’t need to carry so many batteries. Instead of holding 4kg of cells, we can carry a 1kg back-up battery, and operate using the tether almost indefinitely.” The possibilities of practically unlimited flight time for things like time-lapse, or covering events at short notice, are huge. “You can leave the drone up for three, four, five, 24 hours; whatever you want,” Williams confirms. “The other thing is, we can carry lighting systems on the drone. We have one which outputs 120,000 lumens. There are ten cells on there, and we can turn cells on and off. We can also reconfigure them, so if there’s too much light coming from ten, we’re able to change that.”
NEW FRONTIER Fast-paced, high-octane drama is perfect for drone work – providing manoeuvrable tech
65. OCTOBER 2022
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