=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 307 ===
Title: LDO 307 - Tommy Tibajia UmmaGawd Catch Up!
Recorded: 2021-07-15
Hosts: Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Andrew "Frank" Hyams, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Tony "TheTonstar1" Marchant
Guest(s): Tommy "ummagawd" Tibajia
Total audience: 2,543
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2rEkK_8TLc); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1089170959-letsdroneout-ldo-307-tommy-tibajia-ummagawd-catch-up.mp3)
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Tommy's links

https://ummagawd.com/
https://www.instagram.com/ummagawd/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ummagawdFPV

[23.41] Jack: let's drone out. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Oled's drone out. Tonight
[59.15] Jack: you are joined by everyone's favorite curry kitten. Hello. Our guest for tonight, Tommy. Oh my god.
[67.87] Tommy: You need to say. Oh, I'm supposed to say something. Maybe I shouldn't have said something in Spanish
[72.35] Jack: but what's up? No, it helps because obviously it goes on to iTunes and everyone who just listens
[78.11] Jack: to it just audio need to know who's talking. Ah, I keep forgetting about that. That's all right, man.
[87.39] Jack: My little wife. Why do I have to answer to that bombshell? You don't have to. You can tell me to f**k off.
[94.19] Jack: Well, yes. Hello. Hello. Lord and master Andrew Tefranc. Hello.
[107.55] Jack: I know I'm bright until I fly. Hello. Good evening. Welcome all. Tommy, the hot topic I need to know
[116.75] Jack: the reason why I've invited you on is did your desk dry? So if you were watching this live on
[126.83] Jack: YouTube on 8pm, you'd see that Tommy has got like a lovely studio behind him. That's what he's kind
[134.67] Tommy: of like blowing all his right money on. No, it's been I mean, like it's dry. It's technically
[144.03] Tommy: dry. Like I could, you know, it's just it doesn't have the durability that was promised to me when
[153.07] Tommy: I did hours and hours of research on epoxy. And so it's dry. It's just one of those things where
[160.27] Tommy: like I don't know if you notice but like I put these little foam pads because if I set something
[163.87] Tommy: on there that's heavy enough and leave it there long enough, it'll indent its way in. It's really
[169.71] Tommy: weird. But if you touch it right now, like it's it's fine. It's just, you know, I don't know,
[176.11] Tommy: when I when I put it out on YouTube and asked for comments, they're like, Oh, maybe the mixture
[180.03] Tommy: wasn't right. Maybe the temperature wasn't right. There's a whole list of things that it could be,
[185.63] Tommy: but it's it's now how many months later. And it still looks pretty pretty. Yeah, it looks really
[195.31] Tommy: pretty. But it's starting to get to the point where I'm like, you know, I had a buddy come over
[200.11] Tommy: here, we were working on something and he started he just said something. Wait, wait, wait, wait,
[203.47] Tommy: wait, hold on. We got to we got to put this nap and like, this is a workbench. And I was like, it
[210.75] Tommy: is but it's a nice one that didn't cure properly. So now we got to take care of it.
[217.31] Jack: So like, my only advice to you is I done a bit of like resin casting for my my fire
[224.03] Jack: category, which means I know shit. But if I if I was you, I'd go see someone who does like, you
[233.31] Jack: know, fiberglassing of boats or something to get some sort of hardener, because with with resin,
[240.27] Jack: like, if it's a certain amount of if it's a thick amount of resin, you reduce the amount of hardener
[247.71] Jack: because it can, you know, that it's a dynamic reaction, gets hot, it warps stuff out of place
[253.15] Jack: and all be on fire. But it sounds to me like there wasn't enough hardener in there.
[259.87] Tommy: And I'm wondering, it was it was it was a one to one ratio, right? So I followed directions to the
[267.31] Tommy: tea. It was like, all right, you pour this one first, and then you pour the other whole like I
[272.43] Tommy: didn't portion it out. It was like, yeah, use the whole thing. And I mixed it up the way they said,
[278.75] Tommy: I should mix it up. And I waited the amount of time is the only thing I didn't do was take a
[282.75] Tommy: thermometer to it, because I was like, well, I don't really have a thermometer to stick in there
[288.35] Tommy: to see the 98 degrees that it needed to be before I started pouring it. But they everything else
[293.31] Tommy: said, but if you just wait six minutes of just stirring, pour it into another bucket, do another
[298.43] Tommy: six minutes of stirring after then should be good to go. So I reckon it's a too big of a desk
[306.51] Jack: and it's too thin of a coat. And I reckon if you were to use the poly polyurethane,
[313.71] Jack: yeah, the polyurethane, the one with the concentrated hardener line because you could
[318.83] Jack: then add more to it. I don't believe in the 5050s. I looked at the polyurethane because I was I was
[325.23] Tommy: ready to pour another coat on this. And I look into the polyurethane. But like when I looked at
[329.39] Tommy: all the pictures of those drying up, like it had like some really like, well, it's not bad. It's
[335.15] Tommy: bad to me because I want to like smooth this glass like this. But it had a lot of like,
[339.23] Tommy: most of the stuff I was seeing had like an orange peel texture to it. So I was kind of
[344.51] Tommy: shying away from re pouring with with the polyurethane. I don't know if you know anything more.
[350.03] Jack: Yeah, that's that's too much heat, I think, or too much catalyst. So I believe you can get water glass.
[358.51] Jack: I'm so sorry, five minutes of pure. Let's try and fix Tommy's desk.
[363.79] Tony: I was trying to segue into the 5050 and try to say Fiddy.
[368.35] Tommy: Too Fiddy. Too Fiddy. How's that going?
[375.95] Tommy: Really, really well. I honestly wasn't sure what to expect out of that. It was really more just to
[382.67] Tommy: kind of set the tone and kind of set a pace for what is as at least as of right now inevitably
[390.11] Tommy: coming over at least to us here in the United States, which is the whole 250 gram deal. And
[396.35] Tommy: it's been really well. I've been having a hard time keeping it in stock. The one thing I will
[401.47] Tommy: say, though, that I'm kind of actually happy about is that nobody or not actually nobody,
[406.91] Tommy: not a whole lot of people are building it to the 250 gram spec that I had, you know,
[412.59] Tommy: based that entire project around. So most people are actually running a bigger battery, they're
[416.59] Tommy: throwing naked GoPros or some people are putting full on GoPros on there. And it's doing pretty
[421.87] Tommy: well. But I did do all my testing and design it like right around that 300 gram mark. That's
[427.63] Tommy: personally what I like to fight with. It just feels better at that weight. But, you know,
[433.31] Tommy: again, the whole thing is just to kind of start getting the ball rolling towards this
[438.03] Tommy: imminent future that we have of this requirement or ceiling or cap or whatever have you.
[444.91] Jack: So is this part of the reason why you acquired new premises or is that something else? Are you
[453.23] Tommy: able to talk about that? No, absolutely. I'm actually really stoked because like I never
[458.91] Tommy: thought that day would come. So yeah, no, like the whole the brand and the immigrant company
[466.83] Tommy: really for the longest time was just this garage and then my buddy Ryan's garage. So over here is
[473.87] Tommy: where everything would get built and obviously all like the marketing and just like shooting
[477.63] Tommy: videos and the testing because I got my little park across the street. But then like all of the
[484.03] Tommy: R&D, you know, cutting out prototypes and and printing things and all that would happen at
[489.79] Tommy: my buddy Ryan's house. And for the longest time, fulfillment was out of there also, right? So when
[497.23] Tommy: you're starting out small, just like anything else, you just like I just do it out of the garage. I
[501.55] Tommy: don't need to park my car in the garage. And we do it that way. And then like slowly that turned
[506.83] Tommy: into more of a full time deal. And then for Ryan, that turned into hiring child labor to do some
[514.19] Tommy: packing, right? You know, and then that started rolling from the garage into the living room and
[522.11] Tommy: then the living room into the kitchen, the kitchen started becoming a pack, you know, and this is
[526.51] Tommy: huge domino effect. And sometime, you know, last year or a year and a half ago, we decided like,
[533.39] Tommy: all right, let's just we're at a point where this is just becoming too much because now we can't
[538.91] Tommy: pack and fulfill orders and ask to answer customer service emails and do all the other things that
[545.07] Tommy: we're doing. So then we hired a third party fulfillment and we had some growing pains there
[549.47] Tommy: because they just know how to pick pack and ship things. However, sometimes they don't know,
[555.55] Tommy: especially in our industry, sometimes you kind of got to know the difference between a Caddx
[559.47] Tommy: and cam versus a Caddx Vista, right? Those are, those are two very different priced items. And for
[567.71] Tommy: like the longest times, you know, like those mistakes were happening. And thank goodness,
[571.79] Tommy: most of our customers are honest enough to say, Hey, I ordered an ant cam, right? An $18 camera,
[577.63] Tommy: but I got this Caddx Vista that's worth 150. And I mean, things got better. But eventually,
[585.47] Tommy: what happened is that like, we started outgrowing that and, you know, they're saying like, well,
[590.83] Tommy: you're you're taking up way more space than our original contract, you've exceeded the number of
[595.23] Tommy: orders that we're supposed to be doing. So they want to renegotiate contracts and all that stuff.
[600.51] Tommy: And Ryan, I decided like, you know what, let's just take that next big leap. Let's just let's
[605.79] Tommy: just get our own spot. And so that's what we've been doing for like the last few months. And
[610.67] Tommy: why I've been just kind of social media dark. Well, I've also been doing a lot of like
[614.99] Tommy: filming work, but it was just every day that I was free, we would go out and start visiting,
[620.83] Tommy: you know, office spaces and work warehouses to see what would fit the bill. But so
[628.91] Tommy: bless unfortunate that we've, we've, we finally found something we started moving in last week.
[634.35] Tommy: And the goal is to do everything in house now, right? Because that was one of the things that
[640.43] Tommy: I mean, I'm sure you guys are familiar, but that's one of the things that's been
[644.99] Tommy: a problem is, you know, we, first of all, it's a huge deal and undertaking to just find a good
[651.71] Tommy: manufacturer, right? There's just so many things that can happen. And if you follow my story with
[656.83] Tommy: the remix, like it's everything from a clone copy of your stuff getting leaked out to not getting
[663.87] Tommy: things for XYZ reasons. And that's something that I wanted to really fix. And the answer to that was
[670.83] Tommy: to take it all in house. So that's, that's what we're pivoting towards is just doing everything
[677.47] Tommy: in house and being able to say that not only do we design it out here in the United States,
[681.71] Tommy: but we also now manufacture it and kind of, I don't want to say give, you know, out overseas
[689.87] Tommy: manufacturing around for the money, but I just want to be able to start saying, Hey, look, man,
[693.71] Tommy: we're, we're, we're just doing everything in house and we're that much closer to QC. And
[698.27] Tommy: I just want to continue to deliver like a really good product
[701.71] Tommy: worthy of putting that I'm a god stamp on it.
[705.39] Jack: Yeah. Um, we just got to read the disclaimer, uh, here, uh, let's run out. We do not endorse
[711.23] Jack: child labor. Curry, any views?
[715.95] Tommy: I mean, you know, we feed them, you know, we let them take it. It's all good.
[721.79] Curry: Quick, quick, Gary.
[724.11] Curry: Yeah, we don't endorse. Well, I've got a daughter. I try and make a do stuff for free. It doesn't
[728.99] Curry: work. You have to give them pizza and chocolate and all sorts. Yeah. So would you say that, um,
[736.51] Curry: I mean, I think it's quite exciting that you're moving towards manufacturing because I think
[739.71] Curry: there's a whole customer base that does appreciate that it's going to be made in the US and wants to
[745.47] Curry: support that sort of business instead of going overseas where it might be cheaper. But do you
[749.55] Curry: think the biggest hassle in all of this is the logistics? Is it literally getting the stuff and
[753.47] Curry: shipping it to people and the hassle of that? Or is it? They've got priority mail though,
[758.03] Jack: they can literally load those little boxes up with so much. They don't do anything by weight.
[763.39] Tommy: They're loving it. He's loving life right now. Yeah. I haven't found, I haven't found the
[771.07] Tommy: fulfillment side of things to be a problem. It was when it was us and it started to get
[774.99] Tommy: just intense and which is why we hired a third party, uh, you know, service to handle that for
[780.67] Tommy: us. But what's been absolutely killing us lately is supply and demand. So we, our supply, you know,
[787.95] Tommy: our demand keeps increasing, but the lead times on supply keeps increasing. And you know, we just
[794.43] Tommy: kind of got our hands tied behind our backs and people are emailing us every day. I'm like, Hey,
[798.51] Tommy: we ordered this however long ago and when is it going to ship? And we're doing it first in,
[803.79] Tommy: first out, but you know, when then we hit up the manufacturing, they're like, Oh, X, Y, Z happened.
[809.87] Tommy: And now we're adding another two to three weeks to the lead time. Like it just, you know, it kills
[815.39] Tommy: us. And now we have to go back on our word to the customer and be like, Hey, I know we told you two
[821.23] Tommy: weeks last time, uh, but now this is happening. And I, you know, to me, it's just, it's just worth
[827.87] Tommy: trying to figure out how to manufacture all in house, which, which I'm confident we could do
[832.75] Tommy: because it's really just a change of workflow and settings. Cause we have CNCs, um, and printers,
[839.31] Tommy: but they're all set up for rapid prototyping and just being able to bang out, you know, a prototype.
[844.35] Tommy: So we just need to change things up a little bit so that it's, instead of banging stuff,
[847.63] Tommy: they're not really fast. It's, it's, it's cutting out a whole batch of things all at once.
[853.63] Frank: That's cool throughput instead of lead time, always fun times, but at least you, you know,
[860.75] Frank: there's a good problem to have, but if the problem is how quickly can we make this thing
[866.03] Frank: because people want to buy it, that's a good problem to have. Yeah, absolutely. You know,
[871.47] Tommy: and it's, it's just always, you know, and I don't, I'm not going to name any manufacturers,
[877.55] Tommy: but like it's also been a problem where we tried to solve it by going, finding another manufacturer
[883.71] Tommy: and then we just find out that the quality isn't there, you know? And so for instance, you know,
[888.83] Tommy: with the 250 specifically, we had a batch, you know, when the manufacturing came back and said,
[893.95] Tommy: Hey, sorry, things are going to increase. We just scrambled to go find another one. And when we got
[899.15] Tommy: the act, you know, we got the samples, the samples look good. It's the classic being switched. Don't
[904.91] Tommy: we get the production and we're putting it together and like, why is there so much slop?
[910.43] Tommy: You know, like everything's just so loose. And we found out it's because the carbon that they're
[915.39] Tommy: using was just massively undersized, like way more undersized than what you're typically used
[920.59] Tommy: to in variances, right? Normally it's like between 0.05 to 0.1 millimeter difference,
[926.03] Tommy: but from this specific company, it was up to like 0.2, 0.15. And when you have a design
[932.67] Tommy: where you're using tabs and slots, that becomes super important. And so, you know, that, that
[939.23] Tommy: messes up because we got that and as a whole production and we went back to him like, Hey,
[943.23] Tommy: this, this is, this is not what it was. And unfortunately they didn't really want to do
[947.39] Tommy: anything about it, not even give us credit. So that's like something that we just had to eat.
[951.39] Tommy: And that was, at least for me, the line, you know, I was drawing the line there. I was like,
[955.47] Tommy: we can't, we can't deal with this anymore. We just need to take everything to ourselves and
[960.19] Tommy: figure it out, you know, to again, ensure QC because that's, that's a big monetary expense
[968.67] Tommy: or mistake that we, we can't get back and, you know, just kind of lesson learned, so to speak.
[975.39] Frank: Absolutely. I mean, the, the difference, the different varieties of carbon fiber are like huge.
[983.63] Frank: I mean, even like the, I mean, it's kind of assumed because all you see in quads is that
[989.71] Frank: it all comes with like a nice glossy, like smooth, flat finish. And that's, that's actually quite a
[995.87] Frank: specific type of carbon fiber finish that if you just go to a place that makes carbon fiber and say,
[1001.23] Frank: I want a sheet of carbon fiber, you'll just have something that's like bumpy and weavy and just
[1006.27] Tommy: like a bit of fabric with some plastic smushed in. Oh, 100%. If you were to go up to a carbon fiber,
[1014.99] Tommy: I'll just call it manufacturer press, whatever, like, and you say you want something, you know,
[1020.35] Tommy: most other, if you're not educated enough, you know, they'll just kind of give you what
[1027.07] Tommy: is kind of standard or typical. But really, if you're in the know, they'll have a whole
[1031.63] Tommy: page of questions for you, like, all right, like, what's the weave type, you know, what's the
[1036.43] Tommy: crosshatch pattern? You know, should it be quasi-acetropic or, you know, and if you don't know
[1041.55] Tommy: that, then they'll ask you a question differently. Well, in what direction do you need this carbon
[1045.71] Tommy: fiber to be strong, right? And that all comes down into the weave, you know, so I most most
[1051.47] Tommy: carbon fiber that I think most drone manufacturers use is quasi quasi-acetropic, which just means
[1057.63] Tommy: it's strong in in the 90 degree, right? So strong this way and a strong that way. Some people are
[1063.15] Tommy: starting to experiment with even the 45 now. So it's strong this way, this way and this way.
[1069.55] Tommy: But there's a trade off, right? Because you're still you're trading off fiber weaves in one
[1075.55] Tommy: direction for another. So what that means is it's stronger here now, but it's also less strong in
[1080.51] Tommy: this direction in this direction. And these are all like the, you know, my buddy Ryan can talk
[1086.03] Tommy: about this all day, because he used to be a material composites engineer, which is why I
[1090.91] Tommy: befriended because I'd be like, hey, but it's what you know, it's who you know, it gets it gets
[1098.59] Tommy: really interesting, we could absolutely geek out to it. But you know, I think most people should
[1103.47] Tommy: understand that not not all carbon fiber is created equal. Even what you see on the outside,
[1108.59] Tommy: that could just be the outer layers. And then what's sandwiched in between completely something
[1112.91] Jack: completely different. Can you spell quasi? Can you say it, Jack? Yeah, cool. Tony.
[1126.91] Jack: Can you do it? No, what is it cause?
[1130.27] Tommy: quasi isotropic is o t r o o p i c quasi isotropic. Yeah.
[1140.99] Jack: Okay. Never knew that there's something new I've learned today.
[1146.75] Tommy: This is why I try to avoid because then I'm going to sound like a super nerd and geek and
[1150.99] Jack: like, that's why we're here. That's why we have you on. We learn stuff. You know, now you're not
[1161.87] Jack: doing like the segments online have them while your ESCs or make your own fat shark battery out
[1168.99] Jack: of 18650s. We need this knowledge. You've been social media. I've been keeping my like BDI on
[1178.91] Jack: you. And I've stopped doing the one to ones. I was like, man, I must catch up with you because like,
[1183.55] Jack: you start you had like a little tour of the space that you had. And I was like, man, he must be
[1187.55] Jack: planning something real big. It's like I was like, you can't have had enough drones to start opening
[1192.91] Jack: a meth lab. It's like a perfect meth lab size, not that I would know, but you know, serious space.
[1202.91] Tommy: I mean, I yeah, you know, I mean, we, we, we did the math. And, you know, it starts with just
[1210.11] Tommy: obviously us and increasing the QC that we got for us. But like, the space is big enough to where
[1216.03] Tommy: I absolutely have plans to and would love to, you know, provide services for other, you know,
[1223.79] Tommy: join me or join producers or people trying to make friends and things like that. Because I remember
[1228.43] Tommy: when I first came out, it was, you know, the options was slim. And you just kind of had to
[1233.23] Tommy: figure out if you wanted to make your own frame, you know, and I can absolutely be close to that
[1238.35] Tommy: because like, when I wanted to make my own frame, it wasn't to sell it, it was just I just wanted my
[1244.35] Tommy: own frame. Like I, you know, I knew what I wanted after a couple years of building these things and
[1249.07] Tommy: flying it. And it just so happened that other people wanted to, to buy it. And so I can't help
[1254.83] Tommy: but feel like there's other people out there in similar boats, or maybe even farther along that
[1259.23] Tommy: process. And they do want to sell things. But they haven't figured out how to pick pack and ship,
[1264.03] Tommy: they don't haven't figured out the customer service or the whatever. Like my, my goal is to
[1269.95] Tommy: help out the guys that that want to march on a similar path and kind of learn from my mistakes,
[1275.63] Jack: so to speak. That's cool. You're an asset to the whole thing, man, you really are. I don't know
[1281.15] Jack: whether you feel like it most days, but you know, I'm just annoyed that you can't get on my grip
[1290.43] Jack: from in both RC forever. Like, I can't, I feel like a hassle in way too much. So much so when
[1304.11] Jack: I get out of isolation, I need to like send him a package of like nice things to be like, I'm so
[1308.91] Tony: sorry about me. Constantly sending packages to people, aren't you apologizing? Yeah, I know.
[1317.63] Jack: It's not too bad. I sent one to old fruity bear recently. He was he was out in the countryside.
[1326.59] Frank: If you listen to this fruity bear. I'm just looking back through the chat. Grumpy FPV was asking if
[1334.83] Frank: you'll be getting any US UK suppliers to stock your frames. Yeah. Yeah, I meant tech shop, but
[1344.91] Tommy: they're out apparently. Yeah, we've been like slowly picking out some shops overseas that,
[1352.59] Tommy: you know, we think would be a good representative. I can't name them off the top of my head. Unman is
[1358.03] Tommy: definitely one of them. But we are we're also there's this guy named Mike McCutcheon, who lives
[1365.15] Tommy: out in the UK. And he reached out to us a while back, because during the pandemic, you know,
[1371.55] Tommy: lost the job and things like that, not to get up in this business, but he offered to kind of warehouse
[1376.67] Tommy: some of our stuff and, and things like that. So him, in addition to finding some other people,
[1382.43] Tommy: like we're definitely trying to figure out how to get products out there, even if he takes on
[1387.23] Tommy: manufacturing, that could be like another way to be cost effective. Also, while because I trust him
[1392.35] Tommy: to to be able to do like good cuts and keep the key see. So that 100%. I think we're always trying
[1399.07] Tommy: to try and do that. I think it's just a matter of finding the right people to link up with.
[1404.99] Tony: Have you got any got any more quads in your mind that might make turn into real stuff?
[1413.63] Tommy: Oh, my gosh, yes, I just just a matter of figuring out what I'm going to focus on.
[1420.59] Tommy: Um, so that I would say the next there's two things that I oh, should I talk about it though?
[1428.27] Tommy: No, I don't care. I, you know, if this is like a year ago, I'd probably be all secretive about it.
[1439.79] Tommy: But you know, the people that are going to copy it or clone it are they're going to do it no matter
[1445.07] Tommy: what. And, and if someone's going to do it better than me, then whatever, I think that's just all
[1450.75] Tommy: part of innovation and things like that. So, so screw it. I'll talk about it. At least this is a
[1456.27] Jack: recording event to prove that you've come up with it first. Gotcha. Three and a half inch, did you
[1463.47] Tommy: Yeah, you know, I, I really, so I always drive my product stuff from two ways. It's either whatever
[1471.15] Tommy: I'm into at the moment, or what I need. And then the second thing is, is I feel like we're at a
[1476.83] Tommy: place where I could really listen to what, you know, people out there want, right people that,
[1482.59] Tommy: you know, follow the brand. And I like, you know, we really want XYZ. And so one of those things
[1488.59] Tommy: that just continually come up is three and a half inch. And I believe this is, you know,
[1493.95] Tommy: becoming more popular from folks like Chris Rosser, Ciati. And, and then I think it's also
[1500.99] Tommy: being driven by the fact that we all know that this whole 250 gram thing is kind of coming.
[1505.71] Tommy: And the desire for something that feels like your typical five inch freestyle quad. And so
[1515.31] Tommy: Rosser and a couple other guys kind of did the math and figured out that three and a half
[1519.15] Tommy: inches that proper, prop surface disc area to weight ratio. And so I that's, that's what we're
[1528.27] Tommy: working on next. We're, I was chatting with Ciati. And this is something that like, I don't have,
[1535.95] Tommy: I don't fly three and a half inch, I haven't. And so this is something where when I don't have that
[1542.67] Tommy: enough experience to feel comfortable just calling out, you know, what the design requirements are,
[1547.15] Tommy: this is when I reach out to other people who are in it, who have been in it long enough to know
[1552.35] Tommy: what is desirable and what's not. And so I've been working with Ciati on a, on a power setup,
[1558.51] Tommy: we're going to have a whole new power setup for a three and a half inch, as well as just not a far
[1565.31] Tommy: departure from what you're used to seeing, but a three and a half inch frame design built around
[1570.03] Frank: that entire project idea. This episode was recorded in front of a live online audience,
[1576.11] Frank: downloaded and edited to make sense when it played audio only, censored to please the iTunes people
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[1598.35] Jack: Do you still fly emergency stuff or are you done? Are you moved on to your own frames?
[1605.87] Tommy: So are you just talking about frames specifically?
[1609.15] Jack: Yeah, the Vorta. Are you like done with that? Are you because like I haven't seen the release
[1613.71] Tommy: anything else or? Yeah, I haven't. I haven't flown an IRC frame. Framing a long time.
[1624.35] Tommy: And I, and I, most of that is just the whole, you know, what's, what's out there and what's new.
[1630.43] Tommy: And a lot of that has to do with just me of always wanting to see what's new and what's out there.
[1635.55] Tommy: In addition to like what, what I'm doing, which right now is just a lot of the whole scintilla stuff.
[1641.71] Tommy: Hmm. So, but no, I haven't flown it. Although I still have all that stuff here because all
[1647.47] Tommy: that stuff is near and dear to me. My, uh, my mountain. Can you see it? It's explained
[1657.71] Frank: for the audio listeners, like a huge, like what?
[1662.27] Frank: Two meter, three meter sort of wide board.
[1666.91] Frank: Just it's all very nice matte black with a load of like sidelighting. Looks very, very pretty.
[1675.47] Tony: More than a work surface, Tommy.
[1678.43] Tommy: You know, I know what's crazy is that's literally just like a third of, uh,
[1684.03] Tommy: of my collection now. We built all of this. I figured out that I needed to kind of prune out
[1690.51] Tommy: my collection. So like the other two thirds is, uh, I think my buddy wants to do some type of
[1695.95] Tommy: like raffle, like giveaway deal. And then the rest of it's going to go to the new spot for decoration.
[1702.51] Frank: Nice. So how many of these do you like still fly? Like, is it just two of them you fly and the rest
[1709.39] Tommy: are all there for show or like, yeah. So everything now back there is because they are like sentimental
[1718.59] Tommy: to me. Right. I can tell you a story about almost every single one of these, everything on that wall
[1725.95] Tommy: is everything that I use, whether it's just for when I have a moment to fly for fun or if it's
[1731.63] Tommy: for like FPV shoot shoots and jobs and gigs and commercial and entertainment work.
[1740.27] Tony: Yeah. I watch your Insta stories and you're just constantly doing stuff.
[1745.15] Tony: Looks really interesting. So any stuff you can talk about with heavy lifts, any stuff?
[1750.75] Tommy: I mean, I could talk about, I mean, whatever I, I think what it helped me is if you asked me a
[1755.63] Frank: question, cause like one of the biggest quads you've used or that you have there. Uh, so the,
[1762.43] Tommy: well, the biggest quads that I've flown isn't here. It would be, um, and it would be basically
[1769.23] Tommy: an X eight nine inch carrying a red Komodo with like a big 5,100 milliamp battery with full on
[1780.27] Tommy: Cinegear. Right. And so, so most people for, for, for people that don't know, like you,
[1785.71] Tommy: it's not like you just fly the Komodo. I mean, you can, right? Because like right now FPV drones
[1792.43] Tommy: in that world is so new that it's not up to spec, so to speak, when we're talking about like a,
[1800.35] Tommy: like a proper production workflow. And, um, you just let me know if I'm getting way too deep on
[1806.27] Tommy: this, but basically what that means is that, you know, in a proper production, you've got
[1814.51] Tommy: a camera that can transmit back in full HD in real time to what's called VTR or a video
[1822.43] Tommy: transmission relay department. And what their job is to then take your camera's feed or really
[1829.15] Tommy: everybody's cameras, you know, and depending on the production, there could be a lot or there could
[1833.23] Tommy: be one. Uh, but their job is to take that feed and then feed it out to everybody else who needs
[1839.79] Tommy: to be able to see the speed. And these people can be anyone from the director and the DP,
[1845.15] Tommy: which is the obvious one to the end client to, you know, somebody who's trying to DP this thing
[1853.23] Tommy: overseas. Uh, it could be a director with a mobile monitor, just watching it, you know, as,
[1859.15] Tommy: or as he's walking around, it could be whatever. Another guy who's on the other side of the world,
[1865.07] Tommy: looking at things from a phone. It's actually quite fascinating how, how that all works.
[1871.23] Tommy: And so you have to carry all this gear to, in order for that to work. And you know,
[1876.35] Tommy: as all of you guys know, like when you're building out a quad, like RF is always a big deal.
[1880.99] Tommy: And for a five inch freestyle GoPro, it's pretty easy. You got five eight on video,
[1885.55] Tommy: and then you've got your control. That's either on two, four or 900 different running crossfire.
[1891.39] Tommy: However, if you're running the Cinec cameras and things like that, like that is now slowly
[1897.39] Tommy: starting to become, you know, if you don't have it, you're kind of falling behind in terms of the FPV
[1902.83] Tommy: CineLifter world. And so I run all this stuff and that just, it's like a five pound payload.
[1909.39] Tommy: It's, it's a lot of gear. And then you got to figure out what do these transmitters plays nice
[1913.79] Tommy: with everything because, you know, all of the stuff that is in like the 2.2 gigahertz range,
[1919.39] Tommy: we have to have a license out here. And it's like, it's, it's this rabbit hole you don't want
[1923.39] Tommy: to go through. So you got to really sit there and figure out like, which of these 5.8 transmitters
[1929.55] Tommy: will play nice with DJI, which will play nice with the cross, like, oh, it's, it's this song and
[1934.91] Tommy: dance and guests and tests. And it's, it's crazy. It's, it's a lot of, it's a lot of work. And it's
[1941.95] Tommy: a lot of money in the air that, you know, you get a little... Is there, is there a fear factor,
[1949.31] Curry: or at least the very first time that you flew with a Komodo? Because that's a lot of,
[1952.99] Curry: that's a lot of money to be slinging around the way you might do on a GoPro. Certainly the first
[1957.87] Curry: time must have been a bit sort of butt clenching. But how is it, is it got better? How is it now?
[1962.27] Tommy: 100%. I mean, like, we all know all of the things that can go wrong, you know, when you, when you
[1967.63] Tommy: put up a quad, even if you've flown the quad hundreds of times before, all it takes is for
[1973.23] Tommy: somebody else to plug in. And then you're down, right? And your first response to that is probably,
[1978.99] Tommy: well, who else is flying with you? The answer to that is nobody. However, when you're on set,
[1985.07] Tommy: you know, they got Teradex, they got micro lights. And these are all basically
[1989.71] Tommy: VTXs that production uses to transmit cameras on the ground. And a Teradex will take you down,
[1995.71] Tommy: a micro light will take you down. Basically, all of the main popular VTXs that production uses to
[2001.47] Tommy: do their transmission will freeze up your video. And so yeah, I still don't, I still am not
[2010.67] Tommy: comfortable until I've got at least two flights in on set. And I know that everybody is like on board
[2017.71] Tommy: about, hey, drone is going up, we need to shut everything down and things like that. It's always
[2024.11] Tommy: a butt clenching moment until probably the third or fourth battery up. And it's something that I
[2030.27] Tommy: still haven't gotten used to. But it's only because of that, like flying that though, like I've gotten
[2035.31] Tommy: over that like a while back, like when you've done just like anything else, you know, like the first
[2039.87] Tommy: time you fly a TV, I'm sure everyone's like, oh my god, oh my god, this thing is flying. I got to
[2044.03] Tommy: keep it up in the air. You know, there was there's definitely a little bit of that the first couple
[2048.83] Tommy: of months. But after a while you get you get used to it just like anything else.
[2052.83] Tony: So you fly in DJI stuff on on set?
[2056.51] Tommy: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it is. It is by far, in my opinion, the only way to go when you're when
[2064.27] Tommy: you're doing these types of jobs. Like, because like, here's the thing, right? Like, and I have
[2068.67] Tommy: nothing against analog, I still like analog, I still fly analog because some of my quads are
[2072.67] Tommy: on analog. However, there are a lot of situations where I just know analog would fail miserably.
[2079.79] Tommy: And now I can't do the job that somebody hired me to do. Like, for instance, I just did this car
[2086.27] Tommy: piece, and they wanted to do this in a container shipyard. And so for anyone out there that knows
[2094.67] Tommy: that is that is multi pathing nightmare. But DJI, I was going like 20 container ships thick,
[2104.03] Tommy: no problem. You know, in fact, this last thing that I was on, we were in in the culvert, which
[2111.71] Tommy: for people that don't know what the culvert is, it's basically a manmade river for excess water
[2115.55] Tommy: overflow. And I was chasing a car in through there. And like, I'm literally going around a bend
[2122.67] Tommy: where that's just a no no. But hey, man, DJI, let me keep going. I'm just like, okay, wow. Just
[2132.19] Tommy: it keeps impressing me more and more the more I push its limits and performance.
[2137.95] Frank: So when do you do actually like pick up your analog quads? Like what drives you to pick those
[2144.19] Frank: up still? Like, why don't you just just leave them there as well? Honestly, it's just when I
[2150.27] Tommy: when I have this itch to fly something older that I haven't flown in a while, like it's very,
[2155.55] Tommy: it's it's common where especially when I'm doing a gig, and it's not like the big red komodo
[2160.67] Tommy: cinema camera stuff where I'm playing a GoPro and then I have extra batteries, you know, and
[2165.71] Tommy: even though on set like you'll you know, you'll it's very common to just fly a couple of batteries,
[2171.07] Tommy: which means I come home with a lot of charge batteries. And you know, I still got the whole
[2175.15] Tommy: old school mentality. I can't just come home with charge batteries. So I'll burn them through
[2180.91] Tommy: whatever. And then I'll just go back there. And I'd be like, what happened? I had not flown today.
[2184.51] Tommy: And I'll, I'll fly that and kill all my batteries that way. And if it happens to be an analog quad,
[2190.59] Tommy: then I throw the fat sharks on and we do it that way. But I don't do the whole analog to like,
[2196.35] Tommy: EGI conversion. Like, I'm a fly analog, I'm gonna go pick up my HDOs and do it.
[2202.11] Tony: Hmm, time is mine.
[2205.15] Jack: So you haven't exclusively moved over to digital yet?
[2209.95] Tommy: I mean, it just depends on like what your definition of it is, right? So like, I can
[2216.19] Tommy: tell you that any drone that I build moving forward will will be on DJI. But that's not
[2223.95] Tommy: to say that I wouldn't, I'm not gonna not fly analog just because.
[2229.71] Frank: Yeah, when you're on set, like, how much of your flying on set is like very scripted,
[2237.71] Frank: like you have to hit this point and this point and this point, and you just have to repeat that
[2242.35] Frank: all day? Or how much, how much do you get to kind of riff a bit?
[2246.11] Tommy: So that I'm glad you asked that question, because I've been wanting to make a video to talk about
[2250.91] Tommy: what it's like to do this. And I feel like I've been doing this long enough to not know what
[2256.19] Tommy: info to put out. So I'm really glad that you're asking this. And anybody else that's listening,
[2260.19] Tommy: feel free to ask me questions, because this will help me figure out the next video that I want to
[2264.03] Tommy: make. But to answer your question, it really depends on what the shoot is. Most of the time,
[2273.63] Tommy: the director, the DP, they have an idea of what they want you to do. And in my personal experience,
[2282.19] Tommy: in my personal experience, this is more true when you're doing like car commercial stuff,
[2286.99] Tommy: because they just have this set thing on what they want to do. However, other things like music
[2293.07] Tommy: videos, movies, and some specific car commercials, they are actually looking towards you as far as
[2300.91] Tommy: like, what do you think is a cool creative shot? And those are the ones that I love, because then
[2306.43] Tommy: it's like, I can really showcase what FPV is capable of. Because like a lot of times, I don't
[2314.03] Tommy: know how it is out there. But over here in the United States, FPV is still kind of new, it's
[2318.91] Tommy: starting to gain a lot of popularity. But what I'm finding is that sometimes, you know, people are
[2325.79] Tommy: asking for FPV, because it's a buzzword. And every director DP production wants to be on the bleeding
[2332.75] Tommy: edge, not fully realizing what FPV is. And the most frustrating thing for me is when they're like,
[2338.91] Tommy: yeah, we're gonna do this and that we're in a pre production meeting. And I'm explaining to them,
[2342.51] Tommy: like, okay, look, this is what an FPV drone can and cannot do based on the difference between an
[2348.11] Tommy: Inspire, you know, or an Alta carrying a gimbal drone versus FPV. And like, okay, yeah, yeah,
[2353.87] Tommy: yeah. And then I show up to set and they're like, all right, and now can you do this top down,
[2358.59] Tommy: looking down, hold it there and what I told you we cannot do. But it's getting it's getting a lot
[2368.83] Tommy: better because a lot of FPV is getting used a lot more. And I think more and more DPs and directors
[2377.23] Tommy: are starting to lean more towards a pilot about what it is that shot is right. So like for a car
[2383.55] Tommy: thing, for me, it's like, okay, this is where the car is going to be coming from. And then I'll just
[2388.43] Tommy: take a look at the environment. And then I'll ask them like, well, what's the story that you're
[2392.35] Tommy: trying to tell like, because if this is an opening shot, then maybe what I'm gonna, you know, suggest
[2398.43] Tommy: to you is that I have more of like a reveal, right? You know, maybe I'm flying through trees, maybe I'm
[2403.47] Tommy: diving down a building, you know, just a couple of beats to kind of set up the feel and the scene
[2407.79] Tommy: before we reveal a car. But if they have something a lot more planned, where they know that they just
[2413.39] Tommy: need these couple of moments, then you know, they'll either tell me that or they'll just then
[2419.71] Tommy: I'll riff on it. And I'm like, all right, just send the car and I'll just keep freestyling it.
[2424.03] Tommy: And from there, they'll figure out what they want. But you know, of everything that I've done so far,
[2428.99] Tommy: like music videos, believe it or not, are the funnest because they give me a lot of creative
[2433.47] Tommy: freedom. And movies, especially with movies that have to do with stunts. That's like what I've been
[2439.07] Tommy: working on recently, where like I have a lot of control over what's going on, which has been
[2444.67] Frank: really fun and satisfying. That sounds awesome. That's pretty cool. I wouldn't have thought that
[2450.75] Frank: you'd get much freedom when someone's doing stunt work, because like, that feels like someone's
[2455.87] Frank: putting their body on the line, like you better get get this right. You can't keep doing multiple
[2460.91] Tommy: takes of that. No, I mean, and there's, you know, there's there's obviously a balance, right?
[2467.55] Tommy: Because we want to we want to keep the stunt people safe. But at the same time, you know,
[2474.51] Tommy: if I offer up a shot, and they're like, Oh, my God, that would be absolutely amazing.
[2480.59] Tommy: They'll make the adjustment, you know. And I think when you do it that way, that's really the best
[2487.23] Tommy: way that you can make use of like a proper FPV set up. Because if you think about it like the like
[2492.03] Tommy: an Inspire or a gimbal drone, and like not to take anything away from them, because those are
[2497.55] Tommy: really powerful tools as well. But it's for a very specific cinematic look. Right. And when you're
[2504.99] Tommy: talking about FPV, I can get down and dirty, like this close to people and like, go with the cars
[2511.95] Tommy: jumping and things exploding. And, you know, I don't have sensors holding me back. And so what
[2518.27] Tommy: I found is like, hey, I could do this, if you guys can make this change to the timing. If we move
[2524.19] Tommy: this out of the way, like that, there's a lot more input from from me as a pilot, on these types of
[2533.15] Tommy: sets, which, again, like, it's just really satisfying to be able to sit there and be like,
[2537.95] Tommy: hey, I got this crazy idea. But we got to do x, y and z, then we all have a little group
[2542.51] Tommy: puzzle, they decide what's time, and then we make it happen. Yes, that's really cool. Yeah.
[2549.55] Curry: Has anybody ever come up with unrealistic expectations? Like, do they say things?
[2553.63] Curry: Could you just fly under the moving cars, and then pop up and do something else?
[2558.35] Tommy: Oh, all the time. But here's the thing, though, like, I'm, I'm about it. So, you know, if they,
[2567.39] Tommy: if that request comes up, if I haven't already suggested it, like, we, we talk about how we
[2572.83] Tommy: would make that happen, you know, so if the car is tall enough for us to do it, we'll go after it.
[2580.19] Tommy: But like more requests like that, that is a little bit harder to do is when they're like,
[2585.87] Tommy: can you get like, this close to the talent and then shoot up to the moon and then fly back down
[2590.75] Tommy: and now land on the like, crazy things like that, that those are the conversations that are a little
[2595.23] Tommy: bit harder to do. And it just has more to do with not understanding how the drone moves, you know,
[2602.91] Tommy: because I have, we I have things where that it's got prop rods on it. So it makes it really safe
[2607.87] Tommy: around talent. But there's some things that are just like, it's probably not going to work out.
[2612.75] Tommy: And it's probably not worth it. Let's just, you know, that's when you say, how about we try
[2617.95] Tommy: something like this, right? Because you never want to tell a director DP no, you always want to
[2622.99] Tommy: just want to have an alternative. You'll be like, hey, we can get a version of this that's that's
[2627.71] Tommy: safer. And we'll save us a lot of time. That's a that's a big thing. So anyway, after that's talking
[2632.67] Tommy: to DPS directors, you can explain a version that will save time and as a safer shot safer in terms
[2638.75] Tommy: of like, we'll nail it not safer in terms of safe for people. Being honest, like if you know, okay,
[2648.99] Tommy: I shouldn't say that like it, of course, everybody wants to be safe. But like the biggest thing on
[2652.99] Tommy: set is time, like people don't have time. And, you know, for anybody that wants to get into it,
[2658.99] Tommy: like the one thing that I will say is that like you, it's, it's not enough to just be able to,
[2665.95] Tommy: to fly, you have to be able to do exactly what is needed. Absolutely cold. Like I wake up,
[2674.83] Tommy: I've been waking up at like 430 am every single day, drive an hour and a half to set, get there
[2680.91] Tommy: and buy like seven first shot of the day. And it's the most complicated shot, no warm up time,
[2687.87] Tommy: no, no rehearsal, because you only get one or two shots at things because again, everything's on time,
[2692.75] Tommy: like you just got to be able to nail it. And and in my opinion, that is, that is what's going to
[2698.67] Tommy: make, you know, a professional pilot, you know, who will last in the industry versus
[2704.11] Tommy: someone who can't do that. Like that is, and is, you know, because I was like that for a while,
[2710.19] Tommy: like I couldn't, you know, that's why when you race, you have practice seats and get used to
[2713.79] Tommy: things and all of that. You don't get that on set. They can't just reset it. But do you get any like
[2723.39] Curry: dry run without anybody doing it just just so you can go over how you're going to do it or show them
[2727.79] Curry: the sort of shot you're talking about? Or is it just let's do it cold? You know, you do, but you
[2732.83] Tommy: don't get that luxury all the time. So like, for instance, like if especially with something where
[2737.55] Tommy: they got to do, it's called an ITC, which I don't even know what that stands for. But it basically
[2743.31] Tommy: means stopping traffic, right? So if you're shooting something in the city and you've got traffic,
[2747.95] Tommy: they have to stop traffic in order for you to do your shot legally, obviously. And when you do that,
[2754.19] Tommy: you can only stop traffic for one or two minutes at a time. And every single time that happens,
[2759.07] Tommy: like it costs them money to do it. So you only get one or two shots at it. And if that's the case,
[2765.63] Tommy: most oftentimes, they're not going to stop traffic just for you to get a run. If the production and
[2770.99] Tommy: the budget is big enough, sure, they'll they'll say yes to it. But it's not always the case.
[2776.27] Tommy: Sometimes you go somewhere and you're doing something and you do have the luxury of saying,
[2780.27] Tommy: can I just go for a test run and get my bearings? That happens. But it's not, it's absolutely not
[2786.11] Tommy: something where you can sit there and like, let me just get like five warm up packs once you guys
[2790.59] Tommy: run through the action really quick, you know, and then we'll roll on it like that's a very,
[2796.27] Tommy: very rare case. The only exception to that is something like like with what Johnny's done with
[2801.07] Tommy: the with the Taycan, where the whole thing is this orchestrated piece and the whole story that
[2808.11] Tommy: you're telling is the drone and this car in that sense, then yeah, you're running it, you're
[2813.71] Tommy: rehearsing it as many times you get the shot that you want. But most of the time on these productions,
[2820.51] Tommy: the drone is, you know, it's not the thing. It's just another perspective. And this is why they
[2827.55] Tommy: have multiple camera angles, they're just, you know, they're trying to cover it as much as best
[2831.15] Tommy: they can. And then in the editing room, the DP, they're sitting there going, I like that shot,
[2836.19] Tommy: we're going to use that one, I like that shot, we're going to use that one. And there's, there's
[2839.79] Tommy: a lot of times where you do this, and your shot doesn't even get used, or they just use a couple
[2844.27] Tommy: frames that which is super frustrating for me. Because you know, you sit there and you're risking
[2849.47] Tommy: your equipment, and you're like, making all this effort, and it could have been the hardest thing
[2853.31] Tommy: to fly. And then if you know, the DP director might like it, but if the end, you know, at the
[2858.51] Tommy: end of the day, if the client doesn't like it, because it's too high energy, or it's too this
[2863.15] Tommy: or that, then it doesn't make the cut. And then, you know, my, my ego goes like, I can't even show
[2871.23] Tommy: off what I did. Because you don't own the right send you the footage, which is probably the other
[2877.15] Tommy: biggest frustration I have about it is like, you do cool things. But you can't, you know, most of
[2882.11] Tommy: the time, you really can't share it with people. Once it's like released, and it's all out there
[2888.03] Frank: and everything, like Coryman Zero asked, like, do you have a list of productions that you keep
[2893.31] Frank: updated? Like, what you have worked on that you can share with people? Yeah, I mean, like, I,
[2898.67] Tommy: I don't know the specifics, but like, and here's the thing, they all go out in like different
[2904.83] Tommy: spots. So there's, you know, network television is different from a social media piece, which is
[2911.55] Tommy: different from like movies. But you know, the Hummery V commercial, the Hummery V stuff I've done,
[2918.19] Tommy: the new Audi e-tron GT, like, basically, it's a good long list of like car commercials and stuff,
[2926.03] Tommy: like the new Acura NSX and TSX was a very recent one, a bunch of music videos with like,
[2934.27] Tommy: and I'm a little ashamed to admit, but like some of these people have never heard of.
[2939.63] Tommy: But that's not because, because you're getting old and they, you know, it's not because they're
[2947.39] Tommy: nobody. But it's just because I'm not hip to new music these days. But some of the bigger ones that
[2952.59] Tommy: I am familiar with, and I am a big fan of is like the Migos, Travis Scott, The Weeknd, Vince Staples.
[2961.87] Tommy: But the most recent one that I'm really stoked about is this movie that I'm working on called
[2967.95] Tommy: Day Shift, and it's going to be a Netflix original. And I think that's going to come out,
[2974.59] Tommy: I want to say probably September, October. And by if they used all of the shots, this is
[2984.35] Tommy: going to be the gnarliest ever. They were absolutely open to my ideas. Again, who knows
[2993.71] Tommy: what happens in the editing room? But some of the shots that we constructed is, I mean, you and I
[3000.83] Tommy: will probably be like, Oh, that's cool, because we watch that PV stuff. But to the rest of the
[3004.43] Tommy: cinema world, this is going to be never ever seen before. All in time for lockdown in September,
[3013.07] Jack: October. Have you had any bad smash ups on set? Or have you been pretty lucky?
[3021.39] Tommy: I've been mostly pretty lucky. I would say that I have not had. Now, I've had one where it was
[3031.63] Tommy: my fault. It was my fault. But most of the all of the other times that I've had a pretty good
[3038.19] Tommy: smash is because somebody powered on something that took my video out. And there's really not
[3043.79] Tommy: a whole lot you could do there. Although there was one time where I was able to save it by
[3047.15] Tommy: literally just throwing off my goggles, caught it line of sight and managed to wrangle it back.
[3052.59] Tommy: But all the other times, that just wasn't happening. There was just one time, just one
[3058.43] Tommy: time where it was my fault. It was your typical, really thin cable that I just did not see until
[3065.95] Tommy: the very last minute. And it was absolutely my fault. Because normally what you do when you go
[3071.47] Tommy: on set to do these things is that you scout it out, like you ask them like, Hey, where are we
[3075.15] Tommy: flying? And then you physically walk it and be like, Okay, cool. There's a cable there. There's
[3079.39] Tommy: a ghost branch here. RF situation is not good here. And it was my fault because I went past
[3087.31] Tommy: what I had scouted because I got greedy because it was such a good run. It was such a good run.
[3092.99] Tommy: And the dirt bikes and trophy trucks, dirt bikes and trophy trucks in and out of downtown LA and
[3100.91] Tommy: then jumping in, like, you know, want to keep going and I and I kept going, you know, against
[3107.95] Tommy: what I told myself I wouldn't do. And I ended up in a situation where there was this low hanging,
[3112.59] Tommy: very thin line that I couldn't see until it was too late. And that was my one and only
[3117.87] Tommy: very expensive lesson learned time about sticking to it. You know, it's funny too, because like,
[3124.11] Tommy: um, I don't know if any of you have taken like, what would be the equivalent of a part 107 test
[3128.83] Tommy: over out there to commercially fly. But like one of one of the things that's in there is called
[3134.43] Tommy: like impulsivity and machismo. And it's called recognizing dangerous behaviors and that you need
[3144.19] Tommy: to be able to call this out whether it's yourself or somebody in your crew. And I was absolutely
[3149.63] Tommy: guilty of two of those things because you know, I was like, Oh, I got this we can make this happen.
[3159.79] Frank: I have another question for you, Tommy. What's what's the smallest quad that you've used
[3165.95] Tommy: professionally? That would be the how much every five so that my little, you know, the taking the
[3175.07] Tommy: little beta 95 frame flipping upside down decasing your post nothing inside. That was the smallest
[3180.83] Tommy: drone that I use. Cool thing. The cool thing about it was, it was it's it was for a music video for
[3190.19] Tommy: ASAP for which still has not come out. And I'm not sure why. But it was cool because we were
[3196.83] Tommy: in a New York City apartment flat. And the shot starts out in a kitchen. And I'm supposed to fly
[3205.71] Tommy: past by him as he gets off his phone, and he checks the phone out the window. And I chased
[3212.35] Tommy: the entire thing down. And there's this little pipe that I have to dodge, which I ended up turning
[3217.87] Tommy: into a gate. So I ended up doing a little bit of a barrel roll down and then kind of slipping out
[3223.95] Tommy: to his homie who's downstairs, who's supposed to catch it, and then run through an alleyway,
[3230.19] Tommy: and then make a left and then right onto the street. And then it cuts there. And it was super
[3236.43] Tommy: fun. The guy trying to catch it could not catch it. We must have been five days.
[3243.07] Tommy: Just figure like, all right, forget it. We're just gonna CGI it in. They gave this like little fake
[3247.31] Tommy: phone with a certain color so that you could you know, but it's funny, because we tried it like
[3251.39] Tommy: five times. And I nailed it like five times. And like, New York City alleys are literally
[3257.15] Tommy: like this thin. You know what I mean? Like a few describe it.
[3261.95] Tommy: Yeah, so so yeah, it's it's basically all you know, you guys don't know feet.
[3266.91] Tommy: It's just like a few feet.
[3269.07] Tommy: Let's just call it like a meter. It's like a meter wide, you know, so I had to fly my tiny
[3274.91] Tommy: little drone in a tiny little apartment flat out through a kitchen window. And then down a super
[3283.07] Tommy: skinny alley four stories down. That's about maybe a year or two meters wide. And then
[3290.35] Tommy: it's not out. It's not out.
[3293.63] Tommy: I've been I've been patiently waiting to see when that one was going to come out. And I don't know
[3298.67] Tommy: why it's not out yet. But that would have been analog as well. That was DJI. That was actually
[3304.83] Tommy: you got it. You got it. Got me in DJI in that. Yeah. Yeah. And they helped me out too, because
[3311.07] Tommy: it was, you know, in between apartment buildings. And so there's all kinds of things going on. And
[3315.63] Tommy: I'm almost sure that like the rebar from all the buildings in New York, New York City, they have
[3321.23] Tommy: all of the emergency fire escapes, you know, that's all in the out of metal. And that would have
[3327.31] Tommy: been another example where analog probably wouldn't have done well. But presumably when it is out,
[3333.31] Frank: you'll share it in your Instagram stories and things. Everyone should follow you there, right?
[3339.07] Tommy: Oh, 100%. Is that that was definitely one of the ones that I'm really, really proud of doing,
[3345.07] Tommy: because it was it was a difficult shot, plus choreographing it with the hand toss of the guy
[3351.31] Tony: trying to catch it. And he's done it four times in a row.
[3354.83] Jack: That must be so hard, because you have to kind of like guess where it's going out the window.
[3359.71] Tommy: No. Well, not sure you catch it. Well, and then on top of that, so they really wanted me to stay
[3366.27] Tommy: lower to the ground. And as you guys know, when you're close enough to the ground, you've got the
[3369.95] Tommy: ground effect. So that's kind of like pushing you to the side. And then, you know, in that apartment
[3375.95] Tommy: was it really wasn't a big room. So even if you weren't that close to the ground, just everything
[3380.75] Tommy: like wafting off to the side, it was just a constant like, Oh, come on, yell action already,
[3385.31] Tommy: because I want to keep staying. It was it was a lot of work. It was very cool. I hope it does.
[3392.35] Tommy: It comes out soon. But and that was one of those ones that's really interesting, because like with
[3397.31] Tommy: COVID and the pandemic, that that was an example where there was a very limited crew on staff or
[3403.71] Tommy: crew there. But the client, you know, and the director and DP was out in London. And so it was,
[3410.83] Tommy: you know, they were watching it in zoom. And so like after the shot, I'd have to walk over the
[3415.55] Tommy: laptop and be like, feedback, what do you guys want to change? And COVID has really made things
[3421.71] Tommy: kind of weird, but kind of interesting and remote working has been kind of crazy. But that was one
[3427.71] Tommy: of the first times where I saw that, you know, because normally again, normally everybody's there
[3432.19] Tommy: with you watching it. But in this case, a lot of cases, you know, you're, you're talking to people
[3438.59] Tommy: in a whole different continent. Tommy, so good to have you back, man. Oh, man, pleasure. I'm glad
[3445.71] Tommy: that it worked out. I was really afraid because things were getting pushed back. I thought I was
[3451.71] Tommy: gonna have to cancel on you guys. Well, we're glad that you didn't. It worked out. It worked out.
[3457.07] Tommy: We wrapped up that, at least my portion of that movie yesterday. And that's one for sure. I'm
[3463.55] Tommy: gonna be I'm gonna be blasting that out. Because, you know, when you're really like, really proud
[3469.71] Jack: about something. I'm liking the long hair as well, man. You growing it and stuff.
[3475.71] Jack: I used to be longer. It actually used to go down here.
[3481.31] Jack: Long time, man. Frank's throwing a beard. Yeah. Yeah, he's more beard than Frank now. So you can't
[3489.47] Tommy: get any sensible questions out of him. Well, that's why you say that because I'm actually,
[3494.19] Tommy: I'm actually gonna cut it off on Tuesday. Well, maybe, you know, I figured that it's time for a
[3500.67] Tommy: change. So I'm just gonna go to a stylist and be like, he could do whatever you want and
[3507.07] Tommy: experience. Well, that's what I'm headed towards. Because now that I know what the long hair thing
[3519.07] Tommy: is like, which it was cool for a while. But like the summer coming up and me always doing like this
[3523.79] Tommy: and stuff. It's kind of like, okay, maybe maybe it's time to start going shorter and shorter and
[3527.87] Tommy: shorter. Because I've had short hair in my entire life, like, like this this long, at the longest
[3534.67] Tommy: before the pandemic happened. I was like, ah, screw it. Let's just screw it out and see what happens.
[3539.95] Jack: I'd love for Tony to grow his hair a bit. Mine grows up.
[3544.35] Jack: Yeah, I know. I noticed because of the story with the hoodie. I like, I was like, okay,
[3550.19] Jack: I sort of like took it on board. And one day I tried to pull his hoodie off.
[3558.99] Jack: I was like, man, you weren't joking. It grows out. Like, you know, I can
[3564.03] Jack: what they call the chia pets. That's how I kind of like you Tony's head.
[3569.07] Jack: I'd love you to just grow it a bit.
[3572.91] Tommy: My hair grows this way. I used to shave my head to you and I was younger. So I know exactly.
[3577.15] Tommy: Like even sleeping on a pillow, like
[3582.27] Tony: Bob walking to the have a pain in the morning. There's a pillow stuck to my face.
[3588.03] Tommy: Yeah, I know exactly what that's like.
[3591.39] Jack: Right. I think we're done for this episode. Guys, you've been listening to Let's Drone
[3595.07] Jack: Out. We've been joined by the man, the legends. Oh my God, Tommy.
[3602.19] Tommy: Thanks for having me.
[3604.03] Jack: Buy his 2FIDDY frame and support him and buy armor grip and never lose your battery. Never again.
[3611.71] Jack: I'll always remember the photo of the cells ejecting and we just left this,
[3617.47] Jack: the heat shrink from the battery.
[3619.23] Tommy: Did you see when I did that test on a simulator with like a big success,
[3623.87] Tommy: 5100 milliamp pack?
[3625.71] Jack: No, man.
[3626.67] Tommy: I did the same thing. It was just, I was, I didn't, I surprised myself. I didn't expect it to stay,
[3633.63] Tommy: but it did. But I am. Check it out. It works great.
[3638.99] Jack: Anyway, you've been joined by everyone's favorite curry kitten.
[3641.87] Jack: Goodbye. My lovely, wonderful wife, Tony.
[3646.83] Tony: I still don't know why I'm answering to that. Bonjour.
[3652.83] Jack: Oh, Lord and Master. Andrew, stay frank.
[3655.87] Tommy: Bye.
[3657.07] Jack: I know I've been bright and so I thought, thank you very much. Have a good night.
[3660.43] Tommy: See you guys.
[3662.99] Tommy: Telemetry lost.