Port of Melbourne drone

When the Port of Melbourne calls, you answer! We’re blown away with how the video footage and photography turned out for this shoot. This shoot was a fun one and involved plenty of pre-production juggling to ensure once we got to site, all our drone pilot had to do was show up on time and fly the drone. 

Drone video highlights for the Port of Melbourne

We were working with a few different logistical questions, as the client requested multiple locations to capture the full scope of the project. As a result, there were lots of permissions and sign offs to seek, even confirming with Ports Victoria that the right ships will be in the right docks for requested shots.

Our client came to us prepared with most of our flight zones already estimated, providing us with a really clear vision of the final product they were after. The biggest juggling act however was the where and when. Because there were multiple locations, it meant that we had to account for travel time in between but also what was wanting to be shot at each location, and would this occur at the time we had scheduled. It required some back and forth, but overall it allowed us to finetune the specifics and the outcome are these beautiful stills and video.

Working with large outdoor areas, particularly for drone, requires consulting with the weather gods. It can be nerve wracking when the client has a hard deadline for delivery and the shoot is a large scale outdoor area; booking in a date can become a flimsy process. With drone, it’s important to account for winds, as we legally cannot fly during high winds but also for cloud cover as you want the image to be as crisp and well lit as it can. 

A lot of our pre-production for the Port of Melbourne shoot took place in real time, as the first day of shooting we had scheduled turned out to be cloudy and overcast all morning. Our drone pilot, Noellie, had to play it by ear, watching the weather and amending the schedule as it (thankfully) slowly cleared into a sunny afternoon. It threw the original plan out the window and caused us to adapt on the fly, which can be tricky when working with client schedules. 

Thankfully, we could still get this shoot completed on our scheduled days and deliver the final result swiftly, by our clients requested deadline.