The BCM team has been busy at work on a new documentary about water in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Last week, we partnered with the guys at Yonder Blue Films to do some low altitude cinematography at the F. Wayne Hill Water Treatment Plant in Buford.

Low altitude flight has been a hot topic among flying camera cinematographers, particularly since the FAA seems to be in a holding pattern about how to regulate such crafts. But with experts at the controls, accident-free after hundreds of flights, we can safely obtain detailed low altitude shots that a regular helicopter could never get.

Yonder Blue flies a Cinestar 8 multi-rotor copter they construct themselves. It has a 360-degree camera gimbal to allow for adjusting pitch, rotation and tilt. While the copter pilot — Ben — flies the multi-rotor, Will watches a wireless downlink of the camera feed and adjusts the pitch, rotation and tilt. The team can fly all kinds of cameras; for this particular shoot, the Panasonic GH4 was shooting 4K. They also have lots and lots of batteries, and a field kit for charging them.

By utilizing Yonder Blue’s skill set, we were able to get a camera close to the action to showcase this state of the art facility in Georgia.