What could be more appropriate for drones, than a festival that has a tag line “Head in the clouds”. This was originally a blog post for the 2019 HITC Festival, but as we’ve done the subsequnt 3 festivals since, I’ve added to it.
The first time we did this is was a one day event next to LA’s China Town, in the recently built Los Angeles Historic park the the DTLA skyline as a back drop you couldn’t ask for a more picturesque place to get some amazing aerial cinematography. As you can see the producers used our footage liberally. What this video doesn’t show is the high pressure approval process we went thru with the city of LA Parks and Recreation and Film LA the two days preceding the festival. Thankfully, we have been getting drone flights approved since back in the days when Part 333 and a pilots license was required and we had to submit directly to the local FSDO. We’ve been on shoots where the Fire marshal actually complimented our paperwork as the nicest that he had seen. (it was the Wayfair – “Way Day commercial shot in February of 2018) I’ve heard is said that drone pilots aren’t good at paperwork, thankfully that idiom doesn’t apply at Dronewrx. We are exceptionally good at paperwork and do our very best to work with the authorities to get jobs approved the first time. Plus having a pilots licence helps us speak their language and when you’re dealing with people who work in that industry they can tell you know your stuff.
This was the start of a beautiful relationship! We’ve shot the Head in the Clouds festival now for four years, as well as other projects for 88 Rising such as the video for Rick Brian’s Bali. Now Amazon is producing the festival so our work can be seen on the live broadcasts on Amazon Prime.
The head in the clouds festival was a whole lot of fun, but super challenging. First off we had narrow corridors in which we could fly in order to avoid flying over people. But as in all productions, you want to get the producers the most dynamic shots you can. Plus, they had all these balloons floating around the park. Festivals are always a challenge for many reasons. This one had it’s own set of challenges which we were able to overcome and in the end everyone was happy with the footage.
With the pandemic, the next HITC festival wasn’t till 2022. This time it had moved to the Arroyo Seco next to the Pasadena Rose Bowl. While the same theme was present, the change of venue brought the highest level of supervision and scrutiny to the table. Pasadena being incorporated has it’s own rules and regulations, and for this we had to answer to their Air Patrol, meaning we were partnered with Pasadena’s helicopter pilots who were watching over our shoulder the entire time. At the time regulations were both getting looser, and at the same time there was more paperwork. But as always we got it done to satisfaction and was dealing with the head of Air Support his name, Brad.
Brad could not have been any nicer once the event was in full swing, but this produced one of the funniest moments I can recall flying drones. Being Air Support, Brad was wearing a green jump suit, like he would wear to fly helicopters. He showed up, we made introductions, and we were chatting and getting ready for the event to start. The Producer, Chris comes be and sees a guy in a jumpsuit with a very prominent side arm. I introduced Chris to Brad, but he didn’t understand that Brad was the officer that had been assigned to us. So Chris see’s his piece and says “I believe in the second ammendment, but this probably not the right place to be carrying a gun” the conversation goes back and forth but he’s not understanding. Finally he gets what’s going on and we all had a belly laugh.
Our office is located in Hollywood, California
