Flying drones commercially means joining the
broader community of aviators and learning
skills that are not generally required for
hobbyists, such as reading a sectional chart.
Buying a multirotor and attaching
a camera to it won’t make you an
aerial cinematographer, even if it’s
a $12,000 Freefly ALTA.
Going professional
Something strange has happened, owing to the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) revolution that
began a few years ago. The same skills
that model aviators spent years honing
strictly for their own enjoyment, have
suddenly acquired commercial value. In
short, you can make money flying model
airplanes.
This has always been true to some
degree. If you were an exceptionally
skilled pilot, you could earn money
from sponsorships or win cash prizes
in contests. A few people even get
the opportunity to work for hobby
companies or trade magazines and
test-fly new designs. However, with
drones set to launch the next great
technological revolution in the coming
decade, opportunities to earn a living
as an RC pilot are about to proliferate
beyond anything the industry has ever
seen.
The Roswell Flight Test Crew
members have always clung ferociously
to our status as hobbyists, both to
avoid the regulatory nightmares that
have been imposed on the industry
throughout the past few years, and
because we strongly believe that
amateurs have important contributions
to make to the development of this
important new technology.
However, as
I sat down to
write this article,
I found that my
background left
me poorly suited
to provide practical
advice on this
topic, so I turned to a
couple of friends who are
experts. Robert Rodriguez is
the president and founder of the
Society of Aerial Cinematography
(SOAC) in Los Angeles, and Jonathan
Rupprecht is the principal of an aviation
law firm that bears his name. Jonathan
is also among the top three attorneys
nationwide in filing successful 333
Exemption petitions with the FAA.
Obviously, drones are going to be
deployed across myriad applications
in the coming years, from precision
agriculture to emergency response,
utility inspection, and parcel delivery,
but I’ve decided to focus specifically on
aerial video in this article.
Lights, Camera, Drone!
When I asked Robert what advice he
would give a newcomer to the field of
aerial video, I was honestly startled by
his response. I expected he would say
something like, “Line up your shot so
you can’t see the shadow of your drone
in the frame.” Instead, he started talking
to me about etiquette.
“You have to understand what you’re
getting into,” he said. “There is a very
different etiquette in the hobby world
and the professional world. Once you
get on set, it’s painfully obvious who is a
professional and who is a hobbyist.”
He went on to explain to me that
far from being a freewheeling, creative
exercise where everyone’s input is
welcome, a modern film set much more
resembles a military unit in terms of
discipline and strict adherence to the
chain of command.
“Many people believe that because
they have a camera attached to their
drone, they have a right to tell the
director how to frame his or her shot,
when in fact their role is to help the
director realize his or her vision—not
to tell them how to do their jobs,” he
explained.
“When I’m talking to new people,
I always tell them: you’re not a
cinematographer just because you own
a Phantom with a 4K camera on it,”
Robert continued. “You can get some
93 Model Aviation MAY 2016
www.ModelAviation.com
ADVANCED FLIGHT TECHNOLOGIES
Patrick Sherman
lucidity@roswellflighttestcrew.com
