The film industry in Cape Town is on par with the world’s best. It’s grown over the last 15 years to rival top locations around the world with its climate, talent, and cost-effectiveness, with over 50 major productions shot in Cape Town between the years 2003–2007 alone, and more than 20 major productions in 2008. Drones are frequently utilized in the Cape Town film industry in a variety of ways, by replicating what cranes and helicopters used to be used for in film, in a cheaper and less obtrusive way.
Films like Maze Runner: The Death Cure and Black Panther, both of which were partly filmed in South Africa, highlight some incredible drone work that local pilots have done. We spoke with two local film professionals, Rob Weidner and Andrew Pollock, who have worked on productions such as Black Panther and Maze Runner, through their employer, Timeslice Cinematography. We sat down and asked them some questions regarding their work with using drones in Cape Town.
Q: What films have you worked on? Tell us about that experience.
Rob Weidner: I worked on Maze Runner: The Death Cure (via Timeslice Cinematography) which was awesome. It was a massive production, so they constantly had 3–4 cameras on the ground. That was great because I was given the opportunity to sit with the director, Wes Ball, and have conversations about what he was trying to achieve with the movie. Another introduction of mine to aerial work was on Black Panther (via Timeslice Cinematography). I spent two weeks in South Africa, a week in Zambia, and a week or two in Uganda working on the movie, doing camera work from drones and helicopters. It gave me an eye-opening introduction to the potential of large scale aerial videography. I also assisted on Tomb Raider in the helicopter units and it was because of that movie that I decided that aerial filming was the space that I wanted to ultimately end up in.
Q: How did you get into this field?
Rob Weidner: I’ve been working in the film industry for about 10 years and about 2 years ago is when I started doing aerial work. Although I work in the film and creative industry, my educational background is in computer science and a lot of the aerial work deals with highly complex computer based systems and electronic systems. Since you don’t have your hand on the camera, you must communicate what you want to film using the tools of controlling your aircraft and your camera.
Q: Advice for budding drone pilots who’d like to follow in your footsteps?
Rob Weidner: It’s a very interesting time right now for remotely piloted aircraft systems. Due to how fast the technology is advancing it’s becoming easier to buy something and fly it, which is great. I think it’s a very good thing for the industry, but my advice for potential pilots is to make sure you understand the rules and regulations and always stay on top of them because they change quite a bit and are different depending on your location.
Q: How can we use drones to produce work that empowers citizens and helps the community involved?
Rob Weidner: I think the work that africanDRONE is doing is awesome in terms of raising awareness among the everyday civilian and using drones to tell stories. If you put a drone in the sky around sunset and film a mountain range, it’s going to be beautiful, and that’s part of the reason why I got into the aerial space. But I think we, as the aerial operators in South Africa and around the world, have a responsibility to not only use these tools to produce beautiful images, but to take it a step further and tell stories with them, which is ultimately what we’re hired to do and what we should be doing.
Storytelling is a fundamental part of humankind and I don’t think we should lose the art of storytelling just because whatever we are showing happens to be from a beautiful or unique perspective. I think we should always be thinking, ‘How can we not only tell this story as beautifully as possible but how can we tell it more efficiently to convey these images in the way we intended the story to be understood?’ And, you know, people always have their opinion on something which is the beauty of art, so, the better you can tell the story, the better the conversation you can spark from that story. I think, ultimately, getting back to a fundamental point of view is what we want to achieve.
Q: Hi, Andrew. What films have you worked on? Talk about that experience?
Andrew Pollock: The bigger films I’ve worked on are Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Red Sea Diving Resort and 24 Hours to Live (via Timeslice Cinematography). It was a great experience shooting on such a big budget production. It can sometimes be quite high pressure but generally on the bigger productions you have more resources available and are normally given more than enough time to prepare. Working on big productions, while sometimes being stressful, can also be very rewarding as you get the opportunity to shoot things on a bigger scale.
Q: What gear are you using?
Andrew Pollock: On those productions, we were generally flying a Freefly Systems Alta 8 with a MoVi Pro, and an Alexa Mini with a variety of lenses. On Maze Runner, we shot mostly at night, so we used Zeiss super speeds quite a bit. We have a limited payload on the drone, so we have to be quite conscious of what lenses we can fly.
Q: Any interesting or crazy stories from set?
Andrew Pollock: I filmed a guy water-skiing behind an airplane in Mexico, I have flown from cars, boats and even landed a drone on a moving train once. On Maze Runner: The Death Cure, I flew through a 25m high fireball for a VFX shot which was an interesting moment.
Q: What do you think drones bring to the multimedia scene?
Andrew Pollock: Drones are a relatively affordable way to get an aerial perspective for photos and video. In filmmaking, they sit somewhere between a camera crane and a helicopter. They open options and ways of moving a camera that were not possible before. While they have already made a big impact on filmmaking, I think it’s in other areas like surveying, mapping, inspections and other industrial uses where they are going to start to have a big impact.
Timeslice Cinematography is one of South Africa’s leading aerial production companies. You can view Rob Weidner’s work on his website and stay up to date with what he’s currently doing on his Now page. Check out some of the movies Andrew Pollock was involved with to view his work, like Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Red Sea Diving Resort and 24 Hours to Live.