Aerial Filming By BeyondHD: 'Cameras In Motion'

BeyondHD own and operate a fleet of the Aerigon Cinema Drones and are the exclusive UK partner of the Swedish Drone manufacturer, Intuitive Aerial.

Keith Harding, Managing Director and founder of BeyondHD has more than 25 years in film & TV, filming high end live OB's (including two Olympic games) dramas, documentaries, wildlife & commercials as well as blockbuster feature films, such as the recent Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron & Into The Woods.

Based at the world famous Pinewood Studios, BeyondHD are a company that often chooses to buck the trends in terms of both conventional business model and the selection of equipment they operate; in not always opting for the market leader, just because it is the best marketed.

Keith Harding says: "We often find issues and design flaws, particularly with drones and gyro stabilisers, as most of these have originated from the hobbyist and model aircraft 'markets'. We therefore look for new or alternative designs and solutions, but that come from designers and manufacturers who are from the world of film & broadcast as they tend to really understand the specific requirements and environments of working on actual productions, with tight timescales, demanding directors and actors and extremely high levels of expectation of any crew or equipment that comes onto their set/location or into their studios.

"Partnering with these top designers and manufacturers rewards us and our clients with wonderfully innovative, high quality products, designed specifically by and for camera operators and DoP's, resulting in solutions that provide fantastic production values in a way that fits into a traditional production workflow... which is clearly great for time and budget."

Operationally, BeyondHD provide production/filming services to many top film and TV productions ranging from Hollywood feature films, dramas, documentaries and commercials to live outside broadcasts.

Keith goes on: "What makes us a little more unusual, is that when we find those 'special products' that we consider provide a superior to any other product in terms of flexibility and high end camera/lens compatibility, we then often work with these manufacturers to support, operate, sell and frequently to develop and produce our own ancillary products here in the UK. For our many film and TV customers, this means they know that we always provide products and services with equipment that we not only sell, but use in anger on real world and the highest of quality productions in the most demanding world of film and broadcast."

In the case of finding the right Drone partner; before partnering back in 2013 with Intuitive Aerial, the manufacturer of the class leading heavy lift cinema aerial filming platform, Aerigon (known to many as the Black Armored Drone), we had endured the same issues as most DoP's and productions working with other drones still tend to suffer with now; the inability to fly with the same high end cameras and lenses that are being used for the rest of the production on the ground (such as RED, ARRI, Sony, Grass Valley etc., with cine or broadcast zoom lenses).

The inconvenience and hidden costs of having to use alternative lightweight, stripped down cameras, such as DSLR's with photo lenses, may have once been considered an acceptable compromise to get drone shots, as there was no practical/safe option to carry such heavy camera/lens/accessory payloads into the air whilst still having a high level of failsafe and redundancy in the event of a motor failure. Aerigon can take 9kg and still fly with two motors down. When we teamed up with Intuitive Aerial and the Black Armored Drone, we knew in a heartbeat, that camera/lens compromise was going to be a thing of the past. Since then, we've never looked back and neither have our clients, as with this incredible aerial filming platform we can fly Red Dragon, Arri Alexa/Mini, Sony F55s, Grass Valley LDX OB cameras and, most recently, the incredible Phantom Flex 4K and all with uncompromised quality of lenses, Zoom, Iris and Focus control and high quality zero latency HD monitoring or live transmissions solutions.

No longer does the Production or DoP have to change the way he works to suit the drone or incur additional costs in Post to try and match completely different cameras and lenses with the rest of the program or film. Moreover, seeking permissions for using this commercially produced series of aircraft is much easier, as regulating bodies such as the CAA are familiar with this aircraft and the high quality of manufacturing and the pedigree of BeyondHD as experienced film/TV operators. For our clients, we carry a full range of Video Village, monitoring, lens motors, professional battery charging and logging solutions, turning up on set with a full solution, not just a drone with a camera. I've never worked on a production yet where the DoP, producer, director are actually happy to wait until the aircraft is on the ground to see whether the shot works. Our video village is fully wireless (even power is from V-Locks) and it provides zero latency HD monitoring to the main 17" monitor and separate waveform and vectorscope on separate units, all this with the ability to record and instantly review in HD. The controller we use for the gimbal is like a controller you'd expect to find on a cineflex, not the typical model aircraft controller. "We are firstly a film and TV company and then a drone operator. Not the other way around," Keith states.

Intuitive Aerial is probably the only Drone manufacturer to make just one single product, designed from the ground up for high end filming. Despite this narrow market and product portfolio, their commitment to it and our mutual success, saw them listed on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year. There really is no substitute for quality and customers love the fact that when they use this amazing drone, coupled with our highly skilled and experienced pilots and aerial DoPs, the shots can be breathtaking. As with all new technologies, it takes a while to find the sweet spots and it's taken us a while to educate the market to think of the Aerigon, not as a cheap helicopter, but as the most amazing and flexible bit of grip equipment you can buy.

Think of the drone in terms of a giant crane, imagining the flexibility of a telescoping crane, but with a 3 feet to 400 feet high reach, 500m turning radius, with unlimited tracking, and almost instantly deployable and re-locatable and then you start to see the value of the Aerigon with a full film/broadcast camera system on board. For this reason, we work a lot with Helicopter filming companies, as the shots you get are entirely different. Directors and DoPs now are starting to understand that it's often the most subtle of shots that take our breath away, not the "how high, how fast" shots, where a full size helicopter is still the way to go.

For further products, BeyondHD supply and operate the Letus Helix range of handheld camera stabilisation solutions for professional film and TV digital cinema cameras & compact cine lenses, and for larger camera lens packages, BeyondHD have the new 20kg capable Double Helix, designed for full size cameras such as Sony F55 (with 4K), ARRI Alexa, Red Dragon, GV LDX etc., with full size film/TV lenses, wireless tx systems and lens control and the incredible body worn ExoSkeleton support arms which will be an absolute necessity for carrying such special payloads.

Contact Keith Harding on +44 20 7193 6143.

www.beyondhd.tv