AERIAL LIGHTING TECHNIQUE
needs to know where to be when the drone is up. Even if you communicate really well, you still get issues where the director changes his mind or the DOP moves the camera, and then you have to wait. But this eats away at the time you could actually shoot. At the same time, we come prepared. We have lots of sets of batteries. The battery change usually takes less than five minutes. If time is of the essence, we can do it in two minutes.” Sometimes the brief is straightforward – a searchlight, moonlight, or a moving source above a scene. Other times, the drone becomes part of something much more elaborate. UPUP has worked on a one-take music video, for example, using a camera drone alongside a light drone, with a third drone carrying fog machines, creating the effect of people fleeing from a UFO. Looking ahead, Mandelbaum thinks it’s about getting the technology in front of more people and letting them discover where it fits. “The more people know about it, the more likely it’s going to be that you will see it on set,” he muses. For now, that means learning what the light drone can do – and what it can’t – by putting it to work. The more DOPs, gaffers and directors use it, the more ideas will come from that. “When creatives see it, they’re like, ‘Oh, I can do this now and I can do this,‘” he laughs. “And then the requests get crazy…”
© CLARA MARNETTE
ON THE UP The UPUP team believes that more productions will want to use drone-mounted lighting solutions as awareness of the technology’s practical and creative possibilities grows
29
DEFINITIONMAGS
Powered by FlippingBook