InterBEE REVIEW2016

63/71

96Site of Professional Drone Aerial PhotographyThe emergence of drones has enabled previously impen-etrable places and situations to be filmed. For example, even with cuts that can technically be shot by using a crane, equip-ment cannot be taken to the summit of a mountain that has unpaved roads or into a valuable cultural property. Drone filming has made it possible to film the previously impossible, and the various problems and solutions behind such filming were discussed at this lecture.“Airvision” oversees aerial photography at Studioamana. Mr. Kobayashi has worked on aerial photography for many TV com-mericials, “Majo no Takkyuubin” (Kiki’s Delivery Service), and the opening of the “Sanada Maru” NHK Taiga drama series.Mr. Kobayashi oversaw 10 cuts for the opening of “Sanada Maru”. Filming took a total of nine days at six different locations. The number of flights was as many as 104. He introduced how these were filmed as well as the kind of difficulties faced in the background.Firstly, Kagami-ike pond in Togakushi, Nagano Prefecture appears at the beginning of the film. Kagami-ike pond is beau-tiful, but when flying a drone, the wind pressure caused by its propeller creates ripples on the water surface to the rear of the drone body. So it was filmed to be played backwards, preventing ripples being shown on the screen.Similar filming for reverse playback was surprisingly common, because hair and plants are affected by wind caused by the drone. Scenes that hone in on actors were filmed for reverse playback. When the drone gets close to an actor it can be dangerous, so the ending cut was pre-decided and the drone pulled away before it got too close.Bicchu Matsuyama-jo Castle is the only surviving mountain castle in Japan and cannot even be accessed by car. Only a drone, therefore, could be used for the filming. Because the castle only has stone steps, the machine was placed on a wooden rack and carried up the steps by back. The drone body is fairly large and, including the filming equipment, this was a very heavy load. Similar locations like this, where a mountain can only be climbed by human effort, are said to be fairly common.For the cut at Matsushiro-jo Castle in Nagano Prefecture, the camera goes into the open castle gate. A drone was selected for this because there is an arched bridge in front of it, so a rail cannot be placed there and the budget and time needed for a techno crane was daunting. Linear images even with a handheld camera would be impossible because the bridge is curved. That’s why the drone was selected.The avenue of cedars in Togakushi-jinja Shrine was an extremely tense location because GPS cannot be used. GPS was needed to return the drone to the original place when radio waves are interrupted, and it was used to stabilize the machine’s position against external effects such as wind. This cut passes through the trees, but the wind whipped up by the machine had an impact as it deflected onto the trees. Also, because the visual perspective gets more out of control the farther one goes, the filming had to be done extremely care-fully where there was no GPS reception.The actual filming was carried out by a two-man unit made up of the pilot and camera operator. This system allowed the pilot to concentrate on where to take the drone and the camera operator on continuously capturing objects and giving direction. The director or cameraman often gave instructions from behind to the camera operator.There was also talk about the machinery involved, which included an introduction to dedicated vehicles for carrying drones, high-capacity batteries, filming equipment, and how to downlink SDI filming. It was said that although it is easy to make generalizations about drone filming, it is by no means easy and a wide range of operating knowledge is needed.3:00PM-3:45PM, Friday, November 18th