GEAR. AERIAL
“You have to make sure you’re with a reputable company and safety people that don’t cut corners and know what they are doing, so you are confident they have all the proper equipment to keep you harnessed and safe. Even though you are strapped in, it’s still hard to get your head around the fact you’re going to be leaning quite heavily out of an open helicopter door with a large camera. It takes an internal pep talk.” Secondly, Marar explains: “There’s a lot of vibration, keeping a steady image can be difficult and you have to deal with the challenge of that. Someone once told me the more relaxed you are, the more your body will absorb the vibration. Longer lenses are more challenging because of the shake so you probably should stay wide. Then, you must have good communication with the pilot,” she adds. “The way they control the helicopter will affect what you’re doing. Choosing where to sit is also important. If you sit on the floor with your legs dangling you have a larger field of view, but you’re in the slipstream, whereas sitting on the chair you get a more limited field of view but less interference.” DIRECTOR’S AIR Director Coz Greenop has long had an interest in drones and insisted on using one for his first feature film, Wandering Rose . “The film was super low budget and I knew that in order to impress I would need to use something that would give my film more production value,” he explains. “This was back in 2012 when drones weren’t really a thing; we were one of the first UK feature films to use one, so naturally when I took it to Cannes all the sales agents assumed I had used a
“For us, we can hike up a mountain with a drone in our backpack, get it out and move at the speed of thought”
helicopter for these vast tracking shots up in the Cairngorms. I still to this day think I sold that film on the drone shots.” Greenop’s current project is a romantic film shot in Iceland called It All Comes With the Cold Water . “The first reason we are using drones is always budget,” he says. “Helicopters cost a fortune and, shooting in Iceland, the weather is so unpredictable. If there is a single drop of rain on the camera lens we have to land and wipe the camera. For us, we can hike up a mountain with the drone in our rucksack, get it out, and move at the speed of thought. Having a drone allows us to be super creative on the go and capture things in the moment.” That being said, Greenop is open to using other methods. For him, it depends entirely on the scene and the camera movement required. “All of these tools are useful to a filmmaker, but there has to be a reason behind using a crane, helicopter or drone,” he adds. “If we are shooting on a remote mountain with limited resources and finance, then we wouldn’t be able to use a crane, so a drone – or maybe if we had the budget – a helicopter would make perfect sense. Drones are very adaptive and consequently they can be used in so many situations.
OUR ROBOT FRIENDS Drones have become a common sight on film sets of all sizes, types and budgets
Cranes have certainly moved up in the world. Originally designed to lift the camera and operator together, they were restricted in movement due to the load capacity. Now, things are very different. For example, the Hague camera jibs range features cranes with remote- controlled heads for many cameras, including GoPro. Cinematographer Johann Perry recently used a crane on Series 3 of BBC show, Happy Valley . He says he deployed an old- school approach to aerial shooting, which suited the gritty nature of the production. “For the nature of the show and the speed we were working at, we went for the lighter cranes,” Perry explains. “We even went down to a Jimmy Jib, making it easier to get into smaller spaces, and quicker to move. It was key to be lightweight and flexible on this particular show.” THE HELICOPTER GIRLS Katya Nelhams-Wright, founder and technical director of The
VERTIGO Tanya Marar talks about fighting the fear when dangling out of a helicopter to get the perfect shot (right)
62. DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM
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