Frame & Reference Podcast - 242: Aerial Cinematographer Phil Arntz

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

This week we're talking with the wonder Phil Arntz, aerial cinematographer on films such as Supergirl, F1, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning & Final Reckoning, Masters of the Air, and many more!Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this episode 242 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Kenny McMillan, and my guest, Ariel Cinematographer Phil Arns. Enjoy. No, that's actually what I wanted to ask you about because I freelanced for, well, still, but, you know, especially early on, it was barely even freelancing. It was, does any, I have equipment. And so, you know, you buy the first camera, you buy some love. you buy some audio and now that I'm doing a lot of because of that actually I'm doing a lot of documentary

you know and now I've got multiple cameras multiple audio systems wireless all this stuff but I imagine helicopter cinematography very asset heavy company oh it's like ridiculously

what's the scaling yeah it's like it's an acid heavy company and then if you think film equipment is expensive because it's got the film tax wait until you get like the aviation tax. It's like, he'll charge you like $1,500 for a bolt, you know? It's a mental.

And it's one of those things, you know, like the equipment, the filming equipment is one side, right? It's like, you know, you've got all this, all this stuff. And then the bit that interfaces your equipment with your helicopter, that's then the next level of it. And all of that is certified stuff. It comes with logbooks.

It comes with annual. checks, it comes with all of these things. And obviously because the manufacturer that makes it, they have to have a, what's called a type certificate for all of the stuff that basically fits onto the, onto the airframe, and that's specific to the aircraft, they charge you through the nose for it because the certification process is quite expensive and quite lengthy. So ultimately, you know, you're looking at hundreds of thousands just for a hunk of metal that, you know, when you look at it, you're like, that's maybe five and a half grand at most. but all of a sudden the aviation side,

it's like, yeah, no, it'll be 10 times that or more, you know? It's like, I think that's true. I think like acid heavy yes, and you kind of need everything, and even better, you need everything twice because, you know, no one wants to really wait for it if it goes wrong.

And if it goes wrong, it's like, okay, where's the support, you know, where the spares such a niche market that you don't just go to, like, B&H photo by yourself and you, I am you for show, but, you know, it's like, it's a bit of a nightmare, really, and, you know, you kind of,

it's so deep and the hole in it that you just like, okay, well, this is, this is it now. This is what we're doing. Yeah. What, but is there, is there like a scaling up? Because, you know, like when I was starting, it was like, all right, I got like a little 1080. I got the C1.

Well, technically the first one I got was an AF 100, you know, then C100 and C500 and whatever. There's, I can't imagine, because you must have started like pre affordable drone. I can't imagine you, you were like, all right, I've got a helicopter and like a bungee cord. out the side of my friend's helicopter with, you know, a 5D. Like, where's like the like minimum viable product for helicopter cinematography? It depends really like on what you're trying to do, right?

I think, you know, helicopter cinematography obviously was a thing before drones. And then drones have kind of made really beautiful stuff more attainable, like the quality that you get now from like an Inspire 3 or even like the new Mavig, like with the spinning head. on it. It's insane. You watch it it and just like, it's absolutely incredible. But in terms of helicopter cinematography, yeah, I mean, I started to be fair, I was

working with the very, very first Movi when it came out, like the original I think it was the M15 at the Trimman and it was exactly that. A bungee called it to the door frame and held for the best, you know, you had one guy like, hold on for his life with his movi in the back of the helicopter the other guy with the sticks

and you get like remarkably good results out of it. You know, it's not perfect. And the second you get any sort of wind buffeting, it's game over because it just can't deal with 100 miles an hour of wind. But, you know, that's probably the way into it. And then, you know, I think realistically now, like handheld gimbals, like RS2s, RS3s, fours, whatever, like all of that stuff, you can get fairly good stuff if you're shooting outside of the door of a helicopter. But the reality within it is, it's like, it's so limiting because you can't stick it out into the wind because then, you know, it, you know, you know,

it falls over. So ultimately you've got this little window or the open door, you know, but you can only sort of look maybe like 30, 40 degrees, you know, before you see the door edges. But it is possible. And then, you know, as he sort of progressed to that, you know, Tyler obviously had mini gyros and all of that stuff and that's like, you know, mounted at the side of the door with the spinning gyro and you could put a camera on it and you had a resemblance of like almost shooting out of it, you know, from a tripod from that. And so that was a bit

you know, that was sort of the next thing if you're looking at that. And then once you go into a mounted system, you know, there's so many different mounted systems, you know, they're probably the most famous name is probably Cineflex. You know, they've been around for Youngs. They're doing all the broadcast up. You've got eclipses, shot over, new immortal. So there's so much, there's so much to choose from now. But like, you know, barrier of entry-wise, life cost-wise, it's insane.

Like, it's ridiculous. But what the systems can do is incredible. and how you can build custom solutions and all of that to really do what you what you need is pretty incredible. Yeah, I saw on Instagram maybe that you just casually know each other, but you know Ty Evans? I do, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I used to live in L.A., so Ty and I know each other from then. Yeah, it was, I've been a snowboarder my whole life, and the art of flight coming out was,

generate that. I think that movie specifically changed me from interested in becoming a filmmaker. Like my whole life, young life, I was interested in film. But I was always like a snowboarder. And that was kind of like my culture, so to speak. And then Art of Flight came out. And I went, there we go. I want to do that. Whatever that is. And that was my introduction to like the shot over and like all those amazing like helicopter aerials you could get. But it's, it's really fun that you say that because there's so many. people that credit that film with like their love for this industry and their love for like the adventure side of filmmaking as well. And I remember when that came out, I was in a similar situation. I was like, oh, this is amazing. And I ended up off the back of that being like,

oh my God, I bought a red and I traveled the world doing all these little bit bull things. And it was amazing because it was just like, look at the stuff you can shoot out of your backpack. You know, it's incredible. And yeah, the art of flight was a massive deal, I think, in terms of showing people like, hey, look what you can create. And it was like a rowdy bunch of guys that got together just made this amazing snowboarding film. Did you work for? Did they never be possible?

No, I did like, I did a bunch of, there was a production company in the Netherlands called IForce, and I used to sort of freelance with them, so we just did a couple projects for right, but we did a big kite surfing film with them called Chapter 1, which was amazing to travel all around, like Hawaii and British Virgin Islands and all of that. and then I do a couple of things with Media House with like Nick Shrunk and all of those guys for the Formula One side and all of that.

So, you know, in dipping my toes into bits here and there and I've always been like quite interested in not just like I love the niche that I'm doing now, but I'm also like always looking at other things. It's been quite cool to like dip my toes into that and that. And Ed, for example, he's one of those people that, you know, for his latest show, I Jack, like I built some like crazy night vision big for him because he was like, Do you know anything about night vision? I was like, do you know what? I just bought some live ingoals to walk my dog. So yes. Next to, you know, I'm building this mad night vision

to shoot like real military grade night vision on hijack, you know. And this is the sort of interesting thing. I just love like new things and I just love like exploring and building sort of novel solutions to stuff that other people aren't. Quite interesting. Sort of. Yeah. It's like when life just feels like a bit of,

a hobby and everything is like a little side quest from what you're doing. It's, it's, it's really fun. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's the great part about being a DP, right? It's like, it's always, and I think the grip department certainly comes into play there, but like it's just creative problem solving all the time. You know, it's comfortable when it's like a good paycheck and you can reuse whatever, you know, like I was saying, the corporate gigs and stuff, but it's not fun. The fun part is when you get a script or wherever. Yeah, no, for sure. And I, you know what?

And I always, it's an interesting because I was, like, I think many people, you enter this industry and you've got a certain amount of ambition to do specific things, right? Like, you enter this world and you're like, one day I want to do this. And this is, this is what you want. And I always wanted to be like a DP shooting films, narrative stuff, all of that. I love that shot, a bunch of short films with a good friend of mine in London, and I absolutely love doing it. But then you also look at it and you're like, okay, it's a really crowded world.

But everyone comes into this industry with that dream, right, of like, this is what I want to do. And I think I found out quite early that sort of finding a niche and finding something that is a relatively small percentage of the market that you then become really good at and you specialize in that. That's a really good way forward. And I think that's always been a good thing for me. Like they used to own a Phantom Flex 4K and I used to do a bunch of high speed stuff. And again, partly due to like the art of flight, you know, it was all slow motion.

I was like, I want one of them. So, you know, did this slow motion thing and then the aerial side. And I think having these like really focused niches really helps in terms of like making your mark on something and finding your way forward in this industry. I think it's a really, really good way forward. What was your cinematography life before aerial work? Because kind of like you're saying, when you specialize, your calendar, if you're good, your calendar becomes a lot more full. And it kind of, I imagine, helps you sort of, quote unquote, jump the line, you know, instead of having to wait, like, all right, my time will come as a regular ASDP. You're like, all right, well, now I provide this service.

And now you're like, actually a vendor and not just on paper. Yeah. So what was your cinematography life prior to being a specialist? Well, I think, like many people you need to start up in this industry was just like this dream of making. making films, it ultimately at the beginning you make films in whatever shape or form that may be, right? So you shoot corporate stuff, you shoot music videos, you shoot new short films, experimental stuff. So I think, you know, that was very similar. Like, I never went and got an education.

Like, I never went to school. I never went to uni or anything. I just sort of dropped out and said, like, this is what I want to do. I should have seen my dad's face who's like gone through school and then to university and basically stuck with one job for his whole life. He was like, are you serious? But, you know, so yeah, I just started shooting random things. And I think the power of networking was like such a major thing.

It's like finding people inside that world, you know, also like you're kind of jumping. It was just around that time of like where people shooting 5D mark twos and 70s and, you know, the tail end of like the sooner 35 mil adapters. You know. And the film world, I think, for like people getting into, changed a little bit because you were like, all of the G's creative possibilities with sort of at your hands. So it was doing a bunch of random stuff like that. And then ultimately, you know, I did a couple years in Dubai with a company out there that was so quite interesting because there was a lot of young kids.

They didn't know an awful lot about the industry, but they were given the keys to something to build something out there just as like a bit of a project. And it turns up like some fresh energy in the Middle East and Dubai, of starting up this film company out there. And that exposed you to a lot of different, like, equipment that you never really had the chance. So I always say, like, that was almost like my film school. You kind of get to work with all of this stuff. And then when I left that, you know, it was exactly that.

It was like this sort of, you know, you go around red camera in your backpack and you making these, like, extreme sports films or, you know, all these sort of interesting projects. It was always as though I used to love what I still do, you know, you love to travel and you kind of go to a far flank corner of the world and it's amazing what you consume with like three or four lenses and your camera in a backpack and a set sticks

you know that was sort of before gimbleds became like tomplains like they are now but like in the early days of drones you know when ultimately when you wanted to fly a proper camera it was like some mad scientists needed to build it for you to do anything and it still you know looked like

like honestly it looked crap you know because it was all shaking and wobbling all over the place like the early days. But I think, you know, I don't think the journey is too dissimilar with a lot of people that want to, you know, work and film. I think it's just finding the right opportunities and just sort of taking a crack at just about anything that also, you know, pays you a bit of money. Really else.

Yeah. Yeah, the, you know, I know you've spoken a lot about wing suiting and stuff, but I brought out the Red Bull thing because I used to work a Red Bull for a minute, not media house, just the regular. Yeah. But I was in Arizona and I was oftentimes paired up with Jeff Provenzano shooting him like base jumping and stuff. And I assume you must know him. Yeah, it's a, you know, we've all the sort of worked on projects together and also in the Middle East.

That was where a lot of that came together. It was sort of for a couple years, five or ten years. It was like the hub for everything, Extreme Sports. They loved it because one of the Royals out there, so I'm really into the extreme sports. it was all brought together there. And yeah, it's an insane world. And we used to do these projects, you know, these Skydorf projects and these jetpack projects like Jetman Dubai

where you're filming people literally flying like fighter jets with these carbon wings on their back. And, you know, it's one of those things. Like, you know, it was really done doing that. And you just look at it and you're like, and it's such an impressionable thing also. You're filming it. And you're like, oh, my God, I want to do that.

And it's not this thing you're flying a jet pack, right? But you're just like, oh, my. my god, I have such a great time, this guy diving, the flying wingsuits and all of that. So I got really sucked into that, and I did that for probably about 10 years or so where I was just like, you know, every spare moment that I had, I'd like go skydive and fly my wingsuits because it was just the best thing ever. And I think in terms of like the life experience and like the things that it does for you, this like this sort of living in the moment situation, and it sounds really cheesy and like a cliche, but there's all

thing, like you jump out of a plane and you're just like, oh my God, the only person that's going to save your life is you. Like, no one's coming to save you here. This is it, you know? I just love that. I just love that feeling of just like, okay, this is you now. And like, everything that your head is thinking about is just the very moment. And that was a really big fun. It was amazing to combine that with the film work. You know, it was like we were, we were filming those projects and then we do a couple of skydives and we do some more filming and we jump again. And you meet lots of, like, crazy people in that, in that world. And, you know, through that, a lot of cool projects come about.

Most projects have, like, absolutely no money, but quite full visually. But also through that world, it kind of leads full circle almost just, like, through that world of, like, how do you shoot this stuff, right? Because, like, people flying wind suits, people jumping off things, like jetpacks all about. And ultimately, it's like, well, you need an helicopter or you need a plane. You need a stabilised system. crazy gloomens. And that's sort of where that, that specialism came from.

It's like, okay, and I ended up really loving that because I loved the whole, you know, flying wingsuits thing and skydiving. And then ultimately I asked, I should also become a pilot. Yeah. I got my pilot's license, you know, because I was like, this is great. So now you can fly planes and all of that. And it's, you know, it's amazing. Like I look at it and I've sort of found all my hobbies and my passions and I've sort of

welding them together. Now I've got this company with a really good friend of one here in the UK and we've got a couple of helicopters, it's lived in about 50 minutes on the hangar and it's filled to the brim with equipment and we can just do really cool things in this industry. So, yes, it's really fun. Yeah, and I want to say it's not cheesy to talk about being in the moment because A, snowboarding is certainly like that, but B, I find that it's difficult to find that flow state, that meditative state in day to day life. You know, when people talk about like, oh, I can't meditate. It's too crazy up here. I'm like, well, first of all, you're the only one up there. So you got to probably go to therapy. But B, I get it. You know, there's a lot of, there's things

beeping at you. There's emails coming. It's hard to like give yourself even 20 minutes to just be present and be with yourself, you know. And it's so important for, especially for creative work. you know, to reason. I agree. You know what? And I think it's like in the last sort of three, four years. I think I've only realized that I think so many people that work in this industry, they, especially in the early stages of their careers and early stages like what you

define as an early stage could be like the first three or four years or could be 10, 50 years. Could be anything. But I think people are so consumed by this job, right? Because it's this thing. It becomes, for the majority of people that want to be DPs or they want to be. directors, whatever, it's not like a job, right? It's like an entire identity wrapped up in this piece of art that you're creating and then putting out there. And if someone doesn't like

your piece of art, then all of a sudden, like, that's almost like an attack on your personal being because you're like, I've taught like every single thing I have into that. And now you don't like it. And realistically, you should go, why do I care about the validation of a stranger? But ultimately, there's the people that you make the art for, right? It's like, I want people to like this. And if someone doesn't like it, then it's like, oh, okay, well, they really, I must have poor taste. Or like, I must really, like, not be very good at this. And I think, like, judgment is bad or whatever. And I think ultimately what really helps is to, to find things outside of work that give you joy, that give you peace, that give you, that also, like, wrap you

up in something completely different that has got absolutely nothing to do. And you mentioned snowboarding. For me, it was skydiving. Then for me, it became flying claim. wins. And it could be anything. It could be like riding my motorbites. It's like anything like where you just get away from it, you just completely clear your head. Even if you go away for five days or 10 days, you go on a snowboarding trip and you come back. And then often you find like the creative rut that you were stuck in the problems that you were facing, all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, I've got totally new viewpoint because I just didn't think about it. I think that's really important. So I think sometimes like taking pause and like stepping away from it and kind of just

ignoring it for a bit of men coming back to it. I think that's one of the most. important elements. Yeah. There's actually a book, I think he's named Stephen Pressfield, about flow states. And I was just talking with someone else about this. I think it was Terry Siegel. But that whole stepping away, part of it is achieving a flow state is like a four-step process.

And right before actual flow is that break. Yeah. Where you step away. Then the light bulb hits. And then your brain fires in such a way that it gives you the fuel to be in that flow state for X amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's an incredible thing.

And I think the whole flow state thing, I don't think people, how do you know you achieve flow state? Like, how do you know? I don't think you really do know. I think it probably takes you years to figure it out that you just like lose that time. It's usually when you lose time. Yeah. For me at least, when I'll be working on a. project and I look up in five hours it's gone by and I'm like, oh, all right.

Absolutely. Yeah, it's, um, it's one of those things, man. And like, there's so many, so many elements I can already tell, like, talking about slow state, like the last 12, 13 days, ever since our little boy arrived, it's just like, time has vanished. Like, absolutely vanished. And I think like, like, I've still got work to do and I still got projects to go after. and you're just like,

it's finding that balance, I think that's going to take a bit of time. That's the next challenge now. It's not like jumping out of planes and staying alive. It's like, how do you keep something else alive? That's going to be the next, that's going to be the next like,

however many years of my life, probably whenever still. You know, it's, yeah, it's interesting. Life and all of its little challenges that it poses you.

It's never not fun. Well, I am interested, obviously, in the cinematography, challenges that you face because in my head, you know, especially doing doc, but in any case, you're presented with a scene, how do I light it? You know, a lot of times if you're in a location, natural light, okay, how do we augment it, blah, blah, blah. But with aerial cinematography,

is it largely just like, all right, well, we got to wait till sundown. Like gold now. It was like, that's it. We can't even have like dappling of trees. We have to, you know. Yeah. So many times, you know, we, there's like the really interesting projects that are like weeks and weeks of months or even years of like working towards something, building sequences and then figuring out how to shoot them and then shooting them and reshooting them again and again. And then there is the stuff where it's like, okay, so yeah, we want, you know, a film will come to us or a series will come to us. And it's like, okay, we want some like really nice shots of London and we got some cars that are driving through and this and that. and you're like, we want to add sunrise and at sunset and at night. And you're like, okay, sweet. And you want to do it in summer.

So you start like 4 a.m. to shoot the sunrise and then you do nothing. And then you shoot sunset again. And it's one of those things, right? Like there is no extinction to like, you can't really go over, right? It's like there's no overtime in terms of the sun. Like once that thing is gone, it's gone. So it's a really interesting element of like, okay, the equipment needs to perform flawlessly. because if the equipment is not performed

then you can't do your best job and the equipment is like incredibly intricate and complicated that realistically there are so many different points of failure that you kind of need to be across that from the very beginning and then in terms of the challenges it's like yeah you know like camera selection

lens selections you know we I always see like we shot this project on this anamorphic and this lens and that man so for us in the area where it's like it takes a very brave DP to go up with a prime nips, put it that way. That's going to say, Fuji Zoom.

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's so true, right? Because it's like, you know, 25 to 250, the 12-time optimal Fuji Primisters, that's kind of 96% of the world covered for us. And Sony Venice, too. That's generally what you find is like, you know, dual-native ISO,

ND filters from like 0.3 to 2.7 or whatever. You go like 10 or 11 stocks have been, in one stop increments. It's perfect. So you look at it and you're like, okay, so where's the creative element? And we did like, you know, we did Supergirl last year,

I think it was in, it was Rob Hardy who was like, you know, I fly with this 35 male anamorphic. And he's just like, okay, things are like battered and it's massive. Like the front element is honestly like,

like a fish tank. And, you know, then it's like, okay, so then you've got to get that and you're going to like make some custom brackets and all of that. And then you fly with it and you're like, you know what?

is so limiting because it's so wide. But like, my God, it's different, right? Like, and I loved it. It was one of the funnest things because all of a sudden you're like, okay, so there's someone that took like the chance. Because the majority of times is like if you're doing a film or a TV series or whatever, you know, we're always stuck in between these two worlds, right? You get the DPs come to the world.

So the directors and they're like, okay, we want to do this and like this and that. And then you have the reality check with the producers and you're like, Yeah, they want to fly like seven hours today and they want to change lenses four times to do this and that. And they're like, yeah, you don't have the money. Best we lose that two hours. And then you're like, okay, so who wins now? Like, you know, you sit in the middle. I need to serve them and I need to also make sure that it checks out with the money department, you know, and you kind of sit in the middle.

And realistically, when you're doing a sword to you like that and you're flying, it's like, okay, I want to capture like a bit of everything, right? So you want a lens that will do you really beautiful wides and like a 25 mil or something. But then you know, you want to get some details of stuff. So you need that big range. And ultimately, it's a somewhat creatively limiting prospect of like, okay, so you've got these four lenses to choose from. So when a project comes along that is a bit more sort of braid with what they want to fly, whether it's flying 35 mil film or 16 mil or, you know, interesting vendors and all that. It's always quite a fun challenge because it starts with the whole element of.

like, okay, so now we need to integrate into a system. It's always a bit of a custom solution, which I quite enjoy. And then, you know, you sort of work it from there. But in terms of the challenges, you know, I think the aerial cinematography side is like, you know, it's like a make or break with the daylight. Like you could have the most amazing like choreographed shots, but if the lights like topy and flat in the middle of the day, it's just going to look really average.

Yeah. Whereas if you then fast forward and you just, like a goal now and you get the sun going through the horizon and all of that, you look at it and you're like, oh, it's the greatest thing ever. But, you know, there is also not that many people that will go, okay, yeah, we'll wait for those conditions, you know, and we will say, yeah, we want this beautiful stuff. Like, the perfect example is, I don't if you've ever seen Day of the Jackal, or shot by.

No, yeah, I interviewed Chris Ross. I was going to actually ask you about it. Oh, yeah. So you do with Chris, yeah. So we did various with Chris. And that was the perfect example. It was like, okay, so we want to get London at sunrise. like the city waking up and it's like this sort of moody thriller-esque thing of like people moving around town and all of that.

And we had a date in the diary with production. It was like, here's this day. And then the nice thing is our company. We're like the only ones in the UK that actually own our own helicopters. So we don't just have camera systems, but we've got like 10 heliories. So we could put a camera system onto an helicopter, but then we can push dates because we don't need to drive somewhere, derig it, change things. We can just leave it and not hang up.

right conditions come and we fire up and we go. And I think we pushed it like five or six times because we were like, it's a difficult word because production comes to us and they're like, what do you think about the weather? And you're like, well, this is my take on the weather, but like you have to make the decision because if I say the weather's going to be good and we turn up and sunrise is crap,

like you're going to be pointed the figure at me. So it's always like, this is the advice I'm giving you, but ultimately it's up to you. A day of a jackal was one of those. We were like, no, it's bad, it's bad, it's bad. And we ended up shooting it sometime in October. And we flew down to London the night before, and we positioned down to London at the airfield. And we walk out in the morning, we met Chris and Brian Kirk, the director at the airfield.

We get into the helicopter. And they're just like, are you, are you guys serious? Because it's just like blanket fog. Like you can't see anything. Like you're 10 meters from the helicopter. It's like, nope. And, you know, you walk into the helicopter. But you can look.

And the second you look up, you're just like, that fog layer is so thin. Like you go up maybe like 10 meters, you're out of it. I'm sure enough, like we're just like, okay, took off, popped out of the fog layer. And like you've never seen anything like it before. You're flying towards London and just see like these distinct parts city of London, Kimmeri, Walk, the Shard, like Crystal Palace antenna and all that stuff. And you just see them popping out of the fog. And then as the sun comes up, you get this like layer across the city.

And, you know, you shoot that and you just like, oh my God, this is insane. And it's all over the series. and it's such a distinct thing. And then you know, you fast forward and people are asking you on the next project. I'm like, okay, we want to do some nice sunrise stuff. And they're like, can you show us anything you've shot before? You're like, yeah, here's this stuff. But you probably won't get that ever again, you know?

So it's always this thing of like, okay, you've got these like one in a million conditions and then you try to replicate it, like, good luck. So it's, I think it's just a story of persistence, you know, I've always like just trying to read the weather and being really flexible to like pivoted last, last minute because I think that's that's what's key. It's like you want to have the flexibility to say tomorrow looks better. It's shoot it tomorrow.

And you know, some productions are better than others. But yeah, it's interesting. You basically become like a really shit part-time weatherman. Yeah. I mean, hey, I've got the weather app. I've got the sun tracker app. I'm basically doing the same thing. that actually does well hold on before we move on what's your favorite wet

uh windy windy windy yeah windy's good yeah mostly because it was everyone had a better snow pattern what i was using that double time you know yeah exactly yeah it went on the business books but you used it via personal reasons as well i get exactly yeah is there a better one i'd love i'd love to be put on game No, I think windy Windy is great

In the UK funnily enough There's an app called YR YR.NO And I don't know if it's any good in America

or whether you can get it there but it's basically a it's the Norwegian weather service and they have gone app and they give you like an hour by hour breakdown

and it's so funny because you look at the UK Met Office and you're just like that I'm not sure and then you look at like YR and you're just like

how do the Norwegians know more about the British weather than the Brits it's just mad but it's really good. Yeah, you guys have resigned yourself to just like, it's probably going to be shit.

Yeah. And that's the weather service, like, probably shit, you know? Yeah. Drizzle. Yep. Yeah. No, well, I mean, we're not pivoting too hard, but you did bring up a point that I wanted to ask,

which was like, you know, on the ground, so to speak, a lot of times DPs talk about, oh, you know, someone's favorite shot was a happy accident. And the Dale Jackal thing kind of sounds like one, but I imagine there's not like room necessarily. You know, everything is so structured, especially with aviation. You know, it has to be like, we're going to be flying here.

You know, we're not allowed to just go, you know, wherever. There's flight paths and all this. Is there a lot of room for happy accidents? And what do those look like? Well, ideally, not accidents because they usually. Yeah, that was pretty fatal. But, no, I put it this way, like, yes. and the reason is most of the time when we approach a shoot,

say they're the Jackal or whatever, they come with us and they say, we want to do X, Y, and Z. And they say, we want to do these shots. But we've also been doing it for long enough that once you get up there, they're like, can we go over there and just get a bit lower there? So what we'll do is we'll get the brief.

This is what we want to capture. And then we look at the breach and we sort of dissected. And then we increase the permission for it generally and just kind of go, okay, they might want X, Y, and Z. So that when they ask for it, we're like, yeah, of course. course you can do that. So it depends a little bit on what you're doing. If you do like action sequences and you're flying really close to people or really close to cars or whatever, then there are certain elements in play obviously where it's like these are like hard limits that you can't break.

The hard limit could be like when we did Formula One, the hard limit was like three meters from the car. So that's like you don't really need to go any close with it. Yeah, exactly. And but but then there are, you know, so yeah, there is a scope of things that you can do. there are always the things where, you know, there are certain things that comes to aircraft performance, for example, especially if you're flying in really inclement conditions, like really high winds and they want to fly really slow with a tailwind, then you're like, yeah, we can do this, but we'll probably die. And you're on board with us, so like, let's avoid it. You know, but generally, yeah, there is room for happy accidents, for sure. And, you know, accidents.

But it's happy. it was a better phrase happy happenings happy happenings a lot man no there are there there is space for that and generally speaking

when we do commissions and all of that there is a lot that you can do without permissions in terms of like just the rules of the air but once you get into that permission

where we try and write the application for permits much broader than what is actually brief just because we know that the film industry doesn't operate based on a set of rule books of like this is what you can do or not.

Because ultimately, it's a really difficult thing as well, right? Like, we're the barrier between like civil aviation authorities slash FAA. And then we sit in the middle as an aircraft operator slash area filming supplier. And then you've got the creative industry. And you're like, okay, so this is what you can have. And then the film guys say, yeah, but I want to do this. And then you say, well, yeah, you can probably do it. but we will face the repercussions and you have absolutely nothing to do with it

because we have got the permissions, we have got the licences, we have got the fire operational structure to take a beating from the, you know, federal aviation authority. So, you know, it's a really difficult one and we get it in London all the time. You fly 4.30, 5 a.m. in the morning. You've got permit to do it. But like you're flying, again, what film was this? This was on a thing called cleaner and we're flying in southwest London. It's five in the morning. It's gorgeous.

You're doing sunrise. We had a low-level permit, like 400 feet. Gee, what, we landed after that flight. We threw like two hours. We landed after the flight. And Abby, our operations manager, and the office called me. She was like, honestly, guys,

I've been called every name under the sun this morning. I was like, what you mean? She's like, as long as they are people on flight radar that wake up on a Saturday morning, they're like, you bastards. And they will find the helicopter. They will find the website. And trust me, they will call you.

and they will insult you with everything that they have. They go, well, I will sue you and I will call the police. And you're just like, honestly, like we've got a permit, but feel free to speak to the civil aviation authority. But then they have a duty to investigate, right? If they get a complaint, they come to us. And then the next time, the next time they go, we're probably not going to give you the 4 a.m. permit anywhere

because it causes a load of grief. So as an operator of this helicopter, you're just like, okay, to the creatives who want to fill their boots with everything. but we also want to make sure that we can do this for the next 10 years to come and we don't just want to like do it once and that's it because it'll be really bad for business so you're like okay we're going to shoot this and then you do five minutes and you're like how about we just shoot that for five minutes and then you go somewhere else so you kind of spread the noise signature a little bit and those are like your shoots around London and congested

areas when you're out in the countryside and doing low level flying around some hills and trees and cars and all of that no one really cares so yeah yeah depends on what you're shooting, but it's a sort of fine line between creative ambition and like, you know, civil oversight. Sure. I actually do have that flight radar app because when we had the fires here, it was really interesting to see like who was coming through. You know, like Canada, Mexico, all these other, you know, crazy, crazy planes I've never seen. But I do live near like, I don't know what it is. But yeah, sometimes early in the morning, you'll just hear a helicopter super low, staying still.

and I'll bring up the flight radar and it's just a dash under take off, a dash under landing, a dash under tail number. And you're like, that's LAPD, isn't it? And you'll look and you're like, yeah, bastards. How do you go up unregistered? Fuck you. Why do you have the spotlight in my window? What are you doing? It's a cat.

It's always a cat. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's always the plane chasers that probably have an exact photo of your helicopter. You know, they're like, that's that. Yeah, yeah, is those bastards again, I tell you. Yeah. Yeah, well, it's, is, is quite funny.

It's a really interesting industry to be in, and it's like, we, you know, the thing with the regulator is always like, they know us really well. We've been doing it for so long now. They always go like, yeah, you know, you can always put in for the permission. Worse that we can say is no. And they're usually quite, like, they actually, I have to say, they're really helpful. and you know you put in a really detailed risk assessment and generally speaking they work with you but yeah but then no of you've got the thing of the film side where it's like five days before the

shoot they finally furnish you with the information that you've been asking for for about two and a half weeks or four weeks or three months and then you're like okay so you've given me five days now to turn a permit around for like a car chase in a congested area where you want to fly five foot from that car and you're just like, it's not really helpful. But again, it's that, it's a complete mismatch of aviation mythology and filmmaking and creativity of just like, yeah, like, let's do this.

Yeah. When I imagine a film like, yeah, I was going to say, I imagine a film like, you know, Supergirl or something where the, they're probably pretty tight-lipped about most things. You know, any of those superhero films, I know it's not Marvel,

but, yeah, I imagine you need a little bit more heads up than the average person. Yeah, probably, probably. And it's, you know, it's, it's one of those things that you can do is you can educate them, right? But like, and you can say, look, we actually need three weeks for this permit. But then when they come into you with five days to spare, and then ultimately you turn the permit around five days instead of being like, guys, thank you so much. You really helped us out on that. That is now the new norm. So the next time you get three days. And at some point, you get to this lineup, like, we just can't do it. And then you don't get in the internet, and then you're the villain.

And this is the really interesting thing between this, like, production and supplier relationship, because we're not just creatives that get hired to do our jobs, right? We're not just camera operators that turn up with DPs that get hired, but it's like providing you with assets that are quite expensive as a line item. And, you know, they always question us. They're like, oh, why does that cost that much? And it's like, because the straight of Hormuzzi has been closed for a month. Thanks, Donald.

That's why fuel is now three times as a lot. expensive as it was. You know, it's just, and then it goes, oh, yeah, but can you do me like a discount on the hourly rate on the heli? And you're like, no. It's just, it's a helicopter. It's a, yeah. They always say it's like, how did you make a million dollars in the helicopter

business, right? You start with two million dollars. Like, it's just notoriously horrible. Like, you know, you might have like a good 12 months or 18 months and you're like, oh, yeah, we're making loads of money. And then the maintenance comes. And then it's like heavy. It's like, oh, yeah, you need a new turbine.

That's 400 grand. You need a new, like, Starflecks. You know, you need a new this or a new compressor. Like, it is ridiculous. So all of a sudden, you look at it and you're like, oh, that chunky, like, retirement fund you've built up. It's like, it's gone evaporated, you know. It's like, so it's a difficult thing to be in. Because, you know, we're always looking to help people out and make things happen.

But sometimes you just go, like, there is a line and like, this is the line. And there's just nothing past that, really. because otherwise it's going to cost us a ridiculous amount of money. Yeah. Well, I imagine too, someone drops like a red monster and you're like, yeah, whatever. That's a rounding error.

Yeah, exactly. You know, it does occur to me. You've worked with, you know, we mentioned Chris Ross, Ed, Claudia Miranda, obviously. Christine, who I spoke to as well for Acolyte. Yeah. Yeah. what are some things that those DPs have taught you about being a D.P.

It's a, do you know what? The first thing is like, I think the first thing to realize is that there isn't like a one size fits all solution. Everyone shoots so differently. And I think what you, what the most amazing thing is I think about my job and is a creator first of foremost is like the exposure to how people work, right? And it's so interesting because there are the people that I've got such like, laser focus on their vision. They're like, this is the shot on what they turn up. And they're like, this, this is it.

And you will go and you will shoot that shot. And you will try and shoot two or three hours. And you're like, that's the only thing we need. Bang. And then there are the DPs that a bit more fluid in their approach. And they go, okay, we're trying to show, you know, X, Y and Z in this scene. But we will go up and we will try and find it. So there are some that have a previs.

There are some that turn up with like a Google Earth, previous thing or that they've also done through Unreal or whatever. And then there are those that are like a lot more sort of into the exploration element of like actually let's go up and let's have a look at it because we're kind of, you know, we've got certain ideas of what we want to achieve, but like, you know, we're open to the possibilities of just about anything because you're kind of finding it. And, you know, we did Mission Impossible with, you know, Fraser Taggart and with McHugh and with Tom. And that was an journey of like exploration. We literally arrived there. We're like, okay, so we've tested it, like, how we're filming these planes, and we've tested

these stunt sequences, but then now we're introducing it into an environment that we couldn't replicate before we're these big canyons and all of that. So now all of a sudden, you're like, how are we actually capturing this sequence for like maximum impact? How do we put viewers into this environment? And the reality is, it's like you can have some really good ideas about how you think it's going to happen, and then and there, and you might find certain things work and certain things don't. And there are so many things. I think there is also like the philosophy on like in

terms of like lens sizes. Some people like should really wide. Some people prefer like tight focal legs. Some people like these big mo like big movements and circular patterns. Some people are like, I just want to fly straight lines and straight pushes. So I just want to do dollies or slides or cranes. And I think there is, you know, I think that's a really interesting thing. And I think in terms of the visual language. I think that's one of the appalled things when you start a project is like not always does the main unit

DP or second unit DP come and fly with you, right? Sometimes it's like, okay, well, so a director will come fly with you. They will have an idea, but you try and get that home call with the DP so that you, because ultimately what I have to be, is to be like a chameleon, right? It's like no one really

gives a shit about what I want to do. It's just about how do I basically emulate everyone's style to fit right shooting because you don't want to like shoot like some areas where you're like oh yeah this is great and then you watch the show and be area and you're like Jesus Christ looks like stock footage you wanted to be like a considered element

of the show right it's like that's a great point and I think I think that's that's a really interesting thing and I think you know when we did mission Fraser Taggart was like he used to be an aerial cinematographer himself so he kind of handed me the reins he was like this is divine and then he just let me run with it. So for like months, I just ran like my own aerial unit straight with the director of like, this is the air to air stuff. This is how we're going to do it. And then some stuff,

you know, Formula One, like F1 with cardio, like incredible. We came straight of mission where it was like this insane experience where you just like, let's fly and let's capture these. And I think that's mission, right? You're like capturing these things and like the carnage like unfolds. So it's on the edge of fall apart. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like holding onto it. And that's when like the truly insane stuff happens. And then you go to F1 and it's like, okay, so we want this shot. It's an opening show of the film for the credits.

And it like starts over Silvest and you see the whole thing. And then we want to be in like a portrait shot like this next to the car. And you're like, okay. And I want to do it on a 28 to 100 on a Sony Venice 2. And you're like, okay, so you clearly hear about this. And they're like, and here's the previous. You're like, okay, sweet. So then you turn up the day before.

And you just like, okay, well, let's rehearse it. And it's like there is nowhere to hide, right? Because in the pit garage is this Joe directing it and there's cloudy. And they're seeing this, like an 85 inch television with your downlink on it. And next to it is another 85 inch television. And it's got the previous playing. And they're pressing play on the previous the second you start your run and you just like, you bastards.

Like, you're literally comparing it like that. Because they had such a strong vision for like, this is what we want to achieve. and there is no other way of doing it. So then all of a sudden, you're into this super technical level of like, okay, the aircraft has to be this like. And then the hardest thing is like, you have to take your cue on when you start full speed, max descent dive to the track at a point where the car is like a mile and a half away.

And if you then miss the point where like you're not coming fully alongside, you're a bit early or a bit late, then all of a sudden you're like, okay, so then I have to adjust the position in my eyesight of the car all the way at the back of the, the track, do you know, like, I need to start a bit earlier. But then that only works if your position and your altitude where you're starting is basically bang on the same. So then you're using the aid of like GPS positioning to be like, okay, we're in the same position. We're like exactly

where we need to be. And then you're just doing it. You know, we rehearsed it for, I think, an hour and a half. And then, you know, I remember Will, the pilot. And Will's amazing. He's like an ex-Navy helicopter pilot. And we walked back to the hotel. And Will's like, honestly this is going to suck tomorrow it's so hard like it's so it's so difficult he's like it's so difficult to get the timing so it's like bang on because the car so far in the distance i have to adjust my speed there's not that much speed adjusting that you can do because you're like in this committed dive straight down the straight and then you're also not accounting for the fact that the car driver might be adjusting his speed although his lap time is a second slower or two seconds

slower so there's all these moving elements and uh i'm the optimist, I was like, don't worry, will, it'll be fine, 20 minutes, we'll smash it. Next morning, first shot up, 12 minutes we flew, three takes, done. Nice. It was insane. So it was, you know, but it was interesting that juxtaposition of approaches, right? It's like super previous thing, that's what we need versus exploration. And it's also, you know, like how certain DPs shoot, like in terms of the technical side of it is completely different.

Some people want to fly in like mad filters, and people want to under-exposed stuff, over-exposed stuff, whatever it is. Some people shoot for like a really thick negative. So many different approaches. You start really seeing, I don't know I should say split as the right word, but you start really seeing like a difference

between like super technical DPs and super creative DPs. But like the creatives are like, yeah, the technicality kind of, I wouldn't say it falls. by the wayside, but it's not a focus at all, whereas some VPs are like, sitting in the candidacies so far in the foreground because they're protecting themselves for the post environment so much. And I think the type of job that it is when you're doing

big studio films, like superhero films, for example, a lot of the times, the people that you're dealing with on the area you do that aren't even the DPs, right? They're the VFX supervisors. Because you're like, it's such a VFX heavy thing. So all of a sudden, you're dealing with someone who looks at your creative art form as an element for their post-stitch, you know, and you're just like, God, straight to the heart, you know, it's just like, you're feeling a really involved plate. Yeah, yeah, all I am is just a bit of a background plate for like your starship, you know, it's like, but you know, that's what makes it interesting, so many different things, you know.

Yeah, well, and I'd imagine too, like with the sitting there with the previs next to the real thing. I was going to say that's probably a VFX consideration as well, you know, and especially like Top Gun and stuff, you know, like that's a fact of the matter. You know it's going to get replaced. So you need, there's a certain consideration. A bunch of DPs I've spoken to who are like when the VFX supervisor on these bigger shows, when the VFX supervisor isn't present, it's always like, I'm getting a call in post, in four months, I'm getting a phone call.

I know it. And it's interesting. world is of VFX supervisors. Like when we were on mission final reckoning, Alex Vutka was the VFX soup on that and he was just like you would shoot stuff. He was like, yeah, don't worry about it.

We'll sort it out. Don't worry about it. We'll sort it out. It's fine. Just crack on to your job. Fine. Nothing was a problem because it was such a big VFX heavy sequence where you're like and it wasn't like builds or anything but it was like removal of camera rigs on planes and you're like, yeah, but

what if we're like crossing him with a camera? like, don't stress it. We'll sort it. And you're right, all right, fine. But then some shows you come onto it and you're like, you see a little sliver of the unit base at the beginning of the shot and they're like, no, get rid of that. We can't do it. You're like, you could cut into it a second later or you could just scrub it.

It's just a bit of like white easy ups on a bit of grass. And it's like, absolutely not. And I think so much of it is also budget dependent, right? And it's like so many times we turn up with the area in unit towards the end of shoot where the VFX guy's already like, pardon me, we're like $15 million over budget on this VFX budget. And now the aerial unit wants me to paint

out like an entire town. It's like, I don't think so. You know, I think there are so many different inter-departmental things at play that, yeah, it makes it quite interesting. You know, it's, this is semi-related. But my buddy Larry just made this movie, Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice.

It's on Hulu. and I got to see it in the theater with him and there's this one scene where Keith David is talking in a club and right above him you can see the clamp from an astera tube and I just nudged Larry and I was like this was not a joke

he like within a millisecond goes I asked VFX to paint that out they wouldn't do it fucking tetalong shoulder us, baby. Yeah. I was like, damn.

So we both saw it. All right. Because like no, I've, no one would notice that. Absolutely no one would notice it. But I have trained my girlfriend now. She's now she sees them everywhere.

Like, well, just any movie she's like, tubes, tubes. Yeah. You know, they're always.

Yeah. It's, it's obviously, I think working in the film industry is one of the worst things to just like pure enjoyment or film is an art form. You're just like, God, you just see it all.

Like everything. all the time. It's like there's a scene in peeky blinders where they're like going down the street Birmingham and there's clearly like someone holding an iPhone out of a top floor window. Oh God. Yeah, that too would be out of it. But you know, it's just stuff that happens. Makes it authentic.

Yeah. I was going to add kind of in line of the BFX stuff. You know, when I hand off footage, all they really want is time code. Right? In terms of post, like that's all they need for me. Yeah. I imagine there's a lot more telemetry needed that's like packaged on its way to post for you guys. Yeah, there is, yeah, there's a lot of data.

Obviously, they're really interested in camera data, you know, stops, focal links, focus, all that sort of stuff. But in there is to sort of the second said telemetry, you know, which gives you exact GPS positions, you know, lat longs, it gives you altitudes, it gives you air speed. And it gives you, sorry, it gives you ground speed, not air speed. and it gives you tilt angles, roll angles, all of that sort of cell. So that is quite interesting. So there's two ways of handing that data off. There is the way of having a time-coded data logger where basically, you know, you have a time-code signal for your camera system, that's seen to the camera,

and then it basically generates a text file. And the text file basically just writes it. For every frame, it writes exactly what the metadata is. It just logs all of that. just goes, and then you hand them the SD card with the text pile on it, and then it's up to them how they interpret it, right? Like now with Claude and all that stuff, you can just go, give me this thing, and I'll vibe code it, you know?

But I'm sure they've got other ways of doing it, but it's just a TXT file. And then the other way is that people often quite like, is like you basically have a timecode a proxy file, and it's the overlay from your screen with all the camera data on it, and then there is a burn and overlay from the shot. over that has all of that information that the text file would capture as well. So what the nice thing with that is, that if you're basically looking at shots and you're like, okay, what, I need this exact frame, instead of then going through that text file and

finding that, you know, you can basically just link the proxy and you could toggle between it and it's like, oh, this is exactly what we're seeing. And not just do you have that, you know, you have that visual reference. So if, for example, your time code was out by 10 minutes, you would never know. know if all you had was a text file. But now you have got the visual representation of like, this is what we shot. And here is your overlay. You know that that's 100% accurate because of the picture matches.

You know that everything is longed perfectly. And most of the time, we just supply both. You know, I think people quite like having that visual representation of it. But yeah, he's a big thing. It's quite funny because I once talked to a VFX data wrangler on set and they come to us after every day. oh yeah what sock was that on it? What's your rough altitude and what's your tilt angle and what's this and what's that? Focus distance and you're like giving them all this stuff. You're like, what do with this stuff? And they're like, well, 95% of the time, nothing. And you're just like, what do you mean?

It's like, well, the computer's smart enough to work it out. It's just when it can't do it, then we plug in some data and then it like sorts itself out. And you're like, great. So this is the justice scenario is basically all of this VFX data collection. that's just in case the computer can't swap itself. Oh, that's quite interesting. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like, oh, so my like hopeful backup is your actual last ditch backup suite. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, my bullpark altitude.

That'll save everything. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that brings up another thought I had, which was like, you know, a lot of times, I've been shooting a lot of stuff with a couple of friends. of mine over the past two years. And one of those friends likes to kind of just be over my shoulder

and be like, in my ear just like, go closer, you know, like, come over here, you know, whatever. I imagine that's not as easy for, like, is, and especially with like cons latency, you know, like you're, you're following a aircraft or something and then over the radio, it's like,

get closer or like, what is that communication with, or is there any communication with the director? Do you just go up and send it? Hey, it's Sometimes it depends, right? So like sometimes it is, yeah, you go up and you send it based on the brief for what you had on the ground, you go shoot that. Then there are the directors that fly with you, which I actually really like that

when someone gets into the aircraft with you because then they're in that position. They're feeling the camera, they're feeling the aircraft, they're seeing outside the window. And they can obviously then, you know, they're on headset. So they speak to the pilot and I. And then there is also the levels of like, okay, so director isn't flying with. that it's just Will and I on the aircraft, pilot and operator, sometimes a focus puller, and then, you know, you've got it via the ground.

Now, the thing is you need a coordinator on the ground because also, you know, airband radio is a license, so you need a license to operate, so you can't just hand them to an AD who shouts are you. Because that's also not very helpful, because sometimes you need certain aviation sides to go on, especially if you're filming in areas where you've got coordination with other aircraft,

coordination with air traffic units, coordination with military units. You know, you also need someone that also knows when to just shut up and let you crack on with the aviation side of things. Right. Because in the aviation, there's this thing. It's like, aviate, navigate, navigate, communicate. I think that's the way it is.

You know, it's like, fly the aircraft, figure out where you are, then tell people what's happening, right? Because if you got that the wrong way around and you start communicating before you're radiating, next thing you're on the side of the hill. So sometimes it's really important to keep. their channel clear. So we tend to put brand coordinator on the ground next to to the AD or next to the director

and they can basically just say, oh, I'd like to be the closer and then that gets relayed up through one of our team just to keep the Combs channel and sort of clear and focus. Yeah. Does all this kind of lead to, like I was talking to, again,

bringing up Larry, I was talking to him about shooting 300 and Watchman. And 300 was his first feature. And one thing that he was really concerned about, which I was like, that, I don't know, I have never asked anyone this, was the fatigue level because he'd only shot music videos and commercials and shorts up to that point. And you think, like, I'm going to work for a weekend or a week or whatever.

It's like, yeah, whatever. But when you're out there for six months, you know, that's, that's every day. That's a lot of, you know, getting up like, you're shooting for a week. You know, by the end of the week, you are kind of like, all right, this is, this is kind of a lot. That's brutal. do you find the being in the aerial unit is more fatiguing or is it or is the joy of doing what you love enough to keep you going? I think there's a bit of both.

I think A, it depends sort of on what you're doing. And I think B, it depends on how long you're doing it for. The majority of times you do an airing you need to five days, seven days, ten days, that sort of thing. Again, where we did Mission Impossible, we did two and a half months twice. so we get two stint. And we were flying anywhere between 7 to 10 hours a day. And we were doing consecutive base. So we weren't breaking for weekends.

It was like the weather is good. We're flying. So you're flying and we came back from Africa. And we were like first trip. We were like 300 hours. And you're just like, it's 300 hours flying. It's crazy. And the fatigue level, like, yeah, you kind of go, you know, you shoot all day.

You're seeing in that aircraft all day. Will is flying, concentrate. in that I'm shooting, you know, watching the world go by in a completely different direction. The helicopter's moving. You come out of an helicopter at the end. Brewers like, oh, yeah, guys, we all meet in for drinks and dinner here and there. You know, it's a bit of a piss up. And you're just like, all I can think about right now is my bed.

Yeah. And it was so funny because we went through that whole shoot. And it was like, there were so many stories that came from that film of like, you know, a rowdy, like British film crew on location and. Africa. And we were just like, we experienced like 2% of it. And I was like, I don't know what film you guys were making, but all I could remember is like, you get up, you drive to work really, you strap into your aircraft, you fly all day, you come back, you drive your car home and you repeat and you rinse and repeat again and again and again. And then there are so many people

that also weren't part of the flying crew, but they were on the ground. So they would say, okay, bye-bye, aircraft take off and they fly for 50 minutes or an hour, do a long-sorty, They sit on the ground, they chill, the aircraft comes back, we turn it around, 20 minutes, same thing. So it's also this realization that the rhythm is so different depending on the department you're on. When you're flying like that, you're flying so much, I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. It was amazing. But you're talking 30, 35 degrees Celsius, like hot, really hot, sweaty. Aircraft does not have air conditioning because air conditioning weighs about under 20 kilos.

You want to have the lightest aircraft possible, so you're stripping it of all the niceties. It's like it's hot in there You're wearing a helmet Like you know You take your helmet off You put it back on it's like a sweat bucket And then you're doing it again and again And then you're flying at 10,000 foot altitude

Oxygen kind of gets a bit You know, less up there So all of a sudden you start feeling really lethargic and tired about the whole thing And then Will and I both caught COVID Good And you know what Everyone that caught COVID got

I'm not sure maybe Paramount will sue me. But everyone that called COVID was like, yeah, you get two weeks off fully pay. Like, that's your isolation thing. For us, they were like, listen, guys, we can just bubble you in the helicopter. You can keep working.

It's a bubbled helicopter unit. I was just like, you what? Like, yeah, yeah, we'll bubble you. And it only works if you're asymptomatic. And then they're like, you're asymptomatic, right? And you're just like, yeah, I guess. Yeah. And it was like, I mean, you were like, you don't have it if we don't test.

We learn that. Exactly. Well, but it was one of those things, you know, you sort of fly and then you land. No one approaches the helicopter. We refuel ourselves. And then they drop like your lunch like 25 meters away from the heli. And you meet them like a pet dog. Yeah.

And then there's like, and you see like the people on the apron standing and like pointing and just sort of sneering. talking about you as like the ones in COVID jail. You know, and then they start taping certain things in color code on the helicopter to be like, this is the stuff a camera assistant can touch. This is what you can touch. And then at the end of the day, honestly, like you fly back to base, you get out, you roll straight into your car, you drive home back to COVID jail. And as you're driving away, you can just see like these two guys are like hazmat suits

are riding, fogging the helicopter. That's just like You're just like What is going on? What is my life? So it was It was tiring Honestly,

It was just like Go on make it stop Yeah, probably Glad you want Hopefully don't have to do All that shit again Yeah

Was there a What was the film That went from like This is my day to day job To like Oh shit I'm making movies Probably Do you know what

Like I think the first time where it really sank in was like when we did Mission Impossible 7, and it was the same way he jumps his, and he jumps his motorbike off the cliff. And it was so funny because, like, they prepped it. They were like, are we on this helicopter shot? And then they were like, no, actually, we're going to scrap the helicopter up in the sequence.

We're going to do it all on drones. And then they built this ramp in like Oxfordshire in the UK. And he was on a harness and there was much cardboard doxes. And he would basically rehearse this job. And they rehearsed it for three or four weeks. And the drones shot it again and again and again. and then they were like okay sweet now let's go to norway we all went to norway like first day you know we'll all get there like acclimatize a little

bit and then first shooting day and they're like the conditions are perfect for the jump and then first time working with bruce omecori first time working with tom and it's like oh yeah tom wants to do this as a one-o on the helicopter and you're like really i haven't seen this jump in person once. And now you're saying you want to do it as a one-a-and-the-shot is like side profile, 350-mill

on the lens, like tracking, tracking, tracking, heli slides behind him and you're trying to hide a zoom into it. You're coming all the way out to like a 36-mill. You want to be right behind him, he jumps off the sea, it goes up and frame, and then he comes down and you obviously like, you don't want to clip him, you don't

want to overtilt, you don't want to get, you want to just nail it, right? And you're looking at it and you're just like, oh my gosh, so this is like day one on his job. And it could also be like the last day. Right. Like you, like you fuck up watching Tom Cruise

go off with Cliff on a motorbike. I'm pretty sure you're going home after that and they're looking for someone else. And we shot in. Thank God it worked out. But it was just like, I do that adrenaline dump of like after that flight.

I was just like buzzing. I was like, oh my God, that just happened. And I got it all in and you're looking at you just like, okay, so it's all in frame, like, it's very nice, these and the frame guides, and you're just like, Jesus Christ, it was like, that, and they always just like, okay, so this is like, this is the thing,

this is this is the standard now. This is what it's going to have to be. This is like, and then they did Mission 8 after that, and you just like, you know, raised the bar like 10 times. And it was amazing what we got to do on Mission 8, but the feeling wasn't the same because of, right, because that, that adrenaline, that released of just like, you're sitting, you're sitting in that aircraft, you're watching him on your monitor there. You're in the helicopter, and he's on the cliff, and you're like, God, it's Tom Cruise,

and he's about to jump his motorbike off a click with a parachute. You're just like, okay, this is happening. And then you hear the countdown, and the counter is like half the second delayed. Oh, good. You hear Tommy, the AD, and it's like, I, boy. And you see him accelerating, you're like,

just like, keep your hands steady, don't shake. What? You do it? You know, it was amazing. And it was one of those moments where, like, you know, reliving it and your head, you just like, what an incredible thing. And that was like, yeah, this is, this is making movies.

This is here. This is Hollywood, baby. You turn around the ACs on the ground. You're like, ah, shit. He's down there like, guys, I... But it was just this perfect storm of like, the conditions were so good. He's doing this jump the first time for real.

We never rehearsed it on the helies. drones didn't play on the first one drone. I think they had one drone pulling in. It was just like, if you would have given me three weeks to rehearses, it would have felt different. And I think we did it 15, 16 times that jump. I think take one is the one that they used in the film.

Like, take one is in there because you had these clouds coming up, the cliff, it was gorgeous. So it's just like, you know, that sort of loops on in my head of like, okay, that was, I can, I'm watched a film and I can feel that. I'm like, boy, that was kind of scary. That's rad. Yeah, it reminds me of that story that Matt Damon told. It must have been about a mission impossible where I guess Tom was like telling him a story.

Like I wanted to do this thing. I think it was the Dubai, the building. Yeah, the tower. Yeah. I think it was that. But basically he was like, I wanted to do the safety guy said no. So I got another safety guy. Yeah.

Yeah. That's so true. Oh, shit. Tom doesn't say no. It's, I mean, it's. true and honestly and there are so many things that people say about working with Tom or or even the people that have never worked with him or have nothing to do with the film industry so many opinions on celebrities in general right and I look at working with him and especially on the last

film where he flew the plane and he did the stunts where it was like we're dealing with him not as an actor like we're dealing with him as an aviator and someone that basically is doing the same job as us just harder because he's like doing stunts on a play and the level of respect. Yeah, this is the thing. It's like you're getting flung around and then you have to make it look and fit the story. And like the level of respect I've got for someone that gets up

and then snaps themselves to like a plane, like literally inches from a propeller and then plays to the camera and like cart. It is unbelievable. I don't think I've ever worked with someone with such a, like a, with such a drive for perfection. And such a relentless, like, work attitude of just like, I'm going to be there and we're going to do this.

It's just unreal. Yeah. Well, that's a guy who's in flow state all the time. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Flow state itself tries to reach Tom Cruise level. That's what's happening.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's mad. Well, the, uh, that, the hour flew by. I can, I feel like I could talk to you for. more, but I've been told to stop doing that. People like, I like the show. Three hours is a bit. Me and me and Ed will do two and a half hours.

And he's always like, please cut it down. Yeah. Are you going to cut this down? Nope. Yeah, now you're just like, listen, Ed. We're going to break all the rules here. Instead of two three hours, we're just going to do three shows one hour each.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People are like, God, is Ed again? Really? Yep. Yep. And I'm like, yes, it is. He's my friend. Yes.

And got me on the Ronin 4D, and I started using that on shoots, and it's good. Oh, it's insane. I love that thing. It's crazy. It's really, but it. Well, and I hate Gimbles. I don't like balancing them. I don't like all the fault or all.

4D, just turn it on. You're like, all right, we're good. The focus can be a little iffy sometimes. But, yeah. Oh, love that thing. But I wouldn't start using it if you didn't tell. My life is Gimbals, honestly. That's all I do.

You think balancing a movi or Ronan. and it's hard wait until you get too short, but it's like, okay, so you've got to balance this gimbal, but you can't move anything. You're placing like little brass weights on it, but you're balancing it in a three-dimensional space because you're not just going forwards, backwards, up, or down, you're always going left, right, roll,

and you're just like, when you first start doing this, and just like, Jesus Christ, like, will I ever get it? And now it's just like, okay, you understand our words, but you got it, it's just like you open one of those systems up, and you're like, okay, there's a lot of chutney in here. Yeah. They're like, we want to shoot C-series on this one. you're like, oh, good.

Never use those. Oh, fuck. What about one of the zoos I have? No, no, no. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. No, but that's what makes it fun, right?

Like, I'm doing it now in my garage. I'm building like a mad custom integration for the camera and like never been done before. And it's just fun. I love it. So I'm not working. I quite like a little tinker. Well, yeah, until the next time, I'm sure when Supergirl comes out, we can have you back on and talk about that. Yeah, mate.

Put it this way. I will only come back once I've got good cameras out. That's going to be the goal. All right. I will come back. I will call you once I've got something proper hooked up. Sounds good, bro. But for tech support. Yeah, he'll do it. Yeah, probably. But really nice to chat to you. And then we'll catch you on the next one. Sounds good, man. Take care. Cheers, mate. Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny Macbillan. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button.

It's always appreciated. And as always, thanks for listening.