Flight Operations Safety

This was an outside-the-box piece for me to direct and shoot. The producer was Hendrik van Vuuren of Sting Marketing. A staff of writers polished up the shot list, storyboard and script on location. The objective was to make a flight safety operations piece for the Duke terminal at Charlotte-Douglass and Concord Regional Airports. Duke Energy maintains corporate jets and helicopters to transport executives across the nation quickly.

This was one of the first jobs where I used a hoverboard paired with a MOVI M5 to capture long smooth moving shots. Hoverboards, the fad of 2015, are very similar to a Segway. Cinematographers have been using Segways for years now as a way to move quickly with a steadicam-like device. I took the hoverboard and wide angle lens all through the hangar and onto the tarmac moving at 10mph. The footage is much smoother and more precise than if I had run and used post production software to stabilize the clips. Naturally I used a helmet and observed all safety protocols when filming.

It was a memorable shoot. We saved releasing the oxygen masks for last because they take forever to roll back up and tuck away in the overhead compartments.