Lighting with drones has come a long way. Just a year ago - from spring to fall 2016 - we were working on our first design of a powerful drone light. For our short, THE LIGHT and the release of the Freefly MoVI PRO, we used this first version of a drone light with great success. It had a decent output and nice soft quality with a 360 spread (incl. top and bottom). This was a great solution for what we needed but our design has evolved since then.

After finishing THE LIGHT we discovered the work from Daniel Riley at Stratus LED, which had a very inspiring influence on us. His approach was to use a much harder light source - focused 100W LED COB chips that he'd hard mount under the ALTA 8. This was interesting and created beautiful results, though it had one major downfall: because the light was hard mounted, all drone movements would translate into the light. While flying this usually isn't a huge issue (it is less noticeable), in a stationary shot every little movement of the drone (compensation for wind) would result in a shift of the light beam and become very noticeable.

The solution was an easy one: all of our future lights had to be mounted on a MoVI to create stable shots but also have full control over light movement, angle and directionality.

The three lights we built are the following:

900W Flood light with 9x 100W LED chips (98 CRI - Daylight balanced) - supported on MoVI M15
400W Spot light with 4x 100W LED chips and parabolic reflectors. This light uses a Connex Prosight HD FPV camera for remote framing and is also supported on a MoVI M15.
MAXABEAM - HID Xenon light with a spot as narrow as 1 degree. Supported on MoVI M10.

In the past we've seen drone lights being used for very stylized effects, like big, hard moving shadows at night. It is a very impressive look, but is also something that we've seen repeated a lot right now. The big question was: how could we use a drone light in a new way? How could it replace traditional film lighting - both in a very subtle way (that wouldn't immediately give away that it was lit by a drone) and in a creative way?

The options with these lights are endless. Even in this first test we've been able to use them for a variety of different effects:

Stationary key light for our actors
Overhead stationary spot (mimicking a light on a condor arm)
Orbiting or moving key
Stationary panning spot light
Painterly lighting effects (e.g. highlighting just a tree or a spot on a field) at dusk and dawn

All that being said: this is only a first test. We think this kind of lighting could be revolutionary for the film industry - pushing creative lighting in a completely new direction and open doors for indie filmmakers as well as high-budget feature films, commercials or even music videos. We are very excited to see where this technology is going and how we can use it on future projects!

Big thanks to Adam Koontz, who was our pilot and a great collaborator on this one - and to Peter Paul Longo for the wonderful edit.

As always - please feel free to reach out with any questions or ideas and we look forward to collaborating with you on your next project!

All the best from the Brooklyn Aerials Team!

Cheers! Tim

'THE LIGHT' is the second creative short film collaboration between Tim Sessler and Brandon Bray. After our last collaboration on ‘BALANCE,’ we wanted to focus on a more narrative piece but really push the abstract while letting the visuals do most of the storytelling. While BALANCE explored aerial cinematography in a new and artistic way, 'THE LIGHT' is really about attempting to make light a character, and using it in a new and innovative way.

Over the past year we've seen an increase in interesting use of "drone lighting". People attaching remote flashes to small quadcopters or creating impressive work, like Reuben Wus landscape photography with a tiny 200W light.

The issue with most of these systems is that they are far from being usable for motion picture. Even our first test with small prototype lights resulted in pushing Sony's a7s II to extremely high ISOs, as high as 32,000. While the results of the drone light were absolutely stunning and created a bizarre effect that seemed to combine the moving shadows (that we otherwise only know from timelapse footage) and live action - we needed to create a much stronger light source to capture our vision with a proper cinema camera.

After multiple prototypes we finally arrived at our first light that got us into a realm of usable exposure. Using 60 feet of high powered 2835-480 LED light strips - giving both a 360 degree spread as well as a separate top down light, we had our first working drone light with about an 80,000 lumen output.

We based the whole lighting design around the Freefly "Toad in the Hole" quick release system, which allowed us to change from drone to handheld or even cable cam within seconds.

Also as the LED strips are rated for 24V, we are able to run them straight off of 6S LiPo flight packs, which further streamlines the whole setup.

MoVI Pro and RED Helium 8K

We probably have one of the brightest lights that has ever been flown on a mutlicopter - but because we weren't using a focused light source (like a spot light or larger LEDs with lenses to narrow down the spread) we were still fighting exposure issues for our wide shots that the RED 6K Weapon or Alexa Mini could not handle.

Coincidentally, our timeline lined up with the release of the RED Helium, which provides a magnificent and clean 8K image - even at ISO 3,200. As a result, we ended up shooting almost every shot on exactly that ISO and wide open on the Leica Summilux-C lenses.

On top of that we were fortunate enough to shoot this entire project with a prototype of the new Freefly MoVI Pro and the new Freefly Mimic. The MoVI Pro is an absolute game changer in the world of gimbals as it provides a pan motor with double the torque of Freeflys M15 (one of the big weak spots in a lot of gimbals below $20K). It also combines important elements like camera and accessory power, FIZ and full camera control all in one unit, making the whole setup a lot easier, sleeker and more simplified.

I wrote about the Freefly Mimic last year when it was first released - and lately it has been my go to tool for nearly every shoot. I've done abstract commercial work with it, TV specials and even recently used it for the first time on a drone shoot for a flying POV scene.

While some of our dream sequences were supposed to have more of a smooth, dreamy and stable feel to it, we also wanted to have a very energetic feel for the running scenes, tension for the vérité scenes and an overall controlled handheld look for the piece.

Actually envisioning to shoot handheld while running through the dark forest was unthinkable. Building elaborate dolly tracks would have been completely impossible given our small crew and budget. The fact that I can use an operator, cable cam, drone or car mount to carry the MoVI, while still having full control over the camera movement and framing, from super smooth moves to a controlled, yet alive handheld feel all the way to rapid pans and a shaky, disorienting style, is pretty incredible. As a cinematographer this is really the tool I've been waiting for.

Freefly is also advancing in terms of camera control, allowing you to change most camera settings from the MIMIC and MoVI controller via RCP (RED Command Protocol) - through the MoVI controller there is even the option of playback and many more camera functions.

After spending some time shooting with the MoVI PRO - here are some of our favorite new additions:

Double the torque for the pan motor compared to the M15
Streamlined battery setup that powers both gimbal, camera and accessories
RCP and camera control via MIMIC and MoVI
New MoVI Ring with built-in stand
New landing gear design for quick switch between handheld and airborne mode
Advanced and improved auto-tune that also tunes the filter settings

More info about the Freefly MoVI Pro can be found here: freeflysystems.com/movi/

BEHIND THE SCENES - THE LIGHT

This project would not have been possible without the help and support from the people listed below. We really want to thank everyone that was involved in this project. We had to ask every favor possible and we are very grateful for all the support that we received to make this dreamy film a reality.

Director: Brandon Bray

DP: Tim Sessler

Camera Op: Soren Nielsen and Brad Meier

Drone Operator: Brad Meier - Aerial Edge

AC: Jaime Medrano and Filipp Penson

Gaffer: Brian Stansfield - Apollo Lighting and Grip

Grip: Paul Trujillo

BTS: Stephan Hawk, Joey Diaz, Sam Hicks

Production: Freefly Systems, Brooklyn Aerials, Decade.is

Production Manager: Wyatt Angelo

Composer: Michael Marantz

Violin / Cello Performer: Daniel Boventer

Freefly Systems - Tabb Firchau and Hugh Bell

RED Digital Cinema - Jarred Land

OffHollywood - Mark Pederson

Diamond Brothers - Jason Diamon

Andrew Voegeli - Cable Cam Support

CPT Rental - Aaron Fidan and Kazim Karaismailoglu

Sound Design - Brandon Bray

Sound Mix - Drew English

RCO COLOR - Seth Ricart

Cindy Kay and Autumn Kay Brookmire - Meals on set

And our families for their patience and endless support of our passion projects

BTS Photo Credits: Stephan Hawk, Brian Stansfield, Joey Diaz, Sam Hicks