Did you ever get volunteered to do a Video?

[ThunderChicken]

I just have. I'm not real sure I want to do it either. It would involve flying the center of a small city parade route and there will be people all over the place. The ending of the parade will be a one acre lot which will have a art fair in progress. I am concerned about the people on the ground. If the "H" falls out of the sky from 400' AGL someone might get hurt. My bird has never stuttered in the air or shown any problems for a long time.
It would be for free. Just the gratitude of the art fair organizers. I'm fine with the lack of funding since I do know these people.
What would you do?

 

[Eagle's Eye Video]

Is the organization putting on the art fair willing to get a notarized written waiver from every individual attending the parade and art fair waiving any right to litigation and holding you harmless in the case of any injury resulting from your coverage of the event?

Let's say some child of one of the attendees, thinks it would be cool to take a rock and try and take out the "spy drone"... causing a crash with injuries. Will your art fair organization agree that you had nothing to do with it?

Would not consider it for a nanosecond...

 

[samsflite]

Would not consider it for a nanosecond...

Agreed, this is not even something I'd consider as very well paid work, let alone for free. The only way that could make it feasible was if there was a green space or shut off area nearby that you could fly over and still get some 'general aerial shots'. But flying over or near to crowds, no thank you.

 

[Tuna]

I'd look to alternatives - run a wire across the street and hang a camera over the crowd; use a long pole for 'crane' shots, get in there amongst people with a steadicam and - if it's safe to do so - use the Typhoon at a very safe distance (500ft horizontal separation) for an establishing shot.

 

[CraigCam]

I just have. I'm not real sure I want to do it either. It would involve flying the center of a small city parade route and there will be people all over the place. The ending of the parade will be a one acre lot which will have a art fair in progress. I am concerned about the people on the ground. If the "H" falls out of the sky from 400' AGL someone might get hurt. My bird has never stuttered in the air or shown any problems for a long time.
It would be for free. Just the gratitude of the art fair organizers. I'm fine with the lack of funding since I do know these people.
What would you do?

I covered a parade here but made sure I was over buildings the whole time off to the side of the crowd. I held for awhile over an empty lot where the parade turned a corner. So maybe a hybrid approach where you film parade route pre parade, plan some safe overhead shots where there is absolutely no one below you and put a spotter on the ground grabbing audio and hand held shots. Your other option is to get a clear area at the end location where you can cover the end.
I agree that you need full cooperation from the organizers. If they insist on any shots that break our rules then it's a no go.

 

[ThunderChicken]

I was going to ask for a waiver of liability for the shoot from the city and the art fair organizers. I was there this Saturday at the Art Fair(Wife had a Booth) and then I was alerted to their request. I'm going to get some aerial maps for the town and fill in the blanks and post the maps.
I do value your opinions and appreciate the time you take to answer my questions.

 

[FlushVision]

I just have. I'm not real sure I want to do it either. It would involve flying the center of a small city parade route and there will be people all over the place. The ending of the parade will be a one acre lot which will have a art fair in progress. I am concerned about the people on the ground. If the "H" falls out of the sky from 400' AGL someone might get hurt. My bird has never stuttered in the air or shown any problems for a long time.
It would be for free. Just the gratitude of the art fair organizers. I'm fine with the lack of funding since I do know these people.
What would you do?

I wouldn't do it. Not for free anyhow.

I did do a freeby for the organizers of a protest rally against the building of properties on Green Belt land. That was back in January. But in that instance I was able to take off from a nearby farmer's field (with the permission of the farmer) and take my shots flying above that field, that way maintaining some horizontal distance from the crowd.

If I couldn't have got the farmer's permission I would have declined the job.

 

[CraigCam]

I was going to ask for a waiver of liability for the shoot from the city and the art fair organizers. I was there this Saturday at the Art Fair(Wife had a Booth) and then I was alerted to their request. I'm going to get some aerial maps for the town and fill in the blanks and post the maps.
I do value your opinions and appreciate the time you take to answer my questions.

Safe drone piloting is always about situational awareness but as my tale from a week ago illustrates, no matter how prepped you are, things can go wrong. That's why I will never ever fly over people even individuals. When I cross a road to get over a shot, I make sure there are no cars or vehicles driving through. It's in air arrogance where someone ignores the basic safety of what a crash can cause and they cross into unsafe airspace and end up on YouTube. I'm not on the other companies forums but obviously there is trouble in river city when it comes to responsible flying by these pilots. It seems the H helps weed out the speed junkies and height freaks because it's so much more of an elegant solution and despite all the whining about its smaller sensor, takes amazing video that holds up in post really well. You are are responsible pilot and I think you can make a plan and have time to implement. Maybe a CCC run over your route could make sense as you could plot and tweak until your route is repeatedly safe. Then this would be your safe zone that the organizers can help you with as spotters and keep clear of non flight participants. I like the maps idea and I see this as a good learning experience and a way to get local good will towards using the drone for community pride. But clearly risk outweighs reward if anyone insists on shots that put you over people. I think you could get waivers for any roof damage of buildings along the parade route if the parade organizers get involved with helping you. Insurance lawyers are powerful and government involvement opens up lots of legal loopholes if god forbid someone gets hit. I'd have the town grant you permission in writing and get every property under your flight path and ask the local police to help. Push back on the local mayor or council or whoever makes local ordinances and make sure they are partners in minimizing your risk to only your loss of drone and camera. In assuming this a July 4th gig? Obviously your community is small enough that they know you so use your good will and see how it develops. Also have an out clause that says you can cancel day of if weather conditions or parade parameters change. And if you don't have these, buy one as your VLOS increase dramatically.
Drone UAS UAV Quadcopter LED Strobe Light

 

[ThunderChicken]

I have two of these units. Velcro mounted on the side arms under the motor.

I keep my "H" on a short leash. Line Of Sight will prevent Loss Of Signal. I'm not too sure about the CCC function for a shoot. I have not used many of the advanced features for my Multirotor. I would not want to risk losing one of my two "H"'s doing a process I'm not thoroughly familiar with.
The location of the strobes I selected for my benefit. I don't fly at night and during the day if an aircraft is low enough that they would see the led strobes on my bird, they probably crashing anyway.
The video gig is for an art fair in September and I have decided not to cover the parade at all.
Too many "What if's" along the route.

 

[Rayray]

Too many "What if's" along the route.

A wise decision. Also, after the initial novelty of seeing a parade from a bird's eye view, the video would fast become boring. Parades are best shot from the ground, close up.

 

[CraigCam]

A wise decision. Also, after the initial novelty of seeing a parade from a bird's eye view, the video would fast become boring. Parades are best shot from the ground, close up.

Agreed. I just saw a promo piece for our fourth avenue merchant association where they used some drone shots. They were incredibly non creative and made the subject matter look boring. The ad was to highlight the discounts to be had in the slow summer season for the locals, now that the school kids are gone. They had to avoid overhead street car wires so the opening shot is the camera rising with a power pole in the center of frame. They must have done it in the am as there is no traffic and no people. They were also forced to the northern end of the Ave where the streetcar tracks turn east. That is the boring end with all the second hand clothes shops and not the next block south with all the bars and color. They have one forward shot of the boring block where they fly maybe 100' south at about 35'. Again, it only highlights the the lack of activity. I'm guessing city involvement because of the association and streetcar forced the worse perspective on the production company. They wasted a lot of secs on bad drone shots instead of land based shots of people actually having fun in the place. One good establishing rise with activity on a Friday or Saturday evening with the streetcar in the shot would have been much better and easier to shoot and use.

One overhead of the art fair to show perspective could be all that needs to be done. Get a good spot, hover over a safe area, shoot some dng bursts, and run some video. A one battery pop up and down on a good day clear and low windy day is one thing I trust the H for always.

 

[BillyTexas]

Dont forget the FAA forbids flying over people as well.

 

[ThunderChicken]

Dont forget the FAA forbids flying over people as well.

Yup! I know that part but I see on TV every week a Multirotor just buzzing overhead crowds. I would not even begin to get that close to people. The thought of my "H"'s blades shredding anyone is repulsive and terrifying.
I think what I will have to do is take off from the corner of the lot go straight up 50 feet AGL or so and parallel the site and take a panoramic video. Then up to a height where I can see all of the art fair location do another Panoramic and then land. The stills I can extract from the videos during play back for my friends. The shoot will happen before the art fair is officially and the public is allowed in.
I still have not told the organizers whether or not I will shoot this, I do want to do it just to be sure some knuckle head doesn't do it and mess up the fragile reputation of "Drone Pilots."
I can tell a drone shot on TV from any other video platform.
Have you noticed that the videos from airborne platforms last less than 15 seconds in most instances?

 

[CraigCam]

Yup! I know that part but I see on TV every week a Multirotor just buzzing overhead crowds. I would not even begin to get that close to people. The thought of my "H"'s blades shredding anyone is repulsive and terrifying.
I think what I will have to do is take off from the corner of the lot go straight up 50 feet AGL or so and parallel the site and take a panoramic video. Then up to a height where I can see all of the art fair location do another Panoramic and then land. The stills I can extract from the videos during play back for my friends. The shoot will happen before the art fair is officially and the public is allowed in.
I still have not told the organizers whether or not I will shoot this, I do want to do it just to be sure some knuckle head doesn't do it and mess up the fragile reputation of "Drone Pilots."
I can tell a drone shot on TV from any other video platform.
Have you noticed that the videos from airborne platforms last less than 15 seconds in most instances?

That's the point... in the end you may use only one little clip as what you've got versus what you really got are always different. It's very hard to see detail on the ST screen and it's not until you are looking at a good HD monitor will you see the imperfections. One of the reason I'm such a loyal H user is that when it's right, it's the most capable of producing long uninterrupted shots that you can choose the best parts of for edits. And pullbacks always are more visually engaging then push ins so I always film my reverse from my subject matter push in. Pop up a few times at your spot and put some people where the fair will be and you can pre plan altitude and distance for best safe shot. Don't forget to factor in sun angles and your shadow.

 

[Vicki F]

I did an outdoor race last year, positioned well away to the side, and followed the runners so that I was never directly overheard. But two weeks before, I had done a thorough site visit of different places to launch from (took about 3 hours), then story boarded the resulting video. Included quite a few still shots. It was a bit windy out in the canyon, that made me a bit nervous, wish I got more. My one regret on this: should have included some audio. Looking back, I am now reluctant to volunteer my drone video. With site visit, actual filming, and production, I spent about 12 hours on this. Just some thoughts.

 

[FlushVision]

I did an outdoor race last year, positioned well away to the side, and followed the runners so that I was never directly overheard. But two weeks before, I had done a thorough site visit of different places to launch from (took about 3 hours), then story boarded the resulting video. Included quite a few still shots. It was a bit windy out in the canyon, that made me a bit nervous, wish I got more. My one regret on this: should have included some audio. Looking back, I am now reluctant to volunteer my drone video. With site visit, actual filming, and production, I spent about 12 hours on this. Just some thoughts.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I did a freeby for the organizers of a protest rally against the building on Green Belt land around Manchester, U.K. I couldn't get a permission from the local council who owned the parkland where the protest rally was to be held since the request came during the Christmas holidays so no-one was answering the 'phone in the park offices. Like you,though, I was reluctant to fly directly over the expected crowd so even if I did get a permission to take off from within the park I probably wouldn't have done. I did get a permission to fly from a farmer's field next to the park but that put the Sun, which was low in the sky (time of year), behind the protesters such that it was difficult to prevent lens flare.

So, like you, I decided to do a site visit a day or so before the event to do a risk assessment and decide take off points and do a story board which involved me approaching the site via the farmer's yard which was full of cow...er...droppings and a hike up a steep hill. It was definitely a wellington boots job.

I recon that the total time I spent on that job was about 6 or 7 hours including the office admin time to do the paperwork and a two and a half minutes edit of the footage. This was a job that should have attracted £320.00 if I had done it as a paid job...all done for free.

Would I do it again? Probably not unless there are special circumstances. I've done a couple of freebies to try and promote my business and to enhance my reputation but, If I'm honest, hasn't generated any more commercial jobs than I would have got anyway as far as I can tell.

A short segment of that footage captured on that day is included in one of my show-reels reproduced below. The footage starts at time 0:43 if anyone is interested.

 

[Vicki F]

Nicely done!

 

[Rubik]

Vicki and FV, looking at your videos, I wonder why anyone would even want to view an event from directly above. Being off the side puts the surroundings into the story and makes for a more pleasant viewing experience. Well done.

 

[FlushVision]

Vicki and FV, looking at your videos, I wonder why anyone would even want to view an event from directly above. Being off the side puts the surroundings into the story and makes for a more pleasant viewing experience. Well done.

Thank you.
In the U.K. one is legally able to fly directly over a person or small groups of people so long as you maintain a 50m separation, but not able to do if there is a thousand people or more present (a football stadium, say). However, although I can fly directly over a person, albeit at a minimum of 50m, I prefer not to. Just because you can (in the U.K.) does not mean you should and I believe such a practice should be avoided wherever possible. Indeed, If the U.K were to change that law to make it illegal to fly directly over a person if they aren't under the pilot's control, then I wouldn't whinge about it.

In the case of my video. At the time the segment of footage shown in my showreel was recorded there were less than a thousand people present but shortly after I landed after the second battery there were an estimated three thousand people present. At some point in the second flight, then, it would have become illegal to fly directly over them.

 

[ThunderChicken]

Both videos are excellent! After I finish my shoot I'm just going to hand over a DVD with all of the footage to the organizers. One of them has a computer whiz kid and he can do the editing.