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LATEST NEWS AND PROJECTS

Sydney Harbour from Lavender Bay

Filming under blue skies in Sydney harbour

Blue Mountains west of sydney

Spectacular light in the Hunter Valley region

Orange County hospital with Rescue 23

Onboard with British Dr Bryn and paramedic Paula

NSW Paramedic

All the flight gear despite temperatures of 40º plus

Outbound from the Royal North Shore Hospital Sydney

SCAT: Special Casualty Access Team

Royal Prince Albert hospital helipad, Sydney

Filming with Careflight Rescue at Westmead Hospital

Paramedic Greg Zammit onboard Careflight Rescue

Onboard Careflight Rescue - emergency call to airborne = 2mins!

Filming air to air with Rescue 26

Our pilot David onboard the air to air helicopter

Shooting aerials over the Blue Mountains

Shooting air to air sequences

Filming sequences with the team at the WestPac helicopter rescue base

WestPac 2 on standby

British pilot Kevin Radcliffe flying us up the coast on a mission

...there's a sight you don't see every day!

The rural fire service, the largest volunteer service in the world

The fire rescue helicopter base

The mighty Erikkson Sky Crane fire fighting aircraft

Fire crews preparing to fight a bush fire

British crews working on the fire rescue service helicopters

EMERGENCY RESCUE DOWN UNDER

 

A new series for BBC one, following the work of British rescue teams saving lives and fighting crime in Australia, blue lights under blue skies...

 

I was primarily involved in filming and flying with the helicopter medical rescue teams following british doctors and paramedics on life saving missions, spending many flying shifts with the New South Wales Air Ambulance service, Careflight rapid response helicopter in Sydney and the WestPac 1 emergency rescue helicopter based in Newcastle.

 

Great to spend time with familair faces and crews having spent time with them 2 years ago on a different series.

 

As well as camera / director on rescue missions, I acted as camera director on air to air filming sequences and cameraman providing an invaluable library of images for use throughout the series - a great many weeks had filming down under for this series.

 

 

COUNTRYSIDE 999 series 3

 

Back for another summer with friends and colleagues at Cornwall's Air Ambulance based at Newquay Airport, for BBC Scotland's popular series Counntryside 999 now on it's third series.

 

Acting as a self shooting camera/director on their busy periods in the summer and over the Bank Holiday weekends.

 

Aswell as filming I also have to be certified to act as a Helicopter Emergency Medical Service flight crew memeber -  a big thank you to Cornwall's Air Ambulance pilot Capt Doug Pye for putting me through my paces on their MD902 helicopter, new for 2015! 

 

Had a great summer filming with all the team there and appreciate all their help and support - a great team who do an amazing job.

 

Looking forward to filming with Cornwall again soon.

 

Helimed 01 at Derriford hospital Plymouth

Lifting from Derriford's hospital helipad

View past the Tamar Bridge out of Derriford hospital

Capt Doug Pye and myself en-route to hospital

Time for a quick selfie...top bloke capt Doug!

Paramedic Mark 'Fuzz' Fuszard

Landing at an incident...

En-route back to base

Paramedic Steve Garvey at Treliske's hospital helipad - a succesful mission!

Cornwall's MD902 Air Ambulance...and me!

Paramedic Paul Symonds

Part of the onboard camera set up - all approved for filming with the operators

Rear cabin GoPro camera set up which I supplied and set up

Camer number 5...of 5

Evening return to base at Newquay Airport

Thanks for a great summer guys...

Great North Air Ambulance at Teesside

Durham Tees Valley Airport base

The Great North's Dauphin helicopter

Camera/director flying with the team at GNAA

Cumbrian incident location

Mountain Rescue on call with The Great North Air Ambulance

I seem to have made a friend whilst on location...

Doctor's & paramedics onboard the Great North

Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary helipad on the roof

Evening landing on the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle

Evening landing on the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle

AIR AMBULANCE ER

 

Filming with Tern TV for Sky Television's popular 'Air Ambulance ER', back for a second series.

 

I was based for several weeks at the Great North Air Ambulance's units in Teesside and just outside Penrith, the Cumbian countryside providing some spectacular filming locations - especially for my friends at Castle Air providing the air to air shots.

 

Great to spend time with the Doctor's and Paramedics on both the Air Ambulances based in the North - thanks to Jane and Kevin and all the team on the Great North for making my stay so welcome.

RTS AWARD WINNER 2015

Freelance award - lighting cameraman

 

Awarded at a glittering evening at the Royal Armouries in Leeds as part of the RTS Yorkshire event and presented by The Apprentice's Nick Hewer.

 

A big thank you to Roger Keech Productions for nominating me for the prestigeous award.

 

BBC MUSIC DAY

Location film coverage from Liverpool of the BBC's inaugural music day - a nationwide celebration of music. The day featured live music from both local communities and well known artists.

 

I was providing single camera location coverage with regular sound recordist Nigel Chatters for the BBC's dawn to dusk day of all things musical.

 

Shot on the Sony F5 digital cinema camera with a combination of prime and zoom lenses

CUNARD 175th ANNIVERSARY

Filming in Liverpool over the weekend of 24th & 25th May 2015 for BBC Salford productions, as part of a documentary programme celebrating Cunard's 175th anniversary.

 

The Queen Mary, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II ocean liners paid a special visit to the city. Thousands of visitors  packed the water front to enjoy the celebrations.

Queen Mary II in port at Liverpool's cruise terminal

Press access to film at the berth as the Queen Mary II leaves port

Filming along side Queen Mary II

Setting sail to join her two sister ships

BBC News covering the event live

Part of Cunard's 175th anniversary branding

Part of Cunard's 175th anniversary branding

Paramedics Lee Davision, Pete Vallance, Capt Andy Lister and myself

...just time to grab a quick bite

Early morning start at the Nostell Air Support Unit

Helimed 99 ready for the day in the early morning light

Morning flight crew paperwork

Navigation charts for plotting our taskings

Full sized wall chart

Onboard Helimed 99 selfie...

Paramedic Pete vallnace

Helimed 99 back at base

The familiar yellow helicopter of the YAA

AN HOUR TO SAVE YOUR LIFE

Filming for a new 2015 BBC One series, with friends and colleagues at the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

 

Acting as a HEMS trained camera/director for Boundless Productions focusing on trauma patients being treated in the air and at the Leeds General Infirmary within the 'Golden Hour'. A second team took over the filming at the LGI once the YAA had dropped the patient off at the rooftop helideck.

 

This is the second series of this popular science based observational series.

 

 

 

LEN GOODMAN'S BIG BANDS

August has been a busy time, filming a new 1hour documentary programme with Len, scheduled for Christmas 2014 on BBC.

 

Third in the series of 1 hour Christmas specials.

 

Had a challenging time filming with Chris Dean's, Syd Lawrence Orchestra, all multiple takes for a single camera shoot and interviewed Glen Miller's cousin John, at the former RAF Twinwood airfield in Bedfordshire, where Glenn left before crashing in 1944.

 

Nice to film with Robbie William's dad Pete Conway again, since filming a CH5 documentary about him back in 2002

 

Director Roger Keech. Producer Paul Greenan

Filming with Chris Dean & The Syd Lawrence Orchestra

Recounting the good old days. Len & Pete Conway - Robbie's dad

Filming with Pete & Len in Cruisin' Records, Kent

Len Goodman and Pete Conway and their 'frothy coffee'

Filming in Len's old stomping ground, welling High St, with producer Paul Greenan

Len with John Miller at Twinwood airfield Bedfordshire

Shooting Len's closing PTC with autoque on the Sony F5 at Twinwood airfield

Chris Dean from the Syd Lawrence Orchestra talking to Len at a Soho jazz club

Filming Len walking through Sax.co.uk in Sussex

Kingswood village hall - big band members reunion with Len looking on. Nigel Chatters sound recordist

Helimed 01 - UK's first air ambulance service

Preparing to land on a Cornwall beach

Shooting as camera/director with a Sony PMW300 camera

Filming on board with air crew paramedics

Treliske Hospital's helipad - Accident & Emergency department

Royal Cornwall Hospital - can't get the patient much nearer!

Early start filming sunrise on a Sony PMW300

Mark 'Fuzz' Fuszard air crew paramedic

On board Cornwall's E.C 135 air ambulance returning to base

Landing at Cornwall's Air Ambulance base at Newquay Airport

Returning to base to re-fuel

COUNTRYSIDE 999

BBC Scotland's Countryside 999 series has been keeping me flying, this time with the team on the Cornwall Air Ambulance. Cornwall's Air Ambulance was the first in the country, callsign...Helimed 01.

 

A big thank you to paramedics Steve Garvey, Stu Croft, Paul Symonds and Mark 'Fuzz' Fuszard for making me so welcome and Bond Helicopter's operations manager, Wayne Card. 

 

A full on few weeks working as camera/director following the life saving work for a 2015 series of Countryside 999. 

 

As well as finding time to do 12hour a day flying shifts, I also had to factor in a fire-fighting course at Newquay's airport and a upto date Dangerous Goods training course - all of which I'd done before as part of my Helicopter Emergency Medical Service training but needed to be in-line with Bond Helicopters, who operate the Cornwall Air Ambulance

 

 

LIVE WEB CASTING

Spent 5 weeks over the summer working for Achievement TV providing live events coverage at university graduation and awards ceremonies.

 

The contract is to provide live camera coverage, often to large video projection screens or multiple monitors, live vision mix and webcast to PC, Mac, iPhone, Android and Windows Tablets. Also, distribution to off site overspill theatres, via satelite internet as well as providing DVD and BluRay discs of the event to take away on the day.

 

A lot of hours and hard work - 5 days was spent at the Millenium Centre in Cardiff where the job was made doubly difficult by the National Theatre's production of War Horse in the evenings, which meant having to de-rig camera positions and remote cameras every day and re-install before the next morning...

 

Challenging and demanding weeks for the small team.

Live coverage with multiple cameras and remote heads

Vision mixing multiple cameras and operating a remote head in Cardiff at the same time!

Live feed previews and programme output

Live vision mixing panel

Live vision mixed output is recorded and web cast

One of the many SSD recorder units

PC driven vision mixer software

Simple sound set up - but still lots of things to deal with

Dozens of BluRay disc awaiting mastering

Two of the 'Raptor' laptops used for editing and mastering of the discs

On the day encoding of DVD & BluRays

Data wrangling...need to be on the ball here

Master, encoded DVD & BluRays are then sent to the duplicators

The Burj Al Arab hotel

H.H Sheikh Maktoum's private helicopter lifting with his guests for a sight seeing tour over Dubai

Filming V.I.P guests on top of the Burj Al Arab helideck

Working with Roger Laxon shooting a fly-by

Filming with the Sony F5 cinema camera at the farewell event

Farewell evening event held at Sheikh Maktoum's private beach palace

Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building standing at over 2700ft - made it to the 153rd floor this year!

The Armani hotel in the Burj hosted the V.I.P's welcome to Dubai evening

Interviewing H.H Sheikh Maktoum in the Armani hotel

Some fantastic images to be had filming in the desert

...not a good environment for cameras!

FILMING IN DUBAI 

Returned from Dubai in April 2014 after filming with V.I.P guests on behalf of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. 

 

The filming is centred around the Dubai World Cup - the world's richest horse race and follows the V.I.P guests of His Highness as they attend various cultural and business developments with a trip to the races on the Saturday evening.

 

This is a regular event I've filmed for about 15 years now with London based equestrian film specialists, Millard Bourne Associates. 

 

Camerawork wise it's on your feet for 18 hours a day! But there are one or two perks to the shoot...a trip in the Sheik's private helicopter one of them!

FLIGHT TRAINING

Lots of studying and flight training are currently under way to obtain certification to operate an unmanned aerial vehicle, to expand into remote aerial cinematography.

 

All commercial operators of remote aircraft must be fully approved by the Civil Aviation Authority to undertake aerial filming work. 

 

Current plans are to operate a large scale octocopter aircraft, fitted with a gyro-stabilised camera gimbal for smooth, low level aerial filming work.

 

The aircraft will be piloted by myself and Yorkshire Air Ambulance pilot Capt Steve Cobb. With thousands of hours commercial helicopter flying under his belt, Steve and myself will work together to capture low level HD aerial cinemtography.

 

Studying aeronautical charts

Aviation law & meteorology

CAA publications on UAV operations - all 422 pages

Flight training with a smaller UAV

Using a smaller Phantom 2 quadcopter for training

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