Establishing FPV drone shots for Hospitality Weekend in the Woods 2021

FPV DronesEvents
Written By Michael Woods

Wes from Alpha Lab Studios — cinematographers for Hospitality, the events arm of UK drum and bass label Hospital Records — hired us to shoot establishing drone footage of their Weekend In The Woods festival in London’s Beckenham Place Park.

I love capturing FPV sequences which open promotional videos in a way that stops people’s thumbs from scrolling, and I just so happen to be a DnB fan, too!

The team asked us to shoot in the Apple ProRes 422 LQ codec, which balances sharp visuals with efficient file compression — easy to work with, and matched the quality of Alpha Lab’s ground cameras.

We could have also recorded at 6K in BRAW (Blackmagic RAW) for this project, or even strapped on a Komodo Dragon if we wanted to push for even sharper quality!

A high-resolution DSLR camera mounted on a heavy-lifting drone, positioned atop a tree stump
A high-resolution DSLR camera mounted on a heavy-lifting drone, held in a person’s hands
A high-resolution DSLR camera mounted on a heavy-lifting drone, held in a person’s hands

I finalised our flights plans and risk/method statements, prepped ‘Megatron’ (our trusty heavy-duty cinelifter), and hit the road in the van with Jonathan.

We parked up in a secluded spot in the woods outside the festival boundaries and found an opening in the canopy to help ensure we retained signal while flying over the treetops.

A plane flying overhead against a blue-grey sky, as seen through the green canopy of some treetops

Wes watched our shots in real-time on remote monitors while we mastered the acrobatic angles which would reveal the lively festival at the start of the video.

We had a megaphone on hand in case we had to notify anyone nearby about takeoff and landing procedures, but nobody outside our control came near while we were airborne!

A drum and bass act performing on stage with a singer in the front and some emcees on DJ equipment in the back, looking out over a crowd. The stage is lit by blue and yellow lights, and there’s a towering robot in the background.
A drum and bass act performing on stage at a festival called Hospitality in the Woods
A man posing in front of a large sign illuminated by blue and green bulbs. The sign depicts the letter ‘H’, and the man is pointing up at the sign with both hands.
A drum and bass act performing on stage at a festival called Hospitality in the Woods, with an illuminated sign which says ‘Hospitality’ shining through the smoke emitted by pyrotechnic effects

Once we’d nailed the establishing footage, we donned our press passes and headed into the festival ourselves. Backstage was louder than 100 drones taking off at once! The Hospitality in the Woods crew gave us nifty keyrings: protective earbuds in a neat little case. I still carry them around with me today.

We ate, drank, had a little dance, snapped some stills, and ensured that Wes and the team had all our files transferred to their drives before we headed home. All in all, a fantastic day!

After a short period of eager anticipation, we saw that Hospitality in the Woods had posted their event’s after-movie online. Wes absolutely knocked it out of the park with the edit! Watch it at the top of this blog post. Huge gratitude to Alpha Lab Studios for bringing us on board for such an exciting project.

Michael Woods
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