Skypower Delivers For Movie Blockbusters

Filmmakers are increasingly integrating aerial shots in to their work to add another dimension and expand their creativity.

But they also need an aerial platform provider that understands the pressures of a shoot day and can get the shot first time as well as integrating seamlessly in to the rest of the crew.

Add to this a company that has the latest kit to carry their camera choice and ticks all the boxes for them with CAA permissions and insurances.

Year on year, Skypower has won awards as "best aerial media company" in the UK, as well as a Hollywood award for its "exceptional aerial photography", and is proud of the service it delivers to its clients. Those clients range from big budget moviemakers, top TV dramas and large corporate filmmakers.

Here's what Andy De Emmony, the director for Carnival Films' Stan Lee's Lucky Man, had to say: "These are great! Million dollar shots! Game changing images, Bond on a budget!"

Skypower provided drone services for the night-time speedboat chase on the Thames and also flew internally for the casino scenes on this recent popular drama series starring James Nesbitt.

Drones give that extra dimension to directors by providing fully stabilized footage using the latest brushless gimbal technology and equipped with live video stream to the ground, which enables direction by the filmmaker. They can get the shots they need by framing shots in real time, during the flight, adjusting speed, angle, look and feel instantly to fit in with the style of the production.

As standard, Skypower's highly experienced pilots and gimbal operators offer 4K DSLR broadcast quality footage from ground to 400ft (higher subject to CAA permission and location) and can be ready to start filming in under 30 minutes.

They also offer heavy lift rigs that carry cameras such as RED Epic and ARRI ALEXA Mini and have permission to fly at night as well as special permission to fly up to 20m rather than the usual 50m in congested areas including heavy lift (one of the only operators in the UK to be able to offer this).

Their operations team if required, can assist your production staff with finding suitable filming locations; helping set up stunts, including working with local authorities and writing risk assessments so any operations are safe and legal.

Another recent project for Skypower was for Loaded, Channel 4's brand new comedy TV series.

Loaded is a comedy-drama about friendship, ambition, gluttony, the peculiarly British distaste for other people's success, and what happens when you've got £11.5m in the bank, but the cash machine has a £300 daily limit. It's about four friends trying to cling onto their relationship in the eye of a raging hurricane of money and excess and personal butlers and gold-plated Nordic headwear. Get ready to laugh out loud...

Starring Jim Howick, Samuel Anderson, Jonny Sweet, Nick Helm and Mary McCormack, over the last six months, Skypower have been capturing the aerial elements for the series, which included an internal drone stunt and shooting from a Sunseeker speed boat (you can see a snippet of this footage at the start of the trailer).

Neil Willis, Skypower Technical Director, said: "It was fantastic working with the crew and cast over the course of the series and we look forward to catching the program when it airs in May on Channel 4."

See the trailer at here.

This year also sees the release of movie Final Score in the summer months starring Pierce Brosnan. Skypower once again provided the drone filming against a backdrop of explosions with some quite tricky flying but some visually amazing results. We are looking forward to seeing this one!

Skypower's general show reel can be seen here.

Another aerial platform that is popular with the likes of Doctor Who, Bear Grylls and Channel 4's Troy: The Highwire, as well as sporting events like horse racing at Badminton is the company's Cablecam system – great for point-to-point filming through rough terrain or safely over crowds. It utilizes the latest gyro technology, dynema cable and powerful motors, allowing ultra slow travel or up to 30mph over 200m of cable.

www.skypower.co.uk/services/cablecam

www.skypower.co.uk

This article is also available to read in the latest edition of Broadcast Film & Video here, page 35.

(JP)