Hollywood Met My Drone Today!

Hollywood, CA—I have to blame my dear friend Pablo Lewin for my obsession with camera drones.  Lewin is a film director who discovered this marvelous and incredibly creative filmmaking tool and got me hooked and empowered with the latest high tech toy.

I’ve done a number of drone stories but today I was going to film a scene for Lewin’s latest film offering. I thought I'd let you in on the experience.

I can still remember that horrible accident in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow along with two children, My-Ca Dinh Le (age 7), and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6), died in a nasty helicopter crash during the filming of the Twilight Zone  movie.  We've taken any safety risk out of our production! 

Helicopters can be deadly and they are too expensive for some filmmakers. Not to worry, the camera armed drones are here!  Today it was me and my drone that eliminated any dangers along with the impossible expense for a helicopter for our low budget film!

Here is the scene. We have not selected necessary music or voiceover for this yet.  I put up Patti LuPone’s version of Calling You from the film Baghdad Café. It’s very fitting for that video.  I love Patti's great work but we don't have the $$$ to put her great voice on our film.  Of corse donations will be accepted!

Stay tuned for this film from Pablo Lewin Productions.  He’s got some great actors and he also has done the principal photography.   

Here is the video scene that was shot using a DJI Phantom 2 and a GoPro Black Edition 3+ camera.  YouTube compresses the video too much but the film DVD be so much more cinematic!

Guidelines and Advice for Independent Drone Journalists

Phoenix, AZ—This geographical area is considered a medium size TV market.  Not every TV station here can afford a helicopter at $1,500.00 plus per hour.   Still they need plenty of quality video and of course that means aerial coverage of newsworthy events. 

Smaller TV markets have smaller budgets and no choice but to use drones if they want aerial video. 

As a former cop, long time licensed private investigator and investigative TV news producer I have advice to offer about drone journalism.

The video-capturing drone is still a relatively new but very exciting technology.  It’s perfectly suited for use in Phoenix, AZ.  Now there is suddenly a new job to fill in the news industry, the drone, multimedia journalist. 

To do this job you need four skills, operating the drone, photography, video editing and writing news stories.  Nobody said it was easy!    

Police officials initially may be hostile over the fact that we can quietly and easily observe and record them as they perform their duties.  They are simply going to have to accept the reality.  Are the camera-armed drones really any different than helicopters being used now? 

There is one significant difference and that is that the little drones have never been involved in a fatal accident or even caused a remarkable injury.

Our tiny cameras have their limitations and the altitudes we operate the best in are usually below 250 feet.  Rather than fly higher adjust your camera for wide angle.  This will help avoid possible contact with other aircraft.

I use a GoPro3+ Black Edition camera.  During daytime I set the camera at 1080P and 60 FPS.  At night I drop the setting to 24 FPS for better light gathering.  On bright sunny days use of a neutral density filter is advised. 

Breaking news brings helicopters in from different sources.  Medical evacuation, police and news choppers routinely show up at these events.  My advice here is when they do it’s time to discontinue flying until they leave. 

Police and medical choppers can be counted upon to fly at very low altitudes and must even land at these scenes.   Common sense dictates that you always yield to them.

The various general aviation helicopters are in radio communication with each other and the nearest airport control tower.  Drone operators are not and that means they may not be aware of your drone and potential collisions are possible.

Try to control your drone from an area of concealment.  There will be far fewer distractions from nearby people.  In other words, don’t fly from the edge of police yellow tape or across the street from the incident.  Go around the corner and get your video from there. 

Should you have to park your drone, work on gathering information and locating witnesses for those needed interviews.

Always record the actual addresses of these incidents and license plate numbers of involved vehicles. 

You really need to capture your video and quickly get it to the TV news ENG department.  You can physically deliver it to your TV news live truck, the news department or send the video files over the Internet. 

Because of the FAA regulation confusion TV stations are understandably afraid of becoming embroiled in some investigation.  That means for now you should never tell them the method you use to get aerial video. 

You could have used a traditional aircraft, kite or a balloon on a string to get the video.  Why put some news director in the middle with too much information?

I suspect that the FAA will never succeed in preventing drone journalism because the right we all have to gather news.  There is no significant history of safety issues to bring legitimate prohibitions.   

None of us want to see our drone damaged because of carelessness or inattention.   That in and of itself provides plenty of motivation us to be careful! 

Public relations with your community are essential for drone journalists.  Please spread the word that they are GPS connected and that they will hover in place by simply letting go of the controls.  Our unblemished safety record is a huge selling point.

As for privacy invasion let the public know that current laws adequately protect them including the laws prohibiting stalking. 

We must learn to coexist with our neighbors and conventional aircraft.

Obama, Bush and Troubled German/American Relations

Chicago, IL—I have a lot of friends that consider themselves political moderates or even Liberal.  When they saw the wide smile of America’s first Black presidential candidate they somehow fell in love.

After suffering eight years with a horrible president, George Bush many of my friends gambled on this unknown African-American, Barack Obama who they figured could never be worse than Bush.  They all simply wanted change particularly with respect to Bush’s ill-advised wars. 

Bush wore the Republican label and his detractors called him a Right Wing Conservative.  Bush was mislabeled as a Conservative when he was nothing of the kind.  His rhetoric seemed Conservative but that was always just talk.  His actions were Liberal and Leftist.  He was also not very smart.

Bush got us needlessly into two wars that really served no purpose for America.  Attacking Iraq was really dumb.  

Had Bush stayed clear, Iraq and Iran would have made war on each other by now reducing the threat of Islamic thugs from both nations.  They may have killed millions on both sides.  Instead we made both enemy nations stronger than ever.

Too many of our youngsters came home in rubber bags as a result of Bush’s adventures.  Nobody in their right minds wanted us to continue in the Middle East deadly mess. 

Americans were tired of war and wanted to end them and Obama seemed to show signs of ending the conflicts. 

Nearly six years later hindsight tells us Obama made even more war than even George Bush!  The Liberal Bush hating media however refused to expose Obama’s missteps no matter how outrageous. 

Before his election as president I knew a lot about Obama because of my extensive inside knowledge of Chicago and its massive political corruption.  The history of the former lawyers Barack and Michelle Obama was incredibly ugly. 

The circle of Obama’s friends well were known by me as criminals, Communists and hate filled Blacks like their friends Valerie Jarrett and Eric Holder.  The Obamas were both very much tied to the politically connected Communist faction in their Hyde Park neighborhood.

Obama was set to recreate America into a new Communist political model.  His entire political effort was High Treason against the American people and the Constitution he swore to protect and defend. 

Three men that exposed massive lies and revealed interesting things about political corruption and technology enabled extensive spying on ordinary Americans and our Allies like Germany.

Julian Assanage, Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.  They all risked their very lives to reveal the unthinkable.  We must be aware that none of these men made a single dime selling their information to enemy nations!  They all did this simply because it was the right thing to do! 

The media turned these heroes into traitors when in fact they were trying to warn us all of unbridled, unprecedented and unparalleled government tyranny. 

When a few government officials have the power of complete intelligence of the private lives of members of every branch of government they are empowered to blackmail anyone they wish. 

There can be no question that Obama and his minions were able to blackmail and compromise Conservative Supreme Court Justice John Roberts.  That gave them the one needed vote to save their otherwise doomed Socialist Obamacare American disaster.

The German people understood well what a horrible president Bush was and gambled on Obama as a new America Messiah.  They opened their arms and hearts to this stranger they once trusted.

Incredibly, Obama was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize without a single accomplishment other than getting elected president!  Wow, he must be wonderful everyone thought! 

Chancellor Angela Merkel learned about Assanage, Manning and Snowden’s troubling revelations.  She blindly assumed that Manning and Snowden were traitors that compromised the security of the free world.  Ms. Merkel would later learn she was misled by the American government.

Edward Snowden desperately needed asylum and was turned down by Germany.  Instead he could only find refuge with our former enemy Russia. 

However Merkel soon learned that her personal cell-phone was hacked by the NSA-FBI’s  “Stingray” computer snooping program!

Now Germany has expelled to Americans for spying on them!  This has damaged a sacred trust between to nations that needed each other.  Obama has managed to divide and conquer two strong allies! 

Edward Snowden’s period of asylum in Russia is set to expire.  Snowden deserves solid protection from Germany.  He did not get it before because Merkel and her government thought that it would damage German/American relations.  She should rethink that decision and open Germany’s arms to Snowden. 

Frankly, Germany is the best place for Snowden at least until a new American President can pardon Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. 

As an American I’m deeply ashamed of the Obama Administration and my citizenship as a result.  I may be seeking asylum myself in Germany if there the continuation of Obama’s criminal conduct.

Every German certainly did not support Adolf Hitler, accordingly this American does not support Barack Obama!

I hope my Liberal and German friends understand exactly why I detest and denounce Obama.  

The FAA Wants to Stop All of Those Pesky Civilian Drones!

The FAA is trying to regulate little camera drones like mine out of existence.  They have already been shot down for their over-reaching by a federal judge and the FAA has since appealed to a higher court.

Now the FAA is back at it, making a new rule and it’s really no better than what was struck down in court. They apparently want to prohibit professional photographers and journalists from capturing aerial images. 

The law requires government rules to be subjected to public a comment period that will run out later this month.  The rules carry heavy civil penalties but are not laws per say.   They are of course always subject to court challenge.

 My published Comment:   

 “The FAA wants jurisdiction over a rock thrown into the sky. Criminals can use all sorts of implements to endanger our aircraft and public safety. This is a local police responsibility already. Speaking as a small, multi-rotor and unmanned Phantom 2 camera drone operator the FAA should devote all their attention to conventional aviation.

The safety issues of the multi-rotor craft are less than insignificant than either general or commercial aviation! Despite thousands of these devices there has never been a fatality or even a remarkable injury! Property damage is nearly nonexistent! The FAA can argue that the sky will fall because that is always a remote possibility.

If there is going to be regulation over these devices it really needs to be in relation to their size, weight and altitude. Anything under 55 pounds should be left outside of the FAA's jurisdiction. I don't want to be redundant but this already is covered by local endangerment, assault laws and the police.

I cannot imagine the new astronomical budget of the FAA needed so that they can police every 12-year-old boy with a model aircraft! There must be a point in time where we have to stop the government monster from swallowing us all.

I speak only for the photographers that want to earn a few dollars taking needed and breathtaking images without subjecting the population to the risk of actual helicopters not to mention the cost. Professional photography and newsgathering is necessary in our world and that should not be prohibited.

Must our government always kill more private industry jobs and negatively impact our economy?”

As for me, the FAA will have to take my little drone, FROM MY DEAD COLD HANDS! 

You too can comment right here:

http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FAA-2014-0396-0001

New Turf War Escalating, Camera Drone Pilots vs. Traditional Helicopter Pilots!

Los Angeles, CA—Technology has brought us unmanned, remote controlled aircraft.  These things have been around for decades. Expectedly they have been engineered for surveillance and combat by military contractors.

More recently GPS advances and really great and diminutive cameras such as the GoPro has brought us an affordable civilian drone that has been thrilling photographers such as me.

The vast majority of the civilian camera drones are weighing in at between one and three pounds and can be safely operated from as much as a mile away.  They can capture stunning images at much lower altitudes than helicopters without the risk of death and destruction. 

There are larger and more sophisticated drones that handle the bigger cameras used by the film industry and require very solid piloting skills.  

One thing for sure civilian drone operators don’t want their devices endangered or the subject of adverse police scrutiny. 

I have two camera drones my least expensive is worth $1,000.00 and my better one cost me $2000.00.  Needless to say I’d be very unhappy if it were destroyed or confiscated by authorities. 

The Turf War has begun!

Police and TV news helicopter pilot’s careers are suddenly in serious jeopardy because of the drone technology.  They are antagonistic and understandably hostile to this drone technology. 

Every year in America several helicopters crash, lives are lost along with millions in property damage.  The reason is most often pilot error.   The civilian multi-rotor camera drones have never been involved in a single death or remarkable injury.  

The civilian drones can operate in much tighter spaces making them more versatile in search and rescue operations at least in regards to finding people, pets and property.  Of course the little drones cannot evacuate people for medical trauma or from precarious mountainsides. 

The civilian drones cannot cope with police car chases like helicopters but can provide excellent images of crime, accident, fire and other disaster scenes for TV news. 

The L.A. Department of Water and Power is demanding two new helicopters to inspect their assets, equipment and property.  Let me be the first one to say that they can now get by with only one!  They simply need a qualified camera drone operator that would cost a tiny percentage of the price of a second helicopter.  It may be possible to jettison the second helicopter with a small fleet of drones! 

TV news operations can save millions and avoid the risk of deadly crashes altogether! 

The drones will have causalities for sure.  They are the helicopter crews and the maintenance support staff will be looking for work.

As for the future of manned helicopters that is in doubt two because technology may create the accident proof drone helicopter.  This may not be far away.

One last thing, today’s big drone story in New York is the arrest of to camera drone pilots for criminal endangerment.   

I call bullshit on the helicopter cop’s claims that the drones were aggressively chasing them.  I guess the cops overlooked that the two drones have the ultimate back boxes onboard!  They have the SD Ram cards with a full visual record of the flights involved. 

The police should have their own unedited video and examination of the three combined videos should reveal the unvarnished truth. 

In any event I hope that civilian drone photographers are not subjected to violation of their civil rights under color of law in order to score points in a turf war. 

The biggest motivating factor for safe and law abiding operation of the new civilian camera drones is the value of the devices and cameras.  Existing law covers any issues of dangerous or criminal mischief. 

Civilian drones have their new place in the sky cut out for them.  The benefits far outweigh any potential liabilities. 

The issue of licensing for drone pilots is under review and discussion and my sources are telling me that drones weighing more than 55 pounds will be targeted for regulation.  The multi-rotor pilots like me with small devices will be free from special attention from the FAA.

State and local legislative bodies will be looking to create all manner of bans and new laws.  Let’s hope they all think about the safety and benefits before they act. 

I expect to see thousands of new jobs for small drone photographers in news, movie making, farming, real estate, insurance adjusting and many other industries.