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www.postmagazine.com 39 POST MAY 2016 Drones part of a promotion, the music video was filmed on an NCL ship, with Pitbull at the front in the midst of a big celebration. To show just how large the ship was, Green had planned aerial shots overhead, around the ship, and behind it. "I wanted to film aerial shots of Pitbull, but we could not bring heavy equipment, like a technocrane, onto the ship. That would have been the tradi- tional way to do this, to get 30 feet above the artist," explains Green. "The UAV can go high and low, and has the ability to go underneath and around the ship — amazing aerial moves that are not good for a track system. A UAV can move anywhere, and a good pilot can get pretty close to the subject." On the day of the shoot, however, the winds were particularly strong, making it too difficult — and dangerous — to fly the UAV. "They never died down, so I was never able to get any type of aerial shot," says Green. As a result, he had to incorpo- rate some aerial footage that Norwegian had from a previous commercial helicopter shoot. Pitbull was not in them, though. Recently, Green also used a UAV from Inflight Solutions to film behind the scenes at an art event in Miami. "It's hard to believe that we were able to get these produc- tion-quality shots for a behind the scenes," he says. "UAVs are so inexpensive today that even up-and-coming filmmakers will have a drone in their package that offers this type of quality. I'm starting to see these shots in wedding videos, too. They are no longer just for big-budget films, all because of drones." More recently, Green used a UAV for Spotify, featuring DJ Khaled, as he inspires people throughout the city to work out. A camera-mounted drone filmed him running on the beach and down a pier. "We had a tight window, maybe 16 minutes, to get the shots. They put the drone in the air and got the shots. It was amazing," Green says. FEATURE FILMS For some time now, filmmakers have used UAVs for special shots, mostly, however, outside the US where laws governing UAVs are less stringent. For instance, Director Neill Blomkamp used them for his movie Chappie (2015), to obtain footage as well as to serve as a reference point for actors during filming in South Africa. They have also been used for scenes shot in Hong Kong (Transformers: Age of Extinction), Istanbul (Skyfall) and others. Jeremy Braben, an experienced ae- rial cinematographer at Helicopter Film Services (London), has been hired to fly UAVs for a number of film productions, including Spectre, Into the Woods and Avengers: Age of Ultron — for which he used Intuitive Aerial's Aerigon UAV. "We got into using them about two years ago," says Braben, whose company has exten- sive experience filming with helicopters. "That was at the insistence of a number of studios that wanted to work with a UAS but wasn't allowed to under the studio system, but could do so with a recognized helicopter aerial film operator." Like others, Braben points out that UAVs can go places that a conventional helicopter cannot, and because they have the ability to move in different direc- tions, they can replace wire systems or other hard-mounted systems like cranes. However, he notes that they cannot replace these alternatives completely because there are things that a UAV simply cannot do. "But, they are another tool for the film- maker to use as another way of complet- ing shots," he adds. For Spectre, Braben helped capture a shot in central London that provided a point of view during a simple approach to a building, with Trafalgar Square in the background. "The director wanted to put the shot into the geographical loca- tion, and this was the only way to do it. Otherwise, it would have been a building just anywhere," he explains. And, "we couldn't have gotten low enough with a conventional helicopter." Braben's foray into using drones came during Avengers: Age of Ultron. For that project, he used the Aerigon for numerous shots — both live action and VFX plates. "On many occasions, we had extensive use of helicopters and UASs on the same day. There were instances when we did the first half of a shot with a helicopter, with a takeover to the drone," says Braben. "It worked very well. We used that principle on a number of movies, such as Captain America: Civil War." A shot from Into the Woods started out with a crane reaching through the tree- tops, and followed the actors through the woods. Then, Helicopter Film Services took over the shot through the trees to the for- est canopy. The company also recently ac- quired shots for Now You See Me: Second Act, with an interesting outside/inside shot in a large casino with various actors. Braben has used UAVs to film in the UK and China. However, there are still regulations in place there, too. "The big- gest challenge we face is where the film- makers want us to fly and film, because there are still regulation challenges and restrictions," he says. COMMERCIALS Because of the reasonable price of using a UAV versus a helicopter, many from outside the realm of high-end feature films are benefitting from this new tool. In fact, Braben says he has seen an uptick in low- er-budget productions using aerial pho- tography from these systems. This includes television series, commercials and more. One of the more compelling com- mercials using footage captured from a UAV is The Art of Patron: VR Experience, a longer-form advertisement that takes viewers on a VR journey to witness Patron's handcrafted tequila-making Helicopter Film Services and others have been using drones to support feature film shoots, including 2015's Chappie (above, right).