TheBlackDrone is likely one of the main aerial cinematographers in Germany. They work with among the greatest (and coolest) corporations in all the world—corporations like Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Aston Martin, and Ferrari, amongst others.
We wished to listen to extra about what they do, and how they’ve managed to safe a place as one of many go-to aerial cinematographers for top finish work.
Read on to listen to from Philipp Reimer, founding father of TheBlackDrone, about how he received his begin and what he sees coming subsequent within the business.
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Begin Interview:
UAV Coach: Describe what your organization does in a single quick sentence.
Philipp Reimer: We present excessive class aerial footage with RED Epic, Alexa Mini, or 360° VR rigs to worldwide shoppers.
UAV Coach: How did you first become involved with aerial cinematography?
Philipp Reimer: The first drone we used for a manufacturing was a DJI Phantom 1 with a hard-mounted GoPro digicam for Aston Martin again in 2012, along with our regular footage. They beloved it a lot they informed their buddies at Ferrari, which then was our subsequent shopper for aerials.
UAV Coach: Many of the pictures in your showreel are huge and spectacular—huge boats and vehicles, huge equipment, huge ski jumps. What have been a few of your most favourite tasks all through your profession, and why?
TheBlackDrone’s Showreel for 2017
Philipp Reimer: Thanks for the praise! Yes certainly—the corporate has advanced actually rapidly and we’re within the fortunate place to work for the most important corporations on the planet.
One of essentially the most demanding jobs was the “Trinity” manufacturing for Mercedes-Benz. We got the prospect to movie and clarify the heritage of the Mercedes-Benz star. For this we travelled to Monaco to movie the brand new S-class convertible together with their new Mercedes-Benz Arrow 460 Granturismo model yacht and a Helicopter. Those three objects on land, water and within the air needs to be mixed in a single image to represent the star. We have been the primary ever to get the chance to point out the model yacht to the world and additionally these three automobiles in a single movie.
UAV Coach: At :55 within the showreel there are a number of earlier than/after pictures that basically stand out. Can you inform us extra about these? Did you shoot these for a business, or for inventive functions? Would love to listen to in regards to the course of for and context round these pictures.
Philipp Reimer: Sure factor! Those 4 clips are for the Swiss tv SRF1 firm. They produce these so-called “idents” as little imagefilms to point out earlier than movies or the information. Those idents are very artistic methods to showcase the brand of the corporate (the purple one). We shot the backplates for them in varied places in Switzerland. The firm that labored with us on these idents gained first place for his or her strategy for the “Swiss Edi 2016” award.
Here’s a brief clip of the “idents” Philipp is speaking about
UAV Coach: What separates you from different corporations within the aerial cinematography house?
Philipp Reimer: We have two crucial pillars we depend on.
First of all, my enterprise accomplice and I’ve been photographers for over 15 years, and we’ve been taking pictures commercials for greater than 10 years. So we’re very succesful of getting the proper image.
Secondly, we’re actually into constructing purposeful mannequin vehicles and flying objects. This mechanical engineering background helps us develop and preserve our drones and equipment to a really “German” degree. We closely modify mainly every bit of expertise till we predict it’s adequate for the job. So we mix the 2 most wanted abilities for top finish aerial cinematography: we are able to preserve and fly our gear correctly and we all know what sorts of pictures the DOP (Director of Photography) needs to have.
UAV Coach: We noticed that you simply provide 360/VR video companies. Have you had many tasks on this new medium, and what have they been? What distinctive challenges does working in VR current for aerial cinematography, and how have you ever overcome these challenges?
Philipp Reimer: We have been one of many first corporations worldwide to help Samsung with their Samsung VR commercials.
We flew a 360° VR GoPro rig on the planet well-known Frauenkirche in Dresden, and in one of many largest stalactite caves on earth. We actually just like the artistic advantage of this expertise however it nonetheless wants an enchancment in image high quality.
We have carried out extra VR tasks however aren’t allowed to speak about these but. We assume that digital actuality will likely be actually huge sooner or later, and that drones will ship some fairly spectacular footage utilizing this new tech, however it undoubtedly must be stabilized by a gimbal system (which presents main stitching points). But it’s nothing we are able to’t invent one thing for.
UAV Coach: Does working with drones in Germany current any particular regulatory challenges?
Philipp Reimer: Yes. Just to give some perception into our every day enterprise, 80% of the time we’re sitting in our workplace getting permissions for our subsequent tasks.
Because we’re in Germany, the German aviation workplace needs to know each element for each flight that entails drones weighing over 10 kilograms (22 kilos). So now we have to get in contact with dozens of authorities earlier than each flight.
Just not too long ago the federal government determined that we additionally want a “drone pilot license” to fly drones. We assume this can be a good and mandatory step.
UAV Coach: What drone(s) do you fly and what digicam(s) do you employ?
Philipp Reimer: For decrease budgets and smaller productions we use the DJI Inspire 1 X5R and Inspire 2. They aren’t that nice in our opinion for top finish work, and nowhere close to “professional” grade, however their all-in-one eco system is unbeatable proper now.
For most of our jobs we fly our RAW Octocopter outfitted with KDE elements and DJI A2 FC. The digicam package deal is both our RED Helium 8K or our Arri Alexa Mini. All are stabilized by the actually superior Freefly Movi professional gimbal. With regular payloads (Zeiss CP2 lens, 2 motor FIZ management) now we have a flight time of approx. 15 minutes. Therefore we use 22.000 mAh GensAce batteries. If we have to shoot overseas we use our Freefly Alta eight drone.
UAV Coach: What are your predictions for the drone business? Please be at liberty to reply at size (what you see approach down the highway, what you see for subsequent yr, the place you see rules headed in Germany and/or elsewhere, new purposes, and so on.).
Philipp Reimer: We assume the drone market remains to be evolving. The journey simply began and this complete factor will develop.
The use instances for drones are mainly limitless. The movie business lastly has the chance to fly the identical cinema digicam/lens setup on drones as of late. With improved flight occasions you’ll have utterly versatile cameras within the 3D house, which is able to substitute all these hard-to-use dollytracks and cranes that take ages to get in place (although after all this can be a very small area of interest).
Using drones for surveillance, inspections, and even rescue missions are another areas the place we count on to see quite a lot of progress. We shot a prototype drone for the Swiss submit final yr. They wish to use drones to get blood samples or drugs to rural areas up within the mountains, which no automobile can entry due to snow. That is an ideal instance of an clever strategy to utilizing drones to deal with actual life issues.
What the world wants is a normal legislation for the “drone airspace” to coordinate and management them, like we do with airplanes. The European Union is on its method to making these guidelines for us within the subsequent 1-2 years. This will assist clear the best way for brand new approaches. But these “delivery drones” from Amazon and DHL usually are not the longer term in our opinion. Those are pure advertising stunts and removed from a life like strategy.
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Want to see a video about Ferrari race vehicles from TheBlackDrone? Here you go:
These movies simply maintain coming. Here’s one other TheBlackDrone shot for Mercedes-Benz, which was livestreamed:
Check out TheBlackDrone’s Vimeo channel for a bunch extra superior movies. Also be certain that to go to TheBlackDrone web site for extra movies, since not all of them are up on Vimeo and there are some actual treats on there (like this video they did for Porsche).