DEFINITION December 2019

FEATURE | AER I AL SPEC I AL

LEFT Carbon balancing from HFS and C Level – monitoring land use in Yaeda Valley

Jet Cam goes up to 450mph which is pretty impressive for a stabilised head on the outside of a plane

part of the story required the capture of UFO light orbs flying through the forest. Bart really wanted to capture this night sequence in camera with as little VFX as possible so we developed the 20x100W LED light for him to simulate the flying light orbs.” THE JET Something that is very new to the UK through the arrival of XM2 is the use of a jet for stabilised aerial filming, although it’s based in the US. “Jet Cam can be brought over to the UK and has a modified Shotover head on it,” says Aidan Kelly. “It goes up to 450mph which is pretty impressive for a stabilised head on the outside of a plane. The really impressive thing about it is that it’s acrobatic at that speed. You can put

The Helium 8K sensor allows a stitched plate yielding a massive 16Kx8K – as well as the latest IPP2 colour science from Red. The Helicopter Girls have just taken custody of their new heavy-lift drone, director Emma Boswell explains. “Our new super heavy-lift drone offers productions camera-and-lens packages which are just not possible with other platforms. With over 84kg of thrust we can fly the Sony Venice, Arri LF and film cameras with an increased number of lenses including Master Primes, large anamorphic lenses and zoom lenses with full lens control. The system is incredibly efficient, giving 12 minutes of flight time at full take-off weight, and despite its size it’s surprisingly quiet and agile, clocking a top speed of 45mph. “Another area we have been developing over the last 18 months is drone lighting,” Emma continues. “We can carry a variety of LED arrays, from 4x100W LEDs to 20x100W LEDs and they’ve been used recently by productions like Brave New World and science fiction feature Dark Encounter with DOP Bart Sienkiewicz. In Dark Encounter,

these things on Lear jets and craft like that but we’ve got it on a plane where you can dive, loop and roll all the way through, although it puts a lot of strain on the operators.” Pursuit Aviation worked in conjunction with Shotover to develop this new set-up. The Shotover F1 is a six-axis gyro-stabilised camera system which allows the operator to capture stabilised images at high speeds and high G forces. The company put together a team of skilled mechanics, custom fabricators, camera technicians and pilots to achieve the goal of shooting high- speed aircraft in their natural environment. Ideally shots would include chasing other jet aircraft for airline commercials, space vehicle testing, government

RIGHT On set in the UK with XM2’S Tango drone

46 DEF I N I T ION | DECEMBER 20 1 9

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