Over the past fifteen plus years, LA Media has been lucky enough to have had the privilege of filming Scotland and its most beautiful and iconic locations. From Unesco World Heritage Sites to hidden coves on the Isle of Skye, we've been pretty much been everywhere thanks to our busy production work schedule. Often we feel like the joy of 'filming Scotland' is a well-kept secret. Even agencies in London don't realise the filming potential they have sitting on their doorstep!

LA Media was one of the first production companies in Edinburgh to embrace the potential of drones and aerial filming for production. We were early adopters of this technology, so we've got a pretty extensive showreel of aerial footage of Scotland. With this series, Scotland in Motion, we'd like to share some of our best experiences of drone filming experiences.

Scotland in Motion - Our Ode to Drone Joy

Scotland in Motion is LA Media's own personal ode to joy, which celebrates Scotland's epic landscapes and locations. It's a series of short clips that highlight some of Scotland's most iconic locations. Below we'd like to share with you our first five instalments of filming Scotland! All footage, post-production and original music were created in house by the LA Media team.

St Andrews Rippling Waves

In this video, LA Media sent its drone soaring over the rippling waves of St Andrew's historic coastline. In this video, you'll see Scotland's glorious sunshine gleaming like gold on the sea-green waves of the North sea.

Dunnottar Castle

Enjoy some dramatic drone footage LA Media filmed of Scotland's Dunnottar Castle. Located on the edge of the North Sea, the ruins of this historic and once impregnable Scottish cliff-top fortress are uplifting and provide food for the imagination. We've paired the footage with some appropriately dramatic music!

The Highlands

In this video, you'll soar over the rugged mountains of the Highlands. The lush verdant colours of Scotland's landscape and clear skies make this one of our favourite locations. It's hard to feel anything but wowed when you watch this.

Duns Castle & Glen Etive

We hope you enjoy our drone footage of the hauntingly beautiful Glen Etive, which you'll recognise from movies such as Skyfall and Braveheart. Then join us in the Scottish Borders to admire the stunning Duns Castle, which is steeped in over 300 years of Scottish history.

Crawick Multiverse

Have you seen the Crawick Multiverse? It's a stunning globally-renowned landscape in Dumfries and Galloway. Come fly over this inspiring landmark with the LA Media drone team.

Filming Scotland

Scotland is arguably one of the most beautiful places on Earth to film. With its natural beauty, unspoilt rugged landscapes, its abundance of historic castles and stunning cities Scotland is just a fantastic place to film. Due to its unbeatable locations, Scotland has provided the setting for a number of high profile films over the last few years including Fast and Furious, Cloud Atlas and The Dark Knight Rises. 

It is no wonder that in recent years there has been an upsurge in the number of productions opting to come to Scotland to film and taking advantage of our jaw-dropping locations. Scotland’s film industry has evolved dramatically over the last decade and now boasts a cinematic repertoire that attracts some of the biggest names in the business including productions featuring Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson and Daniel Craig.

 

We hope you enjoyed this and maybe got a little inspired! We hope you enjoyed this blog post. Don’t forget to follow us on: TwitterFacebook and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

LA Media was thrilled to be asked once again by MTP, one of Scotland's leading commercial production companies, to come out and do some exciting drone filming. We were asked to film the aerials for a new action-adventure promotion for bottled water brand Highland Spring.

This involved us flying two drones simultaneously in the air. One drone was to be chasing a fearless stuntman over lumpy and treacherous terrain while the other drone was busy catching the train in motion as it crossed the famous and historical Glenfinnan viaduct at the same time. No small feat!

We also worked with the London agency’s visual effects people to achieve a shot from above where the stuntman leaped from a great height onto a green screen inflatable landing area.

This shot would eventually composite to make it look as if the stuntman had jumped onto the moving train we had filmed earlier. Milk Tray Man eat yer heart out!

This shoot was all about timing. We had a narrow window of weather, train availability, and non-gusting winds in which to achieve a series of complex shots.

Drone screen grab from Highland Spring Ad

Image by LA Media  'Drone Filming at Glenfinnan Via Duct'

The Challenges: Two Drones One Train!

On this shoot, the challenges were that we had to fly two drones in the same airspace at the same time without the pilot having a line of sight to each other. So we could see the drones but the two pilots couldn’t see each other. You see how that was a problem. We just had to be extra careful and put more control measures in place.

Getting to the location where they wanted us to fly from was no picnic either. We started on a road below the viaduct and climbed a meandering rough path (over water at times) to reach a sort of base camp.

From this base camp, we went on further up the hills to various locations traveling over bumpy, muddy, boggy-ridden terrain. It was no fun believe us.

At one point Justin vanished up to his knees in a sinking cold bog and had to be rescued by his fellow team members, no easy task! We could have used a few Sherpas and donkeys.

However, the production company we worked with was truly amazing. They did the bulk of the carrying and were helpful in keeping us going. The rain was persistent, the wind was billowing and the train was on a schedule with narrow windows of one hour time for its availability.

Drone screen grab from Highland Spring Ad in Glenfinnan

Image by LA Media 'Drone Filming at Glenfinnan' 

Get that Drone a Sweater!

You may not know this about drone batteries but they don’t like the cold and it was freezing. This meant shorter flight times and more battery changes, which ultimately meant more stress for everyone! Oh, the glamour of show biz!

Despite the weather, the location, and the batteries having a hissy fit we nailed the shots and the production were delighted with the final product.

Fourth Time's the Charm!

So before we rocked up on location three other drone companies had tried and failed (melted their drones) by attempting to fly through the steam of the train! It was -as they say - Scorchio!

Armed with this knowledge of previous attempts we selected our flight path very carefully through the steam. However, it was still a hair-raising experience but luckily our drone survived.

Drone screen grab from Highland Spring Ad Glenfinnan Steam Train

Image by LA Media 'Drone Filming at Glenfinnan Via Duct'

 

It's Going to Be a Bumpy Ride...

Owing to the terrain we couldn’t land the Inspire 1 on the ground. The Vulcan Raven was OK because it had its own landing platform wherever it went. But with the Inspire 1, we resorted to hand launch and hand recovery.

Here’s a handy tip, when recovering by hand make sure you don’t cover up the landing sensors which lower the landing gears. If you do happen to do this you run the risk of having your finger crushed by the landing gear winding mechanism.

Justin found this little handy tip out the hard way and nearly lost his thumb in the process.

Credits

Client: Highland Spring

Agency: Whitespace

Production: MTP

Director: James Brown

Creative: Neil Walker

Drone Pilot: Peter Maughan

Gimbal operators: Justin Adams / Iain White

Location: Glenfinnan Viaduct

Big Star: The Steam Train

 

We hope you enjoyed this blog post! Don’t forget to follow us on: TwitterFacebook and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

LA Media has been at the forefront of commercial drone production since drones have been around. Naturally, we were thrilled to be asked by 422.tv, a Glasgow-based production company, to fly drones over Celtic’s iconic football stadium.

This was a historic first in terms of drones, as previously no other drone operation has been allowed to fly over this hallowed football turf!

Making Celtic Drone History

Built-in 1888, Celtic Park is one of the biggest football stadiums in Europe. This was an exciting and challenging project for us. We were tasked with getting a 180 down shot of Celtic Park using our drones.

Our footage would then be used for the end of a video that 422.tv was directing for the marketing team at Celtic Football Club. Brendan Rodgers, former professional football player, and the current Celtic manager was to be featured in the shot too.

Outside Celtic Park

Image by LA Media  'Outside Celtic Park'

 

Too much steel for GSP Goose, I'm switching to Accro

For this shoot, we used our Inspire 1, mounted with our X5R camera. As mentioned earlier this was the first time a drone had been allowed to film inside the Celtic Stadium. Here are some surprises we encountered on location!

Our first surprise was the interference the metal of the stadium had on our drone’s GPS. This meant that our GPS was unreliable and sporadic. Lucky for us we aren’t dependent on GSP and our drone pilot John Banks is an ace at flying in Accro mode. Therefore, this didn’t present us with a problem but it was something we hadn’t thought of before.

Our second surprise was that the 12mm Olympus prime we had on the camera was not enough to get the full width/length of the stadium - top-down, even from 400ft (our legal height limit). To get the whole picture would have required hiring a helicopter!

We needed to rethink the final shot on our feet!Drone Filming Inside Celtic Park

Image by LA Media 'Drone Filming Inside Celtic Park'

Waste not, want not!

So, while some of the team had a rethink about the final shot, the other half of the team kept working and went to capture GV’s in and around the stadium. These GV’s would be used by the Celtic marketing people in various other marketing projects. However, this threw up another surprise, wind!

We quickly became aware of how the wind would swirl around the seating creating a vortex.Statue outside Celtic Park

Image by LA Media 'Statue Outside Celtic Park' 

Don’t crash into the talent!

The final shot agreed upon was for us to fly towards and then over the head of Brendan Rodgers as he was walking off the park and back towards the player’s tunnel. We were to finish on an end frame showing the Celtic stand. With the untrustworthy GPS and random whirlwinds naturally, all were concerned for Brendan’s safety.

When you add people to the drone mix you need to be on your “A” game as you don’t want anyone getting injured. However, the shot went well, Brendan survived and it was used in the final video to end the film.

We’d like to extend a big thank you to all the staff at Celtic who welcomed us into their sacred ground and to the team at 422.tv for giving us the opportunity to fly for them.

 

We hope you enjoyed this blog post! Don’t forget to follow us on: TwitterFacebook and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

 

 

 

Here at LA Media, we have over 10 years under our belt of creating professional large-scale time-lapse for both the web and broadcast.

From the crafting of giant sand sculptures to the creation of huge buildings, we have time-lapsed numerous projects, both manned and unmanned.

In this blog, we would like to share with you the professional time-lapse tips that we’ve gathered over the years on the various projects we’ve delivered.

Video by LA Media '2016 Time-Lapse Showreel' 

Why use time-lapse?

A time-lapse video is a useful tool for companies. It allows them to showcase ongoing projects over a period of time. Not only is it a versatile marketing tool but it also acts as an archive of the project. There is something incredibly satisfying when watching two years’ worth of work come together smoothly in two minutes.

When you are making a time-lapse there is little wiggle room for mistakes. If you mess up - or the camera fails - you cannot get back the time and progression you've lost.

Say you muck up three months of construction progression footage you can’t really go back to the client and ask them for a do-over.

Simplicity is not so simple to attain!

While time-lapse may look easy, they aren’t so straightforward. It takes real skill to make something look that easy! Apps and auto time-lapse cameras are perfectly good if you are only creating a video for your own personal social media feed. However, if you are looking to show off your brand, company, or work then you will need to invest in something with much higher quality. With our handy time-lapse

Apps and auto time-lapse cameras are perfectly good if you are only creating a video for your own personal social media feed. However, if you are looking to show off your brand, company, or work then you will need to invest in something with much higher quality.

With our handy time-lapse tips, you will learn how to run a practically perfect production!

time-lapse tips

Great Expectations!

Nowadays, you can buy a time-lapse camera that is fully automatic; however, we wouldn’t recommend this, as they often don’t provide you with still photographs. Often, the resulting footage is in a low-resolution format, which can leave the client feeling underwhelmed.

Another major drawback is that you cannot remotely monitor the project with this type of camera. You will have no idea when, and if, something goes wrong until you physically go to check up on the equipment.

Basically, the risk of error is very high with this sort of camera.  Despite all the new technology time-lapse is still an incredibly fragile process: you're only one glitch away from having no product.

Our five time-lapse tips ensure that you can deliver a professional quality final product

 

1. Don't skip the recce

An on-site recce is essential. An extra day for a recce may seem like a faff but it really helps you to establish the challenges of the project. For example, how will the project evolve in terms of size and height? Where will you place the time-lapse installation and will you need special access, security assistance or equipment e.g. cherry picker rental?

This recce ensures all costs are identified allowing you to present the client with an accurate budget for the effort involved.

2. Waterproofing

Come hell or high water, the time-lapse must prevail, so let's talk about weather-proofing. A plastic bag or an umbrella over your camera ain’t gonna cut it. You need to make your own special apparatus. This is basically customising a weatherproof box to protect your equipment.

Inside it needs to have the following: an adjustable mounting position for the camera within it, a glass frontage to allow the camera to see out yet remain protected, weather-proof access for power leads, interior fittings for 4G routers (a telephone connection) & Mac minis. Without this, you are risking the client's product and your equipment.

3. Plan Ahead

After you have the client agreement, you need to think about installing and starting the time-lapse. This process usually takes a day. Wherever the camera is perched it must be secure. Mother nature can be a fickle lady and may just throw all her might at your camera. So plan for the worst but hope for the best, and make sure it is so well secured even Zeus's thunderbolts wouldn't shift it.

4. Do the math!

Time for the maths bit...don't panic it's really simple. The next thing you have to decide is your frame rate: this is determined by the nature of what you are looking at. If it is a construction project i.e. a building, you will want one frame every ten to 15 minutes.

This is a good starting point, but you need to know how long the client wants the overall video to be. Bear in mind that video runs at 25 frames per second of video: this should help you calculate your frame rate. For example, if your client wants 5 minutes of video footage, then you need to capture 1,500 frames just to make one minute of video. Therefore, your five-minute video will require 7,500 frames in total.

On top of all that, make an allowance for frames that you won't use e.g. periods of inactivity such as night-time and weekends. If you are shooting people you need a much higher frame rate. You want people to look smooth in their movement, not like a badly animated gif, as funny as that would be. You’re looking at something like one frame every 0.5 seconds.

Still with us? Don’t panic this is a real mind buster and even in our office we always defer back to our most senior director to do the maths!

5. Get connected

Finally, start the installation on-site and make a phone call back to the base to confirm that the remote monitoring via the 4G router is working.

People often forget to check these small but crucial things. Once everyone is off-site you are pretty much snookered if you haven’t got the connection.

We hope that these time-lapse tips help you on your next shoot!

We hope you've found this blog helpful! Let us know what you think in the comments, tell us if we've missed something out.

 

If you enjoyed this blog don’t forget to follow us on TwitterFacebook, and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

We are so chuffed to officially have contributed to a BAFTA-winning film! In 2015, LA Media was very proud to be asked to provide drone filming for Jason Connery’s latest directorial venture, Tommy’s Honour. Connery is the son of the legendary Scottish actor, Sean Connery. The shots we were asked to deliver were the opening and closing shots of the movie.

We felt a great amount of pressure to get it right because the opening shots would set the tone for the movie. Equally important, the closing shot had to compliment the emotional values established for the end of the movie.

About the BAFTA-winner

The film is perfect for Golf lovers and history buffs as it combines the best of both worlds. Tommy’s Honour is a historical drama film that depicts the tumultuous lives, relationships, and careers of the Scottish golfing champions Old Tom Morris and his son Young Tom Morris, portrayed by Peter Mullan and Jack Lowden respectively. The film focuses on the complex relationship between father and son.

The screenplay was adapted from the 2007 novel, Tommy's Honor: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf's Founding Father and Son written by Kevin Cook. Cook and his wife Pamela Marin worked together to adapt the story to the big screen. This was a real passion project for Jason and that really comes through in the final cut.

All filming took place on location in Scotland, covering over 50 locations including the historic Old Course in St Andrews. Falkirk, Peebles, Edinburgh and Musselburgh are just a few of the locations you’ll be able to recognise in this film. Produced by Gutta Percha Productions, the film also received funding from National Lottery Funding through Creative Scotland’s Screen Production Fund.

Filming BAFTA Award Winning Film Tommy's Honour with Jason Connery

Image by LA Media 'Jason Connery with the LA Media Drone Team' 

 

As part of the production, we felt very proud when the film was nominated and won the Best Feature Film at the 2016 British Academy Scotland Awards. Using our heavy-lift Vulcan Raven with a Gremsy H16 Gimbal, we filmed the opening and closing scenes of the movie in St Andrews using an Arri Alexa Mini camera. We were lucky enough to have director Jason Connery on location with us.

Despite Scotland’s notorious reputation for bad weather, we were blessed with glorious, yet freezing sunshine on the days which we filmed. The sun was glorious with bitingly cold temperatures, we had to crack out our gas heater to avoid going blue. Luckily the crosswinds were very tame and we were able to get all the shots we needed.

 

Be sure to see Tommy’s Honour and let us know what you think of our drone work. We congratulate them on the BAFTA!

If you enjoyed this blog don’t forget to follow us on: TwitterFacebook, and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

 

 

 

Recently we were very pleased to be asked by BBC 2 to capture drone footage of Scotland’s stunning North Sea Coast for the fifth episode of their fascinating new series, The Great Guide. With Neil Oliver and Tessa Dunlop presenting the show takes the viewer on an exclusive guided tour of the North Sea Coast, which spans from the Forth in Scotland to the Humber in England.

Show highlights include the military shipbuilding project at Rosyth, the unique bird colony at Inchmickery, and the historic Holy Island of Lindisfarne. The two presenters provide unique insight and stories about each of the locations. If you do watch it, you’ll no doubt pick up one or two juicy historical goodies.

Drones Photography North Sea Coast Eyemouth Filmed for BBC 2

Image by LA Media 

 

Using our Inspire drone, mounted with a DJI X5R camera, we filmed various locations and were very lucky to enjoy truly beautiful Scottish weather, a rare thing indeed. We did lots of long-distance drone flying to get these shots.

Anyone who knows drones will know that flying a drone at a long distance is one of the hardest ways to fly a drone. It requires a skilled pilot with good battery judgement and nerves of steel, which we are lucky to have in John! If you want to see some of Scotland’s most epic landscapes, then definitely go watch the show on iPlayer while it is available. If you have a keen eye you will be able to spot lots of our lovely aerial footage.

Drones Photography North Sea Coast Forth Road Bridges Filmed for BBC 2

Image by LA Media 

Our fully licensed, two-man drone team, successfully and safely were able to capture footage of the Forth Road Bridges, the Eyemouth Rocks, one of the new Aircraft carriers under construction at the docks in Rosyth, and the bird colony of Inchmickery. There were a few tricky drone shots that we were able to execute but overall it was a great drone flying experience. We certainly learned a few new things, especially about flying drones near top-secret military ships! Luckily, neither Justin nor John ended up in the brig har har har...

Drones Photography North Sea Coast Eyemouth 2 Filmed for BBC 2

Image by LA Media 

 

Project: The Great Coast Guide, Episode 5, Our North Sea Coast

Client: BBC 2

 

This was a unique and amazing project to be a part of and we are really proud of the footage we shot. If you enjoyed this blog don’t forget to follow us on: TwitterFacebook, and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

Earlier this year LA Media provided drone filming for Volvo's campaign for their new V90 Cross Country vehicle.  It was all top secret and ‘hush-hush’ until Volvo had their launch…well, now they have so we can share with you!

 Drone Footage by LA Media 'The New V-90 Cross Country by Volvo' 

 

We were thrilled to be part of this amazing production, which was shot on the stunning Isle of Skye and Glen Etive near Glencoe.

If you have never been to Skye, you should definitely go! Not only is it Scotland’s largest island within the Inner Hebrides, but it is also home to some of Scotland’s most breath-taking and unspoiled landscapes, which is probably why it was voted 4th best island in the World by National Geographic magazine.

drone filming for Volvo

Image by LA Media ‘Drone Following the New V-90 Cross Country’ 

 

Watch the video to see Volvo’s stunning new car but also to take a glorious journey through one of Scotland’s most iconic islands. To achieve these shots, we used an Arri Alexa Mini camera mounted on an advanced brushless GREMSY H16 gimbal, mounted on our heavy-lift multi-rotor UAV, the Vulcan Raven drone.

This was a great shoot with some challenging Scottish weather! A fantastic experience and, as always, a pleasure to work with such a talented group of people!

drone filming for Volvo

Image by LA Media ‘Drone Filming Over the Water’ 

Client: Redwood (Redwood - inspiring content)

Brand: Volvo Cars

Director: Martin Swift

Drone Filming: L.A. Media

Production and Locations: LS Productions

We hope you enjoyed this blog post! Don’t forget to follow us on: TwitterFacebook, and Instagram for your daily dose of media & drone chat!

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

So our latest drone cinematography video is up online on Vimeo, which can be viewed here . This footage was filmed by our drone team at the World Orienteering Championships that were held in the magnificent setting of  Glen Affric, Scotland. To preserve the confidentiality of the route no maps of the route could be provided to the drone team - this meant a lot of people spotting and “on the hoof” creativity for the pilot and director! However we think that the end product was well worth it!!

drone cinematography

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220

Here are some behind-the-scenes pictures of a recent shoot at The Cook School Scotland panto for the King’s Theatre Glasgow. The theme of this shoot was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs meets the Great British Bake Off. It’s a pie-off between Hector the Henchman, the Wicked Queen, and Muddles: with Snow White and Prince Lorenzo as the judges. Justin, our director, enjoyed an unexpected drama school reunion with two of the panto’s stars: Juliet Cadzow as the Wicked Queen & Gregor Ficher as Hector the Henchman. You may know these two from Balamory and Rab C. Nesbit. Lots of pies and puns were had all around: this was a fast-paced but enjoyable shoot.

If you want to see the bravest panto o’ them ‘aw you can buy tickets online

http://www.atgtickets.com/shows/snow-white/kings-theatre/#overview_tab

 

Visit our website lamedia.co.uk and if you have any questions, e-mail us at [email protected] or give us a call on 0131 622 0220