=== Let's Drone Out — Episode 347 ===
Title: LDO 347 - With Special Guest Tommy, Aka UMMAGAWD
Recorded: 2022-04-21
Hosts: Jack "Brightontillifly" Nash, Stephen "Belrik" Howell, Wayne "CurryKitten" Andrews, Koel "Koala" Anderson, Andrew "Frank" Hyams
Guest(s): Tommy "ummagawd" Tibajia
Total audience: 2,411
Platforms: YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oZE5gXmpoY); SoundCloud (http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/1255973746-letsdroneout-ldo-347-with-special-guest-tommy-aka-ummagawd.mp3)
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Check out Tommy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwu4SoMXdW300tuhA6SLxXQ

Check out Tommy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ummagawd

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[0.0] Jack: Hello, and you're listening to Let's Drone Out, a special thank you to our lovely patrons
[6.28] Jack: that help donate so that we can pay the editor to remove the swear words and silly things
[11.36] Jack: we say.
[13.0] Jack: Massive thank you to Carlos Campos, Art Faulkner, Sam Dahmer, Mikey Dredd.
[21.84] Frank: On with the show.
[23.08] Jack: Hello, in your listening to Let's Drone Out, tonight we are joined by everyone's favorite
[58.7] Jack: Kerry Kitten.
[59.7] Jack: Hello.
[60.7] Jack: Everyone's live broadcast, but on a drone, Tommy.
[63.98] Jack: Hola.
[64.98] Jack: He was one of the guys back when Roroy was good, for anyone new here.
[72.22] Jack: Let's make enemies now.
[74.22] Jack: Right, Drew ruined Roroy there, I said it.
[82.78] Jack: The man with the staff, Steven.
[84.82] Stephen: Cheers.
[85.82] Stephen: Hello, everyone.
[86.94] Jack: I'm bright until I fly and the man who does our lovely thumbnails and socials, my buddy
[93.18] Jack: Carl.
[94.18] Tommy: So you made me look great.
[96.98] Tommy: That was me.
[97.98] Tommy: He's really.
[98.98] Jack: That was your mother, actually, but I don't know how we got in.
[104.62] Curry: Can we, before we get going, talk about the last video you put out, because I don't know
[109.3] Curry: about anybody else to watch it, but I was getting so nervous on your behalf just watching
[115.98] Curry: this, because I'm like, they're going to go live.
[118.5] Curry: He hasn't done enough fly throughs.
[121.34] Curry: He's just talking.
[122.34] Curry: He hasn't got their moaning their control systems not working and that you have an actual
[128.5] Curry: proper go.
[129.7] Curry: And then when you were doing it, the director's just going like, just slow down, like, you
[133.66] Curry: know, put the brakes on.
[135.38] Curry: It's like I'm in the middle of an orbit here.
[137.18] Tommy: Oh, my goodness.
[138.68] Tommy: That was that was hands down.
[141.78] Tommy: It was, you know, so I've done freestyle competitions.
[144.78] Tommy: I've raced like, you know, like on the world circuit.
[147.5] Tommy: I've done a lot of things and that that was hands down the most nerve wrecking thing I
[154.74] Tommy: have ever done, like, by far.
[157.82] Tommy: And I don't admittedly follow college basketball.
[161.5] Tommy: But when I found out that I was doing this, I just wanted to do my due diligence and kind
[166.1] Tommy: of understand, you know, just the scope of things.
[170.46] Tommy: It turns out, you know, NCAA college basketball out here in the U.S., at least, is actually
[177.78] Tommy: way more intense than the NBA, just for the simple fact that college basketball players
[183.3] Tommy: aren't getting paid to do this.
[184.64] Tommy: So they're absolutely doing it, you know, just for the passion and obviously for, you
[188.74] Tommy: know, the the opportunity to make the emotions are running high then.
[193.86] Tommy: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[195.86] Tommy: And and you could feel that like right inside the stadium.
[199.74] Tommy: You know, it's packed every single seat from the from the floor seat all the way to the
[204.82] Tommy: last at the very top is packed.
[207.66] Tommy: There's not one single empty seat that I could find from my naked eye.
[211.98] Tommy: And on top of that, everybody is into it 100 percent.
[215.34] Tommy: Again, from everybody from the bottom to everyone at the top, everybody's cheering for whoever
[219.82] Tommy: team that they're rooting for.
[221.7] Tommy: And the energy is just absolutely intense.
[223.98] Tommy: So all that to say, it was it was it was very nerve wracking because not only that happening,
[230.98] Tommy: but then it's also a very, you know, wildly watched sporting event.
[236.62] Tommy: And yeah, to answer your question, like there was it was I was there three days before game
[245.3] Tommy: day and the first day was just literally just talking through what was going to happen,
[251.98] Tommy: how this is going to happen.
[253.74] Tommy: And there was a you know, it was it could very well happen that after those conversations,
[258.02] Tommy: they just be like, well, this is probably not going to work out.
[260.94] Tommy: We don't feel it safe or it's not going to fit in or whatever.
[264.26] Tommy: And then that was that.
[265.46] Tommy: And thankfully, the discussions kept progressing.
[268.86] Tommy: And then the next day was like, all right, let's go ahead and test this to see what it
[272.38] Tommy: would look like.
[273.38] Tommy: Let's get the timing down, et cetera.
[276.14] Tommy: And on that day, we were figuring out that like where they wanted me to be and the flight
[283.06] Tommy: path that they would wanted like it wasn't working out.
[286.22] Tommy: And I figured that out just from hand holding the drone, because we didn't end up even getting
[291.1] Stephen: to test that day because so they let you like walk through one of the outside and you send
[296.46] Stephen: a guy in to walk through.
[297.66] Tommy: Yeah, exactly.
[298.66] Tommy: So I stood where I wanted to stand and then I had my AC walk out there with everything
[303.5] Tommy: and just kind of do a walk through test just to see what was going to happen.
[306.7] Tommy: And that was going to serve, you know, two things is going to serve me to make sure that
[310.66] Tommy: my RF from both radio and FPV was going to work.
[315.38] Tommy: And then it was also testing the broadcast RF because they also need to be able to get
[319.62] Tommy: the signal.
[321.14] Tommy: And you know, the way that works is I showed up and they gave me the transmitter and everything.
[327.7] Tommy: And they, you know, it's on them to figure out that the RF is going to work.
[331.38] Tommy: And for them, they needed to make a couple of adjustments as well.
[334.5] Tommy: So even on that first or second day where I didn't get the flight, but we did the walk
[339.02] Tommy: through, their RF was like, this is not working out.
[342.46] Tommy: We need to make a couple of adjustments.
[344.66] Tommy: And then obviously production and the NC like I thought there was a lot of people that need
[350.86] Tommy: to be involved to do something in like the commercial world.
[353.86] Tommy: But for this, it was like there was at least like 10 representatives from like different
[358.78] Tommy: departments that I don't even know who from what and where.
[362.42] Tommy: But like every single one had a say in all of this and it was it was wild.
[365.98] Tommy: It was crazy.
[367.38] Tommy: But thankfully by the third day, we I did get to do one test flight, literally one test
[375.54] Tommy: flight just to make sure our up was working and that was it.
[380.46] Tommy: And then after that, they needed to move on for other things that they needed to test,
[385.1] Tommy: mainly because like for the test, I also called out like, hey, we just need to make sure that
[389.62] Tommy: X, Y and Z is clear, you know, that there's not a whole lot of people, you know, in the
[395.14] Tommy: flight path and things like that.
[396.62] Tommy: So it was nerve wracking because I only had one, one, one test flight and that was it.
[403.5] Tommy: Wow.
[404.5] Tommy: Yeah.
[405.5] Tommy: Yeah.
[406.5] Tommy: That's crazy.
[407.5] Curry: Because it wasn't straight forward.
[410.42] Curry: It was through some double doors and up an escalator and over some stuff.
[415.62] Curry: It's like, I just figured if you hadn't practiced that a good few times, it's like, where am
[420.5] Tommy: I going again?
[421.5] Curry: Which might be the answer.
[424.5] Tommy: Yeah, no.
[425.5] Tommy: I mean, like here's, here's where, you know, like back when I used to race kind of comes
[430.02] Tommy: in hand because like when you, you know, in racing, like you have your practice heat and
[433.9] Tommy: that's your moment to learn your track.
[437.14] Tommy: And so it's kind of no different when it's something like this where it's a one take
[440.78] Tommy: where you got to figure out basically substitute gates for doors or, you know, landmarks at
[445.54] Tommy: this point and just make sure you do a smooth job.
[449.44] Tommy: And then also by listening to the director, which I explained a million times, like the
[454.22] Tommy: camera's fixed.
[455.54] Tommy: So any, anything that I do to correct or, you know, compensate for whatever is going
[462.5] Tommy: to register on camera.
[464.46] Tommy: And so when you said earlier, like, Oh yeah, slow down.
[466.98] Tommy: I heard that and I was like, Oh my gosh, how do I make this look decent on camera and still
[472.34] Tommy: buy him the time that he needs to, you know, get the other cameras rolling?
[477.66] Tommy: And so technically I was supposed to just stay, he wanted me to just stay outside perimeter,
[483.82] Tommy: to buy the time and to slow it down.
[487.98] Tommy: I decided to slow it down really like a lot.
[491.54] Tommy: But then that sent me on a trajectory down the middle of the court and I was like, well,
[495.1] Tommy: this is what we're doing.
[496.34] Tommy: And so I just kind of committed.
[499.26] Stephen: I was wondering how much they kind of manage the flight path that you take.
[502.78] Stephen: Do they give you like an absolute, you've got to stay along this corridor and not deviate
[507.54] Stephen: more than a couple of feet or is it just a rough, no.
[511.58] Tommy: So in that case, I actually had a lot of leeway, like their, their, um, what they wanted
[517.58] Tommy: was like, we just want you to start on the outside, show what's going out in this courtyard
[522.7] Tommy: and then make your way inside however you see fit and then make your way into the court
[527.02] Tommy: and then orbit the court.
[529.42] Tommy: And originally they thought I was going to stay on the bottom floor and navigate through
[534.22] Tommy: all of that.
[535.22] Tommy: But it, that was a gauntlet of, because, I mean, I know you guys aren't familiar with
[540.58] Tommy: Caesar Stadium, which you guys not being in the U S but Caesar Stadium is originally
[544.94] Tommy: a football stadium.
[547.02] Tommy: And so it's a lot bigger and to convert it for a basketball event, they actually build
[552.66] Tommy: up bleachers to bring everything down closer.
[556.76] Tommy: And so because of that, that, that bottom floor was just not going to work out because
[560.86] Tommy: it's like, there was just no clear way for me to get from outside to the inner court.
[565.9] Tommy: And so I made the modification to go upstairs and then, so then they had to go through the
[569.98] Tommy: logistics of like, all right, we need to rope this off.
[573.3] Tommy: Nobody goes to this path and this door, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[576.86] Jack: Well,
[577.86] Jack: I like, I like how someone like shouted at the security guard like, you know, don't move,
[585.14] Jack: you know, cause he's like walking out in front of you and it's like having to explain people
[589.62] Jack: that like you get in the way you're going to get, you're going to get your dick chopped
[593.54] Jack: off.
[595.54] Curry: There was a lot of human traffic at your, where you were, it's like suddenly everybody
[600.26] Curry: in their dog wanted to suddenly cross in front of you for some reason, just this huge queue
[604.7] Curry: of people.
[605.7] Tommy: Well, so, so where I ended up being was on the bottom floor.
[610.06] Tommy: So that was high traffic area.
[612.54] Tommy: People are still setting up, but the flight where I originally thought I was going to
[616.46] Tommy: be was upstairs because just, you know, I don't have that for a second floor difference.
[622.26] Tommy: But the, but interestingly enough the signal wasn't working up up there and maybe that's
[627.98] Tommy: just because there was just so many things between me and our starting point, which is
[631.94] Tommy: outside way down in the courtyard, which by the way, I was super scared about that because
[637.22] Tommy: I wanted to take off closer to the steps, the entrance, fly towards the start point
[643.58] Tommy: and just hover there until they, you know, until things were good and then fly back.
[648.82] Tommy: But for, you know, all of the safety reasons, including the FBA, they said, no, you can't
[654.86] Tommy: do that.
[655.86] Tommy: You need to walk the drone over there and take off from the stage outside.
[661.5] Tommy: And so I was like, oh, I've never, I've never armed a drone that far before, especially
[665.78] Tommy: with DJI, you know, and I was literally just at like one bar on DJI over there.
[672.94] Tommy: So I was really like concerned, like if this was even going to work out and the test obviously
[677.78] Tommy: proved that it was going to be fine.
[679.26] Tommy: But yeah, it was, there was a lot of logistics, a lot of talk for what was, you know, just
[686.34] Tommy: a 45 second one minute run.
[689.3] Jack: It must have felt like an eternity to you.
[694.5] Tommy: Yeah.
[695.5] Tommy: Well, the flight was the flight was whatever.
[697.86] Tommy: And I think that's just something like with myself, every time the goggles goes on and
[701.5] Tommy: I arm and I take off like I'm, I'm, I'm in it.
[705.26] Tommy: However, the 30 minutes before that felt like 30 days, oh my gosh, especially because I'm
[712.14] Tommy: on, I'm on walkie.
[713.54] Tommy: So like I hear, I hear all of them talking and it's, and it's really interesting to hear
[718.78] Tommy: just the internal production chatter with the directors and the camera people and whatnot.
[723.78] Tommy: But like what really did me in was like, when I heard like, okay guys, we're like, just
[728.18] Tommy: we're 30 minutes away from like showtime and just a heads up.
[732.66] Tommy: This is our first time we're going to do this with the drone intro.
[737.1] Tommy: Everybody pay attention.
[738.1] Tommy: Yada, yada, yada.
[739.1] Tommy: And I was like, Oh my God.
[740.1] Tommy: Great.
[741.1] Tommy: Like, it's like, this is, okay, cool.
[743.1] Tommy: And I'm only, I only, you know, did a walk test on day one.
[745.98] Tommy: I got one flight test on day two and then they made their, you know, whatever final
[750.74] Tommy: adjustments they needed on day three.
[753.06] Tommy: And the fourth day was, you know, it was go time.
[755.26] Tommy: So it was, it was, yeah.
[757.46] Tommy: I still get like a little chilly about it whenever I think about it.
[761.54] Tommy: I'll tell you what though, like, sorry, no, I was just going to say now, now that I know
[766.42] Tommy: how it goes, I think, I think, I think there'll be a little bit more relaxed moving forward.
[772.38] Tommy: You know, that first time was always like, I don't know what's going to happen.
[775.9] Tommy: I hope my ears be solid.
[778.62] Stephen: I was wondering if you had like a routine that you out there, like, you know, checking
[782.26] Stephen: every single screw on the quad, tightening everything up, or do you just try and stay
[786.82] Stephen: super calm and just not fiddle with, with the gear?
[790.02] Tommy: No, I do.
[791.02] Tommy: So that, that is something that I do all the time.
[795.34] Tommy: In fact, I test all of my gear a couple of days beforehand.
[798.58] Tommy: That's just standard procedure.
[800.7] Tommy: Everything goes for a test flight.
[802.86] Tommy: Make sure everything powers up.
[803.86] Tommy: Because I've had instances where, you know, like a 12 volt reg that's supposed to power
[808.18] Tommy: the camera just stops working for whatever reason.
[810.94] Tommy: Hasn't been a problem lately because I've updated to a different regulator.
[815.1] Tommy: But like it's little things like that, that'll really screw you up.
[818.82] Tommy: And I learned that on one, a feature that I did last, I think like last August.
[827.38] Tommy: And it was one of those things where, oh, snap, it's not, it's not working great.
[833.1] Tommy: Like I'm like literally out there on set soldering a new voltage regulator, not just picking
[839.62] Tommy: up a new one, like taking it off of another one that had went down and just, you know,
[844.26] Tommy: making things work.
[845.26] Tommy: So I, I've learned that it's just peace of mind.
[848.7] Tommy: You just test all of your gear a couple of days beforehand.
[851.5] Tommy: And then on the day of, yeah, I just tech check things.
[855.3] Tommy: Just, it doesn't hurt to check things twice, three times.
[858.78] Tommy: Peace of mind.
[859.78] Stephen: Yeah.
[860.78] Stephen: Well, at least you weren't on a boat this time, right?
[863.82] Tommy: 100%.
[864.82] Tommy: Oh, thank goodness.
[866.38] Tommy: I'm not on a boat.
[867.7] Tommy: I mean, this is still more never working than the boat.
[870.34] Tommy: The boat was just very uncomfortable, like extremely uncomfortable.
[874.62] Tommy: How many days was that?
[876.66] Tommy: The boat was just on the boat for a day.
[879.14] Stephen: Okay.
[880.14] Tommy: If you're talking about the actual trip, how long the actual trip was about six days.
[887.1] Tommy: Yeah.
[888.1] Tommy: For, uh, for deadly as catch, which I think somebody just messaged me saying that, uh,
[892.62] Tommy: that that, that season started.
[894.22] Tommy: So, um, I haven't seen it.
[896.3] Tommy: So I don't know how much of my footage is that they use, but hopefully they use.
[900.02] Stephen: Yeah.
[901.02] Stephen: So you had to pixelate some, are you going to let us see what the footage is now the
[904.22] Stephen: season rolls.
[905.22] Stephen: Do you have a date when it's okay to share that?
[908.1] Tommy: Um, I don't because it's one of those things where if they put out the footage, then I
[914.62] Tommy: could put out that same exact footage, right?
[918.1] Tommy: Um, and I don't, the thing is, is I don't know if they are going to sprinkle it out
[923.22] Tommy: through all of the episodes or if they're just going to put it all into just the introduction
[929.94] Tommy: or the first episode, because that's like, you know, the, the whole, like, uh, the hero,
[934.34] Tommy: they call it like the hero, the hero episode, which is kind of just setting it up and hyping
[938.5] Tommy: it up.
[939.5] Tommy: Um, so I don't know, um, but I'll, I'll be paying attention.
[943.3] Tommy: And then I, as it comes out, if it makes sense, maybe I'll, I'll just post a couple of snippets
[947.5] Tommy: of, uh, of that footage, especially like if they didn't use the things that I thought
[951.82] Tommy: was cool.
[952.82] Tommy: Cause there was so many things on that boat that I was just like flying through tiny little
[956.12] Tommy: gaps and whatnot that to me is cool, but you know, to production.
[959.72] Tommy: And the director, they, they, they see things with a very different eye.
[963.64] Stephen: So there's going to be like a freestyle cut them.
[966.6] Tommy: I mean, I hope so.
[969.88] Tommy: I definitely took one pack where I was just freestyling most of the time.
[974.56] Koel: That must be kind of weird.
[975.56] Koel: Like you go out and you fly so much and then you're like, okay, it's a mystery.
[979.44] Koel: What is actually going to end up in the edit and you have pretty much no say over it, right?
[983.52] Tommy: Like, no, I have absolutely, I have absolutely no say.
[987.24] Tommy: I mean, like even if it's a scenario, which happens pretty often where the DP asked me
[992.32] Tommy: like, so what do you think is cool?
[994.32] Tommy: I mean, at the end of the day, it's, it's on what the director and the editor feels
[999.32] Tommy: like is, is nice.
[1000.32] Koel: There's a lot of things that don't make it, I guess at the same time, though, they wouldn't
[1006.56] Koel: hire you unless they knew that you could get them something.
[1009.92] Koel: Right.
[1010.92] Tommy: So.
[1011.92] Tommy: Yeah.
[1012.92] Tommy: Yeah.
[1013.92] Tommy: But, you know, in my experience, it goes two ways.
[1017.0] Tommy: Like either FPV is a buzzword and they just want to include it because it's the new thing.
[1023.56] Tommy: And then that's when they really ask me like, so here's what's happening.
[1027.64] Tommy: What do you, what do you think is cool?
[1029.52] Tommy: Which I like because then it gives me some creative, you know, some creativity there.
[1035.64] Tommy: Or it's the opposite where they know exactly what they want and they have a pretty decent
[1041.44] Tommy: understanding about the limitations of FPV.
[1046.36] Tommy: And then I'm literally just doing exactly what they want.
[1049.0] Tommy: And sometimes I think it's cool sometimes, but most of the time I don't, I think it was
[1054.2] Tommy: like, ah, you could have probably just got this with like a regular gimbal drone or a
[1058.04] Tommy: heavy lift or something like that.
[1059.36] Tommy: Oh yeah.
[1060.36] Stephen: That's why you got to rip it and put a power loop at the end of the show.
[1063.48] Tommy: Yeah.
[1064.48] Tommy: Well, I do that.
[1065.48] Tommy: I try to do that.
[1066.6] Tommy: Here's a little, here's a little tidbit.
[1067.88] Tommy: I tried to do that on like my practice run, just to leave a lasting impression with people,
[1073.0] Tommy: whether or not they use it.
[1074.76] Tommy: If I have an opportunity to do a test flight, which I try to do anytime I can, I go like
[1082.32] Tommy: 90% and just really, you know, because then it gets them thinking like, oh, I thought
[1087.68] Tommy: I wanted this, but seeing that what that could do, maybe, maybe try this instead.
[1092.96] Tommy: And if, if, if it doesn't do anything, if it doesn't change anything for that shot,
[1097.44] Tommy: at the very least, I gave this DP, director, producer, a ride that they, you know, that
[1103.44] Tommy: they won't forget.
[1104.44] Stephen: Yeah.
[1105.44] Stephen: The very least you've given them a laugh and maybe they'll chat about it in the bar afterwards.
[1108.44] Stephen: Right.
[1109.44] Koel: Right.
[1110.44] Koel: Absolutely.
[1111.44] Koel: You want to wow them, right?
[1112.44] Koel: So that maybe in the future when they have another production, they're like, oh, maybe
[1115.48] Koel: I can get this crazy kind of shot.
[1117.16] Koel: You kind of already give them a little teaser of what is possible.
[1119.84] Koel: Right.
[1120.84] Tommy: So that's it.
[1121.84] Tommy: That's it.
[1123.2] Tommy: One thing that I learned being on set is you definitely want to be super friendly and easy
[1129.12] Tommy: to talk to and work with and you want to leave a lasting impression.
[1134.2] Tommy: And for, for FPV pilots, you're in like a great, you know, you're in a great position
[1139.44] Tommy: to do that just because if you have an opportunity to do a test flight and they happen to have
[1144.48] Tommy: a monitor where they can watch what's going on, you know, you're most, you know, they've
[1148.2] Tommy: never seen FPV freestyle before.
[1149.88] Tommy: So if you just do anything even remotely crazy that to me, the us isn't really not
[1154.16] Tommy: all that crazy, but like to us, maybe it's just like a warm up.
[1157.52] Tommy: But to them, it's just like, what is, what is this?
[1160.72] Tommy: Oh my God.
[1161.72] Tommy: Like, let me sit down, you know, and then lasting impression.
[1165.0] Tommy: They remember you.
[1166.08] Tommy: Next time you need drone work, you're the first person that comes to mind.
[1170.0] Curry: You're you're making really fun videos about your sort of production stuff.
[1175.2] Curry: And I was going to say it looks glamorous, but some of the stuff doesn't like when you're
[1178.84] Curry: on a boat looking like you want to die and stuff.
[1181.64] Curry: But for people thinking about getting into sort of commercial work is what is the downside?
[1188.32] Curry: Because immediately I think, well, you've got to be on beck and call just to go off
[1191.76] Curry: somewhere for several days and you might be going to climates that you might not like
[1196.36] Curry: that much.
[1197.52] Curry: And there might be an awful lot of waiting around just for you to get like a couple of
[1201.88] Curry: packs in to maybe capture one shot.
[1204.0] Curry: Is it what's the ups and downs there?
[1207.36] Tommy: I mean, you you pretty much nailed it on the head.
[1209.8] Tommy: Like, I'll tell you my experience like I.
[1213.16] Tommy: As I started working into like bigger and bigger productions, like I started feeling
[1219.32] Tommy: like, oh, man, like this is this is glamorous.
[1221.68] Tommy: Like this, I would like I've never been on set before and seeing how things work.
[1226.0] Tommy: And I'll tell you when you quickly lose that feeling once you realize like what set
[1232.24] Tommy: life is really like, and it really is a lot of hurry up and wait.
[1238.28] Tommy: And that's just the truth of it.
[1240.0] Tommy: And, you know, like when you go out to freestyle and you're trying to make a video or
[1246.48] Tommy: something like that, you probably go out there and you do a warm up pack, kind of explore
[1251.16] Tommy: the area and then just kind of like, you know, kind of make your way into it and start
[1256.24] Tommy: feeling loose and you really start feeling good.
[1258.56] Tommy: You don't have that luxury, at least not always.
[1261.04] Tommy: You don't have that luxury in production life because it could be, hey, I need a test
[1265.96] Tommy: like producers like we don't have time for it.
[1268.52] Tommy: I can't put people out, whatever XYZ reasons, which means like you you got to go into
[1274.52] Tommy: the shot cold.
[1277.0] Tommy: There's other things where like they'll have you show up at like five thirty in the
[1281.8] Tommy: morning, put your shots not even until like five thirty in the evening.
[1286.76] Tommy: You get that half the battery.
[1289.64] Tommy: If you're if you're lucky, you get the shot that they want in one take and then you're
[1293.52] Tommy: done and then you sit there till like seven or eight p.m.
[1296.48] Tommy: And then you get wrapped and then you go home.
[1298.88] Tommy: So that's like, you know, that's pretty much the life like you for the most part,
[1304.32] Tommy: especially if drone isn't main camera, you show up and you pretty much just wait and you
[1310.92] Tommy: fly for a very little bit and and then that's it.
[1316.68] Tommy: Otherwise, if you are if drone is main camera, which I've had that happen before, then
[1321.36] Tommy: you're just back to back flying.
[1322.92] Tommy: Then the day goes by just like super fast.
[1325.84] Stephen: But what sort of stuff have you done where drone is main camera?
[1328.92] Stephen: Because normally it's interspersed with lots of other regular camera shots.
[1332.16] Tommy: Yeah, I recently did.
[1336.04] Tommy: It was with Acura.
[1338.0] Tommy: They were showing off the new couple of new cars.
[1341.2] Tommy: And the director, his idea was just everything was going to be shot on FPV drone.
[1348.44] Tommy: I don't know if it if they ever finally came out with it or in what where it came out.
[1353.6] Tommy: But that was you know, those are usually the times where the drone is like main camera.
[1358.92] Tommy: So especially when you're chasing something like it just makes a lot of sense.
[1363.84] Tommy: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah.
[1367.28] Stephen: While we're on the subject of the Deadliss Catch before we move on from that.
[1372.16] Stephen: So you had a couple of unfortunate moments there where you got a lighting
[1377.12] Stephen: system that knocked you out of the sky and you lost a quad, which has got to be
[1383.92] Stephen: extra bad when you're up in the middle of nowhere and you can't just go down the shops
[1388.12] Stephen: or can't get someone to UPS use something.
[1391.08] Stephen: So what's your take on GPS now?
[1394.8] Stephen: I think a lot of people are wondering like why you didn't have GPS then.
[1399.32] Stephen: But then a lot of people also saying, well, it's beta flight and GPS is always like
[1403.48] Stephen: flipping a coin. So yeah, stand on that now.
[1406.72] Tommy: I think especially for being on set, oh, it's one hundred percent.
[1410.8] Tommy: All of my cinellifters that I'm building moving forward is absolutely going to have GPS on it.
[1417.2] Tommy: Like GPS for me, just because I come from the old school grassroot days of freestyle,
[1421.8] Tommy: I'm like, you don't need GPS.
[1423.04] Tommy: You're never going to go that far.
[1424.36] Tommy: But arguably, like, you know, the application wasn't necessary right for freestyle.
[1429.88] Tommy: But for cinellifters stuff, I think it's it's why not?
[1433.84] Tommy: Like it's literally a couple of grams for something that makes so much more thrust
[1440.28] Tommy: than our typical five inch GoPro freestyle quads that it doesn't really matter.
[1443.92] Tommy: You might as well have it.
[1446.08] Tommy: Now, that said, like I I've been testing a lot with the with not four point three
[1452.32] Tommy: beta flight GPS, but like on four point two and comparing that to INAB and INAB return
[1458.44] Tommy: to home or even just like position hold.
[1461.48] Tommy: I feel like it's just so much better than beta flight.
[1464.88] Tommy: But then my problem then is the trade off is that it doesn't fly as good as beta flight.
[1470.0] Tommy: So it's kind of like this, you know, like you got to you got to pick your poison.
[1474.92] Tommy: But I haven't quite made up my mind yet in terms of which firmware I'm going to run.
[1479.16] Tommy: But without a doubt, every cinellifter build that I do moving forward is absolutely going
[1484.28] Tommy: to have GPS on it because you just never know.
[1486.56] Tommy: You never know when a lighting system is going to take your RF down.
[1491.6] Tommy: You never know when a when a bee is going to land on your neck and bite you and you
[1495.72] Tommy: freak out, which I've had that done happen.
[1498.96] Tommy: You just never know what's going to happen.
[1500.76] Tommy: And to just have any kind of fail safe, even if it's just to hover, you know, like
[1506.4] Tommy: or hit angle mode and then just land is better than it just falling out of the sky.
[1513.0] Stephen: Yeah, absolutely agree.
[1514.84] Tommy: Actually, if I really if I'm really talking about what would be my ideal firmware, it
[1519.2] Tommy: would be taking all of the features of PixHawk,
[1524.8] Tommy: PixHawk, ArduPilot, and then literally just carving out and implementing beta flights,
[1532.16] Tommy: flight, PID loop algorithms and firmware.
[1535.4] Curry: The PixHawk does seem to be the darling of the commercial world in terms of if you look
[1540.0] Curry: at these big, great big sort of experimental drones or crop stuff or these big fixed wing
[1545.76] Curry: stuff is always got some sort of PixHawk in there, but it's always seems to be driven
[1551.84] Curry: through Mission Planner, which is a combination of a really shitty version of Excel coupled
[1558.0] Curry: with this thing that just whinges constantly about the compass being mental, as far as
[1563.04] Curry: I can tell, that's that's my experience of trying to fly ArduPilot.
[1566.32] Curry: It's it's bad.
[1568.08] Curry: If they could improve the way it worked in some way to make it a little bit more user
[1573.88] Curry: friendly, I'm sure more people will be into it because you can run the Ardu stuff on an
[1580.84] Curry: F4 board now and odds on you can probably run it on an F7.
[1585.64] Curry: So you've got the performance there, but the the interface and the the learning curve of all
[1591.56] Curry: these billions of MavLink messages you can get from it seems to be absolutely enormous.
[1597.36] Tommy: Yeah, well, so here's the thing, right, like I've I've always looked at ArduPilot and
[1601.72] Tommy: PixHawk to be kind of like the Tesla of of flight firmware in meaning that like they never
[1613.56] Tommy: really intended for you to fly the drone.
[1615.72] Tommy: They they just absolutely wanted you to put in the coordinates of where you wanted to fly
[1620.84] Tommy: and then PixHawk took care of the rest, whereas the complete opposite end of that
[1625.44] Tommy: spectrum, such as Betaflight, it was all about the flying experience where you are
[1629.48] Tommy: absolutely tied one to one, you know, from your sticks to what the drone is doing.
[1637.2] Tommy: So, yeah, it doesn't it never and it never did fly well.
[1640.88] Tommy: And this is even back when I used to to make, you know, one off surveillance drones and we
[1647.48] Tommy: were using PixHawk.
[1648.48] Tommy: But again, it was just for the sole purpose because of planting in a specific path, hitting
[1655.32] Tommy: go and then really the operator, all the operator really is doing is controlling a
[1659.4] Tommy: camera. So, you know, never really expected it to fly well.
[1663.96] Tommy: But to your point, I feel like now with the new hardware that's on board with available
[1671.24] Tommy: open source such as Betaflight, flight firmware and PID loop algorithms, I don't see why you
[1677.96] Tommy: can't marry the two and get the best of both worlds.
[1681.56] Tommy: Like there's just I think it's a matter of time.
[1684.12] Tommy: Maybe somebody just needs somebody needs to, you know, plant into somebody's head and
[1688.92] Tommy: whisper into somebody's ear or something like that.
[1690.76] Tommy: But like it's absolutely doable.
[1693.64] Stephen: Yeah, I'm a pretty technical guy.
[1695.08] Stephen: And I'm quite comfortable looking at most of the stuff around this hobby.
[1699.88] Stephen: But our pilot has just just bounced off it.
[1703.88] Stephen: I look at it and I the state of the user interface, it's incomprehensible.
[1708.52] Stephen: It looks like something from 1999.
[1711.72] Stephen: And you see the smartphone apps that are kind of table stakes for most drone stuff these days.
[1717.64] Stephen: I mean, I can even run the Betaflight configurator on my smartphone.
[1720.36] Stephen: It's fine.
[1721.4] Stephen: Yeah, yeah.
[1722.68] Stephen: It's just not it needs to be more.
[1724.68] Stephen: There's a gap in the market.
[1725.8] Stephen: So someone will fill that gap.
[1727.32] Stephen: But right now, it's not there.
[1729.56] Tommy: I mean, I've flown like an Alta X, which runs off of our new pilot.
[1733.8] Tommy: And it flies great.
[1735.96] Tommy: It's not it's not terrible.
[1737.8] Tommy: Now, mind you, not in like full accurate mode.
[1740.68] Tommy: So I know it's there.
[1741.72] Tommy: It's just that our autopilot from like its grassroots was made to be more autonomous.
[1747.24] Tommy: And so they put more emphasis on the features like being able to hook up an electric magnet
[1753.48] Tommy: for some type of catch release system to the mission planner and being able to do certain
[1758.04] Tommy: maneuvers around certain waypoints and things like that.
[1761.72] Tommy: And that's just kind of the opposite end of Betaflight where the emphasis is on the flight
[1766.84] Tommy: feel and things like that.
[1768.12] Tommy: So I think it's just it's just two pieces of firmware on the complete opposite ends of
[1773.08] Tommy: the spectrum.
[1774.12] Tommy: And hopefully, if somebody out there is listening or willing to talk to me,
[1778.28] Tommy: let's let's get the best of both worlds.
[1779.96] Tommy: And you'll have something that's really solid for the CineLifter industry.
[1784.04] Stephen: Yeah, I remember seeing a helpful comment from one of the autopilot devs about those
[1788.12] Stephen: recent bi-directional D shot issues with Betaflight 4.3.
[1792.6] Stephen: I'm surprised to see that come out of that camp rather than the traditional Betaflight
[1797.08] Stephen: camp or more intense about the flight performance characteristics and less about features.
[1803.16] Stephen: But I noticed with the H series, we've gone from like 512k of flash to two mega flash.
[1809.16] Stephen: So maybe there is room for a Betaflight that has more features or an iNav that
[1815.48] Stephen: adds in a bit more flight performance.
[1818.2] Stephen: Yeah, I mean, only for newer chips.
[1820.84] Tommy: I hope so, because like, I think that's kind of just been
[1824.44] Tommy: argued pilot and pick stocks kind of like a limiting factor is that the hardware seems
[1830.04] Tommy: to still be from like five years ago, and they've never bothered to to update it.
[1835.24] Tommy: But I, I think you sometimes soon somebody will port it over and make it F7H7 compatible.
[1842.52] Tommy: And and then at that point, it's like, I don't see why you couldn't implement the best parts
[1848.28] Tommy: of Betaflight and then retain the best like safety and redundancy features that argue pilot has.
[1854.76] Stephen: You could have some course tracking where you've got an object and the camera's tracking it,
[1860.2] Stephen: and then just snap out of that flight mode and rip down on full manual and do some stunts.
[1865.96] Tommy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, really, like the biggest thing is just position hold, because I've,
[1873.4] Tommy: you know, I feel like I can, I can replicate, you know, things that like standard heavy lift
[1879.96] Tommy: drones can do even in manual mode.
[1882.6] Tommy: It's really just having that safety factor of position hold for when things don't go right.
[1889.8] Tommy: And either you have a fail safe, and it just stays there.
[1893.08] Tommy: Or you have another issue with maybe like video, somebody powers on a microlight or a tear deck
[1898.2] Tommy: and your video goes to then it's like, cool, flip it into position hold and figure out what
[1903.24] Tommy: was going on. Like that, to me, that's like the biggest biggest feature. Like if Betaflight
[1907.8] Tommy: get that figured out, I'd be like, cool, I'll stick to Betaflight, you know, because like,
[1913.96] Tommy: Climb to Altitude, you want it just to, I just want to stay there, like wherever it was at,
[1920.44] Tommy: just stay there and then let because they could stuff up you.
[1924.12] Tommy: Exactly. 100%. 100%. And but yeah, that's that is like the one feature that if, if, if I could
[1932.6] Tommy: have it my way with even Betaflight, like we don't even have to go with autopilot or iNav,
[1938.04] Tommy: but if Betaflight could just have a solid position hold, I would be all about it. Because like
[1944.28] Tommy: cenothers now are getting more expensive, right? So like it used to just be let's carry a black
[1948.76] Tommy: magic. Now it's like, oh, we're carrying komodos. Oh, now we're building three axis symbols. And then,
[1954.52] Tommy: you know, in in the production world, you know, like, even though to us, like a komodo is like,
[1960.44] Tommy: that's an expensive, super bomb camera. Honestly, in the production world, the komodo is like the
[1966.92] Tommy: GoPro of the rest of them, right? Because they're just so used to like aries and mini LS and things
[1973.8] Tommy: like that. And they they still to this day ask. Yeah, so you know, you know, it's up. So you know,
[1979.48] Tommy: it's just a matter of time, you know, to when these things are just super uber expensive,
[1984.36] Tommy: and to not have something as simple as GPS position hold, in the event of a fail safe,
[1989.4] Tommy: or any other, you know, bad scenario is just you're just asking for trouble. And here's the thing,
[1995.24] Tommy: too. Like productions are starting to wise up with like FPV drones to the effect that they have
[2002.2] Tommy: an exclusion clause now for FPV drones is they used to be production will cover any kind of damage.
[2008.36] Tommy: And this is I don't know how it is out in Europe, but in the US, if something happens to your gear,
[2013.64] Tommy: they'll cover it. But now certain productions, kind of like learning more about how FPV works,
[2019.8] Tommy: they're like, No, if it's an FPV drone, we don't cover it. And it is apps, it's just on your own
[2025.24] Tommy: personal insurance to cover it. Yeah. Right. So again, you know, as things as these things
[2031.72] Tommy: get more expensive, it's like, you need to have these fail safes in place 100%. Well,
[2037.48] Koel: of course, it's so happy. It's interesting. It can cause serious damage, like,
[2042.04] Tommy: yeah, I mean, and it's, I mean, it's just komodo. I mean, to me, I still think of hell, I think a
[2048.76] Tommy: GoPro catching a GoPro rate to me, so let alone, you know, a komodo with a proper lens with with a
[2056.52] Tommy: proper HD transmitter, you've got like 2025 band in the air. And that's that's, that's like today,
[2063.4] Tommy: like the things that are coming up now with the three axis gimbals, and they want to do other
[2067.08] Tommy: things and anamorphic lenses, especially out here, like it's super common for them to want to use a
[2072.76] Tommy: lens. And there's like, only five in existence. And I'm always like, I really don't feel like
[2078.44] Tommy: running your lens. You know what I mean? Like, it's, it's, it's crazy. And the amount of money
[2083.96] Tommy: that's in the air and this. Yeah, it's, yeah, I try not to think about it. I just,
[2090.44] Stephen: yeah, it's a little bit unnerving the speed to flight still very much. It's there for races,
[2094.2] Stephen: it's there for freestylers, but to then also realize people are taking something
[2099.0] Stephen: for races and freestylers, people who bang up quads and will think nothing of replacing
[2103.88] Stephen: several parts of their quad during a single day's flying because they smash it up so much like to
[2109.0] Stephen: take that and put it on something that's a cine lifter, where you've got like four digits
[2115.96] Stephen: of cash value flying through the air, not just a thousand bucks, but like 10,000, 20,000, 30,000,
[2124.44] Stephen: flying through the air, but that's a whole different equation. Yeah, 100% 100%. And I also
[2134.12] Tommy: feel like, you know, as production companies start to learn more about this, though, I won't
[2142.2] Tommy: be surprised if it comes to a point where they're asking you things like, well,
[2146.12] Tommy: what kind of fail safe and redundancies does your drone have? And if it doesn't have these,
[2150.76] Tommy: we're like, we just, we're not going to run it. You know, because like, it's, it's happened. Like,
[2156.12] Tommy: I've crashed cine lifters and commodas on set. And, you know, production companies aren't really
[2162.76] Tommy: happy about it. But it's, it's kind of the thing. And that's also one of the things I always talk
[2166.76] Tommy: to them about too, like when it happens, like, just so you know, like, FPV drone, like, you got
[2171.88] Tommy: to look at this as like the stunt world, like, things to the limit, we're being asked to do things
[2177.48] Tommy: at the very edge of things. So expect things to go wrong, because, and that's just part of managing
[2184.12] Stephen: expectations, you know. So you got to know that path down that difficult talk where you got to
[2190.36] Stephen: someone and go, Look, I might break your stuff. You have like a special little speech that you
[2196.04] Tommy: can have warm them up by themselves not for coffee. I still haven't perfected this speech. I'm
[2201.64] Tommy: always like, hey, so you want me to do XYZ, but uh, chance, you know, like you're the get you want
[2210.52] Tommy: me to hit like this big, the drones like this big, like, start slowly walking backwards and smile.
[2217.8] Tommy: It's easier, though, because like, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of starting to get this point where like,
[2223.4] Tommy: I'm starting to recognize certain directors and DPs who I've worked with before. And so like,
[2228.76] Tommy: the conversation goes a bit, a little bit easier the second time around. But yeah, when they're
[2234.36] Tommy: fresh with FPV, it's always a difficult explanation about the risk, as well as just the way it works,
[2243.32] Tommy: right? Because there's still a couple of people out there that don't understand the difference
[2247.24] Frank: between something with the gimbal versus a fixed camera on an FPV drone.
[2277.24] Jack: And tell me if you ever had anyone like doubt your abilities and you're like, yo,
[2285.88] Jack: I'm the man who done the Duggar dive, bitch.
[2292.36] Tommy: Well, first of all, I would be very impressed for anybody in production who has sought any of like,
[2298.6] Tommy: especially the Duggar dive like that, that just never happened. Um, let me think about that. Uh,
[2304.52] Tommy: uh, no, no, no, but it's not, it's not because from the lens that I'm like, good or anything
[2315.32] Tommy: like that. I feel like I don't feel like I'm the best pilot, but it has more to do with them
[2323.48] Tommy: seeing what's possible and then saying, let's do this. Not so much like I want to do this,
[2330.44] Tommy: but can you do this? You know what I mean? It's more like this is crazy. Like you just opened up
[2337.08] Tommy: my horizon to this whole new realm of possibility of shots. Let's try this. Let's try that. Can we
[2343.16] Tommy: do this? Can we do that? So it's, it's, it's, it's been more of like that kind of perspective.
[2349.48] Tommy: It looks like Brandon's asking, are the production company owned drones and cameras insured? Uh,
[2355.64] Tommy: Brandon, to answer your question, production companies don't own any of the drones. Uh, drones
[2360.92] Tommy: and all of the, the gear that goes with it are usually owned by the pilots and or aerial service
[2367.72] Tommy: companies. And typically the way it works ideally is the aerial company or yourself have your own
[2374.76] Tommy: insurance, but then production also covers it. However, like I said, we're also kind of coming
[2380.6] Tommy: into this new time now where production companies, because they understand the nature of FPV drones
[2387.0] Tommy: are starting to not cover FPV drones. Cause they don't want to be liable because because of the
[2393.4] Koel: nature of it. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That must suck though. Cause like, say for instance,
[2399.16] Jack: like your cord went down in the sea, that's like, that probably wipes out most of the money
[2406.6] Jack: that you get on set for a couple of hours. If they're not, yeah. I mean, if they're not
[2412.92] Tommy: covering it, then that's very, very much a possibility, but that's also where you, you
[2418.2] Tommy: really should have your own, you know, insurance coverage, you know, to, to cover things just,
[2424.04] Tommy: just to be extra covered. Production companies usually cover it. And then in cases where they
[2429.48] Tommy: don't, that's when your own personal insurance should, should cover it. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be
[2433.8] Jack: safe. Yeah. Your excess though. After a while, they're like, we're not covering you anymore.
[2443.72] Tommy: It's tough. It could be tough, but that's why you should just try not to crash.
[2447.72] Jack: Yeah. It'd be good. Well, it's a good offline. Yeah. I suppose crashing's one thing, but like
[2453.4] Jack: being able to just retrieve stuff and not have to buy everything all over again is another thing
[2461.4] Tommy: and losing the shot. Oh yeah. I mean, like, and, and like, there was one time where I had to do
[2466.44] Tommy: this shot at the Hollywood sign. And I just know from experience, even before doing production,
[2472.68] Tommy: like I used to try and sneak up there and do, you know, the Hollywood sign and it's an RF nightmare
[2478.12] Tommy: of there. And, um, I had the situation where I, I was good. I was like four flights in, you know,
[2486.04] Tommy: and then the director was like, you know what, this is great, but let's just wait for like the
[2489.88] Tommy: peak golden hour, just so that everything's colored really nicely. Yada, yada, yada. I'm like,
[2495.16] Tommy: all right, cool. And, um, on that flight, like I, I just had a fail safe and the drone went down and
[2503.8] Tommy: in that case, the professional thing to do is you, you bring out the backup and you continue the shot,
[2509.32] Tommy: which is exactly what I did. But at the end of the shoot, I went back up with a flashlight and I
[2514.84] Tommy: just started looking for the drone and it took like a couple of hours, you know, because I think
[2519.8] Tommy: at the end of the day, if, if I could at least recover the Komodo, I could take that and send that
[2525.88] Tommy: back to red and, you know, get it, get it, you know, repaired and whatnot. And the drone is like,
[2531.48] Tommy: whatever the drone, right? We can always, we can fix that, replace the arms, whatever needs happen.
[2536.28] Tommy: But the Komodo is arguably the most expensive. Well, the Komodo and the lens and the transmitter,
[2540.68] Tommy: though, those are like the most, the three most expensive things. It's funny because the drone
[2544.44] Stephen: itself is like the least expensive thing. Yeah. I was just wondering how the big cameras, I mean,
[2550.52] Stephen: I've seen GoPros crashed, but how do those big cine cameras fare in crashes? Do you just find
[2555.48] Tommy: shrapnel or do they actually hold together? No, they, they're actually really good. Well, I mean,
[2560.52] Tommy: okay, like the only thing that I've crashed is the red Komodo and it's, it's amazing. They're,
[2566.12] Tommy: they're, they're incredibly strong. In fact, on, on the feature film that I worked at, the director
[2572.44] Tommy: was like, send it, just like send it. I don't care if you crash it. Let's just try to get the shot.
[2577.64] Tommy: And I did that. And the, like this Komodo was like caved in. Like it just,
[2585.88] Tommy: it was the worst thing I've ever seen. We send it back to Red and the CEO of Red was just so
[2592.84] Tommy: impressed by the damage that I had inflicted into this camera that he elected to not repair it and
[2600.68] Tommy: instead put it onto his like personal museum, you know, because it's still powered up. The footage
[2607.16] Tommy: still wrote to the card. Like it was very important. Oh, so he could see what you did to his lovely
[2611.96] Tommy: camera. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And yeah. And it, it could take a lot. It could, it takes a
[2619.08] Tommy: lot. It takes a lot to really get it to the point where it's just not going to work anymore. Like
[2623.24] Tommy: that, that camera is still powered up. It's still recorded. It's just that the screen is broken and
[2629.4] Tommy: it obviously like looked like because it was like caved in and things like that. Yeah. It's
[2635.88] Koel: probably mostly like lenses and mounts that will, in a bad crash, you'll probably wreck the mount or
[2641.16] Tommy: the lens. Right. Right. That's usually, that's usually it. But, and then, you know, let me also
[2646.2] Tommy: caveat this by saying like the Red Komodo was made to be a crash cam, right? So, you know, I can't
[2653.08] Tommy: say the same for like a mini LF or any of the RE cameras or anything like that. But the Red Komodo
[2658.84] Tommy: specifically has impressed me through and through with in terms of crashing. It's like the session
[2665.56] Tommy: of cinecams. Yeah. That's it. It's got the same similar form factor in terms of being in a box
[2672.44] Stephen: and all that. So yeah, for sure. You still got a lot of money in the lens though. So it's not just
[2677.0] Stephen: the body you've got to worry about, I guess, a lot of weight. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in the very
[2681.56] Tommy: beginning, I used to always have to fly like what the DT wanted, which always worried me because I
[2687.32] Tommy: know, you know, especially if they're like more than one of the more well-known DPs, they have
[2693.88] Tommy: access to these special lenses that are completely invaluable because they've only made X amount of
[2700.68] Tommy: them. And I'm always just like, I kind of don't want, I don't want to do this. But they're, and
[2707.72] Tommy: then when you talk to them, they usually understand. But once I get past that, I'm actually running
[2714.2] Tommy: cheaper Lao lenses that aren't all that expensive. And that, you know, goes a hell of a lot better
[2720.92] Jack: in terms of like peace of mind. Awesome. Brandon Bean, do you want to cover that?
[2729.84] Jack: I like the naked black magic pocket cinema seven inch drone. The straw hat Sam made
[2737.2] Jack: seems very performance orientated. Do you see the value of something like that to use?
[2742.08] Tommy: Yeah, so I actually have that. And when I first saw that, I reached out to Sam and I was like,
[2748.08] Tommy: hey, I love what you're doing. I'd love to, I'd love to get my hands on one of these. And he was
[2753.12] Tommy: kind enough to get me his very first prototype of the entire thing. I do. So I do feel some value
[2761.92] Tommy: out of that. But it really just depends, right? Because here's what I found in the market out
[2768.56] Tommy: here in the US. And that is nobody really cared for the black magic pocket cinema camera.
[2776.88] Tommy: Now I will say this when I talked to like Benoit and, and oh my goodness, I can't remember his name
[2784.32] Tommy: now. Cinequads, not Cinequads. Oh my goodness, what's his name? Okay, I'm gonna stop before I
[2791.52] Tommy: start making digging a deeper hole for myself. But talking to, you know, my friends out in Europe,
[2797.76] Tommy: the black magic is widely accepted. So I think, Brandon, to answer your question,
[2805.04] Tommy: the value is just going to depend on whether or not your local clients value that camera.
[2811.92] Tommy: For me specifically out here in Los Angeles, it's, it's, it's not like I had it, I showed it,
[2818.56] Tommy: I've talked to I tried to sell it to, you know, as an alternative. And it's for whatever reason,
[2825.68] Tommy: black magic just doesn't carry any weight out here in Los Angeles.
[2832.12] Koel: Yeah, they just want higher specs, or, or, or maybe even just a name that's associated with
[2836.6] Tommy: something that they're familiar, more familiar with. That's, that's exactly what it is. I,
[2841.16] Tommy: earlier this morning, I came out of a pre production meeting, and they were like, can you
[2845.8] Tommy: fly the red Raptor, you know, for FPV, and I gave them all the reasons why it's not really worth it.
[2853.0] Tommy: But like, I walked away from that conversation, just further realizing that like, a lot of people
[2858.68] Tommy: just, you know, it's, it's the new toy on the block, everybody wants to play with it. And a lot
[2864.52] Tommy: of times, that's what it is. They want familiarity, or they want the new thing just to say that they
[2870.28] Koel: made it with the new thing. Well, speaking of new things on the block, maybe we should segue into
[2876.44] Koel: the hero 10 bones. Sure. What'd you guys want to know? Well, yeah, I actually don't really know.
[2884.92] Koel: But I guess what are your thoughts on it? Or have you had some experience with it so far?
[2889.32] Tommy: Yeah, that happens to be right here, actually. Did they tell you why it's only going to be sold
[2895.8] Curry: in the US and not in the UK? We can't buy it over here. No, I did not. I didn't know that. There's
[2900.84] Tommy: a handful of things I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know where they were going to sell it.
[2905.16] Tommy: I also didn't know what price they were going to sell it at. And I didn't know what it was going to
[2910.2] Tommy: come with. And I didn't know any of that until the embargo was lifted, and they announced it like
[2915.64] Tommy: that. But what I can tell you is that just looking at the alternatives, right, and we've seen Insta360
[2922.52] Tommy: come out with their version of this. Obviously, there's the DIY route where you do it yourself.
[2928.76] Tommy: In my opinion, this is worth it. Like it is absolutely worth it for the simple fact
[2934.12] Tommy: that you don't have to take apart a go for yourself and potentially kill it because I've
[2938.36] Tommy: wrecked a handful just trying to learn the process of doing it. And then second of all,
[2943.0] Tommy: the case that it comes with, I know it's twice as heavy as the DIY route,
[2947.64] Tommy: but it's that much more robust. Mind you, I have not crash tested it, but just holding it
[2955.8] Tommy: and feeling it in my hand and comparing it to all of the other options, it feels
[2962.68] Tommy: that much closer in terms of like GoPro action cam durability, like it looks like something
[2968.12] Tommy: that you can crash, and you don't really have to worry about it. So and then everything works. So
[2973.0] Tommy: that's the other big thing is like there's the microphone. And if you're like a hardcore freestyle
[2977.32] Tommy: guy, and you like to hear the audio that I know I like to do that, like you've got all of that,
[2983.32] Tommy: you know, and that's something that you would you would lose if you go the DIY route,
[2989.24] Tommy: because you're replacing the entire buttons, because for those that don't know, the microphone
[2993.64] Tommy: is built onto the same ribbon cable as the buttons. And unless you keep that you're going
[2998.28] Tommy: to absolutely lose it. And then you have no audio. And then I mean, the audio on the Insta 360
[3004.2] Tommy: options are just great, right? But this it's it this functions 100% like a GoPro and is super
[3011.88] Tommy: reliable in terms of connecting to your phone or using the GoPro remote. And those are all things
[3017.56] Tommy: that in my opinion are extremely valuable, especially if you're using it on set where you
[3022.36] Tommy: need to check exposure, and be able to reliably change settings on the spot.
[3027.72] Jack: The beeps. Has it got the beeps? Because that's one thing I miss. Oh, you know, when you do why
[3035.16] Jack: you don't, you don't get the BBB? Oh, my gosh, I don't know. I actually don't know.
[3041.32] Tommy: Like, I can't I don't have. So it's I don't have a battery. But but it has the LED on the back and
[3050.52] Tommy: it tells you all of that. And you can still set up the whole remote trigger. So if you wanted to set
[3055.96] Tommy: up an auxiliary on your in beta flight to trigger the start and stop record, it does that. In fact,
[3061.8] Tommy: I've learned that if you connect it to your buzzer, you can have it just automatically start recording
[3068.76] Tommy: as soon as you arm your quad. And I found that out by accident, because I set it up on there on
[3073.32] Tommy: the buzzer. And I forgot to make the changes in beta flight to make it more of an input output
[3078.68] Tommy: trigger. And so in beta flight by default, if you arm your quad, it's supposed to be and it would
[3085.48] Tommy: start recording. And I was like, Oh, well, look at that unexpected hack. And then you arm and you
[3091.16] Jack: automatically start recording like DJI. So I don't know. Yeah. How is your micros now? What are you
[3100.44] Jack: flying? And, you know, your whoop sort of set ups and that? So for I mean, I haven't really done any
[3109.72] Tommy: jobs that that require a sinner work. But like I still if if a job came out tomorrow, I would use a
[3116.68] Tommy: Synolog 35. Just it's just been really solid. It flies forever. With a full size GoPro. So now with
[3124.6] Tommy: like, the bones, that means it would just be even that much better. But I found a Synolog 35 from
[3131.64] Tommy: gap RC has been pretty solid. And it flies great. It just works. It does not have a beat. I missed
[3141.62] Stephen: the beep. Oh, yeah. Brandon confirmed it. Yeah. So got a question from discord from rabbit ambulance
[3151.86] Stephen: who says, knowing what you know now and having gotten to where you have in your FBV career,
[3157.46] Stephen: what if anything, would you have done differently along the way? Oh, goodness. Wow. What a question.
[3164.5] Jack: Um, final glide harder.
[3171.86] Tommy: Wow. I don't even know what I do. What would I do differently?
[3181.14] Tommy: I think in the very beginning, I would just be more confident, really. I honestly think my first
[3189.94] Tommy: year in doing all of this, because I think I was just suing you with everything. I don't,
[3198.42] Tommy: looking back at it, I don't think I spoke with confidence to directors, producers and DPs.
[3203.54] Tommy: And when that happens, they don't have a lot of confidence in you. And then intern, what that
[3210.98] Tommy: means is your opportunity to get shots or do cooler things automatically diminishes. And it really
[3219.54] Tommy: wasn't until like my second third year of doing this, where I finally felt comfortable to say no,
[3226.26] Tommy: you know, that's also a really big thing. So yeah, I'll say that as number two, I would be more
[3231.94] Tommy: willing to say no earlier on being confident and being willing to say no, I would say is it because
[3238.82] Tommy: like in the very beginning, I just wanted to please anybody and just do it. Even though deep down, I
[3245.3] Tommy: knew it might not would work out or the safety factor wasn't exactly there, which is very hard
[3252.5] Tommy: because when you come from grassroots freestyle, like there's no such thing as safety. Just if you
[3257.14] Tommy: break it, you break it. But in this case, it's absolutely different. Like, you know, crashing
[3261.3] Tommy: on set is a very, very big deal, especially when there's talent involved. But yeah, I to answer your
[3266.42] Tommy: question, those would be the two things that I would I would do differently. You know, there's
[3270.42] Tommy: no reason to come on set and not be confident. I think for me personally, I just wasn't very
[3274.98] Tommy: confident in my communications because I've never been in this setting before. And I don't
[3280.18] Tommy: exactly know the language that people speak, or what the expectations are and things like that.
[3285.94] Tommy: And then the second thing, as I already mentioned, say no, say no, when when you don't think it's
[3290.58] Tommy: right, or you don't think it's going to work out and always offer an alternative. That's another
[3295.38] Tommy: thing I always I learned very quickly on like if you if they ask for something that you know is not
[3300.66] Tommy: going to happen, offer an alternative. Don't just say no. Thanks, man. Solutions, not problems.
[3308.26] Jack: Yeah, I know. I'm gonna make you a shirt that just says no. And then duck a dive ellipsis.
[3319.14] Curry: Did we cover the designer drone frame by voting? No. Oh, we should we should talk about that.
[3326.42] Tommy: Yeah, because this is you have a little project. Oh, yeah. I've always, yeah, there's something
[3333.38] Tommy: that I've always been kind of toying with the idea. And up until recently never really had the
[3340.58] Tommy: means to do so. And that was to just literally just design a quad, completely based off of
[3348.02] Tommy: community vote. And the reason why I've never, I've been shy to do it early on is because like,
[3356.42] Tommy: you know, with business and things like that, and making frames, you always had these minimum
[3360.66] Tommy: MOQs that you had to hit in order to actually make a production run. And so for me, it was just
[3366.98] Tommy: too much of a risk to try to design something based absolutely on the community where I
[3373.7] Tommy: don't necessarily know if it's going to be popular or not, and then have to meet this MOQ and
[3378.74] Tommy: potentially be stuck with something that, at the end of the day, only five people wanted. And I had
[3384.02] Tommy: to make like 1000. You know what I mean? But thankfully, you know, I've been blessed with
[3390.1] Tommy: having a shop now and being able to cut frames in house where I don't have to worry about that.
[3395.62] Tommy: And even if at the end of the day, I only sell 100 of these, or only 50 people are interested,
[3402.74] Tommy: I still think it would have been cool to just go through the exercise and share people what
[3406.74] Tommy: happens internally when it comes to designing a frame from start to finish. And really the only
[3411.94] Tommy: difference here with when we try to come up with a frame or I come up with a frame, the design
[3418.42] Tommy: process and testing things out is the same. But the decisions are not with me anymore. It's just
[3425.62] Tommy: absolutely with the community. And with that, you know, I first got my start in this entire thing
[3432.02] Tommy: by building my ideal frame, and I just everything that I wanted into it. And I thought my frame was
[3438.18] Tommy: so cool. And I always thought like, well, how can I bring this back and share that with other people?
[3445.94] Tommy: And that was like, all right, well, if they got to make all the decisions, then, you know,
[3450.5] Tommy: it should be pretty close to feeling like it was your own frame. And so that's kind of where the
[3454.26] Curry: whole thing started. I'm quite excited to see where it goes, because it's taken an interesting
[3458.98] Curry: turn, whereas people voted, they want something robust. So yeah, but yeah, they want it to
[3466.5] Curry: magically fold like a transformer, which is interesting, because as you said in your video,
[3471.38] Curry: you're you can go robust, or you can go folding, nobody's been able to make a folding cord that's
[3476.74] Tommy: robust before. So this is going to be interesting. Right? Yeah, I so I'm gonna be perfectly honest,
[3482.26] Tommy: when I first started this project, I was hoping low key hoping that, you know, it would go by the
[3487.94] Tommy: way of just something wild, like I because I like just off the wall, super different, you know,
[3495.14] Tommy: especially if it's something that's not out there. And so when I started seeing that as going like,
[3499.3] Tommy: oh, everybody wants a five inch freestyle band over and I was like, there's so many of those
[3505.3] Tommy: out there already. Um, but at the very least, I'm glad that it took this turn for folding,
[3511.78] Tommy: which, you know, to your point, yeah, you know, at a very high level, having something that folds
[3516.98] Tommy: and having something that's extremely durable, don't exactly jive. But you know, these are the
[3523.46] Tommy: challenges that myself and my team are excited to kind of figure out and see, well, what can we do,
[3529.7] Tommy: at the very least, maybe there's a compromise. So it's still durable for what it is, but it's
[3534.74] Jack: still checks off all the boxes. Yeah. Do you remember the guy who did the, you know, the DJI
[3541.62] Jack: flamewill arms, there was a guy who built those out of titanium, or some sort of strong ally. Yeah.
[3550.74] Jack: You could speak to Tony K. You can get them, you know, like he had the shoe gone, but maybe you
[3557.3] Jack: could be like, yo, shoe gone, but with titanium arms folding. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's,
[3565.46] Tommy: and it's funny too, because like, um, in it to me, I always thought something that folds
[3574.18] Tommy: makes a lot of sense for like long range folks, right? Because those are typically like seven
[3578.66] Tommy: inch and higher. And so now you've got a quad that's really big and I can see why you'd want
[3582.74] Tommy: it to fold, but for like a five inch, it's kind of like, it's not that big. And there's a lot of
[3587.78] Tommy: backpacks out there that can fit, you know, something like that easily in there already. So,
[3593.22] Tommy: but we'll see. And yeah, just like spoiler alert, that is absolutely what, uh, what one, um,
[3600.9] Tommy: is a, if something that folds and something that is also durable, I'm actually going to post a video
[3605.94] Tommy: out tomorrow on the next voting round, which is simply okay. And now that we know what everybody
[3610.82] Tommy: wants, uh, people just need to decide now, how does it fold? Right. And there's only so many ways
[3616.18] Tommy: you can fold a drone, you know, uh, it's either just going to be tall and skinny, or it's going
[3621.54] Tommy: to be more of a box slash rectangle shape. So that's going to be the next voting round. And then
[3627.78] Tommy: after that, once we figure out exactly how, you know, people want this to fold, then, then it's
[3634.26] Tommy: going to be a crunch time to figure out how to make a solid folding mechanism that doesn't introduce
[3639.46] Tommy: frame resonance. That's easy enough to do, because if it's a pain in the ass to fold,
[3644.26] Tommy: then like, what's the point? And then also checking out that durability factor.
[3650.98] Jack: Goal wing folding. All right. Elon, I need your help.
[3658.5] Jack: Right. That's kind of all we got time for on the podcast. All right. Thank you so much for
[3664.5] Jack: showing up to me. It's always a pleasure to have a new one. No, likewise. It's always a pleasure to
[3668.82] Jack: be on. So you've been listening to Let's Drone out. Uh, we are sponsored and supported by all
[3674.66] Jack: our lovely Patreons, especially Window US. He recently helped our Patreon. Unfortunately,
[3680.66] Jack: we lost one of our Patreons last week. Um, Wes, um, you'll be deeply missed by the show.
[3691.46] Jack: And, uh, you know, don't forget you can leave a, uh, if you, if you knew Wes, you could leave a
[3698.82] Jack: remembrance message on his Facebook. I'm sure his wife would appreciate it. Uh, you've been
[3706.58] Jack: listening to Let's Drone out. You've been joined by everyone's favorite Curry Kitten.
[3710.66] Jack: Good night. The Sonic 2 movies, uh, coming out soon. And that means Eggman, it will be busy.
[3718.58] Jack: Stephen. Cheers. Thanks everyone. Please shave it all off and just have the Eggman mustache,
[3724.58] Stephen: please. No, keep it. We shall see. No, keep it. There might be a change. Summer is coming
[3731.3] Stephen: and it's getting steadily more uncomfortable, but definitely the mustache is staying.
[3736.98] Jack: Yeah, just keep the mustache, lose everything else and be Eggman. We'll get you some glasses.
[3742.5] Jack: Do it. Um, the man behind the social skull. Good night. Our guest for tonight, Tommy. Oh my god.
[3752.26] Jack: Thanks for having me, fellas. And I'll be right until I fly.
[3756.02] Jack: You've been listening to Let's Drone out. Good night. Telemetry lost.