When you move a camera backwards, you're constantly revealing new information; the shot is inherently surprising and interesting to the viewer. But, sometimes, moving backwards means your drone gets stuck up a tree.
When this happened to me, it was 15 minutes before a ceremony, and there were lots of guests dotted around the area, so there were limits to how much I could scream at and punch the tree without looking unprofessional. Besides, I couldn't even see where the drone was, and this was a big tree.
I had to keep my eye on the ball and finish the ceremony. And this was a crazy hot summer day, the sort of day where the sweat stings into your eyes and blinds you, and it's too hot to move much. The photographers' cameras overheated and shut down; but fortunately my video cameras have inbuilt fans. And the whole time, while struggling against the heat and against getting blocked by guests, I was thinking about my $1500 piece of kit sitting up in those branches.
It was luckily a ceremony-only job that day. The couple and the guests vanish quickly afterwards in search of air-conditioning, and I have a chat with the no-nonsense and distracted venue manager, who looks at me with pity and disgust. No, there's no tools or crane I can use to search the top of the tree. No, there are no gardeners coming any time soon. But, yes, I can try to climb the tree if I really want to. Which tree is it?
"The big one at the back," I say. "The one right next to the hedge."
Fine, she says. That tree is climbable; they sometimes go up there to hang fairy lights.
And so I get up in there. I get up in there on that freaking hot day, dressed in my formal black clothes and dress shoes, and I haven't climbed a tree in decades. I discover a lot of thing up that tree. I discover that the higher you climb, the dodgier it gets, because the branches thin out until they aren't strong enough to support you -- so that there's always large areas of the tree that are out of reach. I discover that foliage on a tree can be as impenetrable to see through from the inside as from the outside. I discover spiders, ants, splinters, forgotten fairy lights and frustration. But what I don't find, no matter how furiously I shake the branches, is a drone. I don't even really know exactly where I should be looking.
I try different approaches. I get my telephoto lens out, and zoom in on the tree in beautiful 4K resolution without seeing anything that isn't tree. I check the last reported GPS signals -- because drones, like Malaysian airplanes, will ping you coordinates until they stop pinging. And the numbers definitely point towards this particular tree, but it's hard to say with precision where.
I tell the tree that it is not going to beat me.
I arm myself with a long lightstand, and head back up there.
Four hours later, the tree has beaten me. I've pushed the weight limit of every branch I can stand on. I've nearly fallen out a dozen times. I've precariously balanced with my back against some of those branches, with my feet against the tree trunk, to push repeatedly with all my might. I've broken some of the more fragile branches. And I've broken my expensive lightstand, but before that have poked and slid it through the canopy in a hundred places without success.
I've shaken the hell out of everything I can shake, but either the drone is somewhere I haven't shaken, or it's in a shake-resistant place where its wings are hopelessly entwined with the leaves and twigs.
I've also, at times, had to quietly hide and spy on people. My brain reasons that it's weird to yell down at them, "Hey, don't mind me. I'm just doing my thing, up in this tree. Please carry on." But, on the other hand, if I don't say anything, and they notice I'm up here, maybe they get alarmed, and maybe they call the cops. So I conclude it's easier just to be quiet.
After the four-hour mark, it's taken me a lot longer than I imagined it could, and I have two problems -- growing darkness and growing wetness, because it's beginning to sprinkle. So, I have to retreat to my car empty-handed.
I can't return for a week; and during that week, I consider not going back. That four hours was traumatic. But I think of the footage, and of the $1500 it would cost me for a replacement, and in the end it just seems like, on balance, I have no real choice.
So, I'm back at that function centre the following weekend, bright and early in the morning, better armed, and freshly determined. I have a long painter's pole -- much stronger than the broken lightstand. I also have another drone that I plan to use for scouting (and which hopefully won't also get stuck up there).
So, drone #2 takes flight. It circles the tree. It circles the very top of the tree, areas that can't be seen from the ground, and it sees... nothing. I don't feel disappointment because I expected disappointment.
I guess it's down to me and Mr Painter Pole. I click on the "return to home" button and grit my teeth, preparing to do battle with the tree again.
And then, as drone #2 is returning, I see something. Something that looks like... hope? Is that...? Could that be...?
My heart's in my mouth. At this point, this whole thing is not even about recovering the lost footage. It's about achieving the impossible.
In the corner of the control screen, I see a flash of white. And that could be nothing. It could be paper or some other rubbish. Or it could be...
I zoom in for a closer look -- and there, unmistakeable and lying on top of the hedge right next to the tree, is a DJI Mini 3. It had fallen out of the tree onto the hedge, and I'd been searching in the wrong place the entire time.
I just can't believe it. I can't believe my eyes.
I run up there, and fight with cobwebs and blue-tongued lizards to get closer to that hedge, and then my painter pole easily brings the Mini 3 out of the hedge and back into my hands.
I just can't believe it.
It didn't fly properly. After take-off, it would seem okay, and then suddenly drop a few metres for no reason. So, it had to go to the repair shop. And the repair shop took a look at it, noted that it had been exposed to elements and rained on for a week, noted the rust, and said "eff this", and gave me a new drone under DJI's warranty and replacement plan. And that process cost me hundreds of dollars, but far less than the $1500 I was dreading.
And the footage? Well, there was one shot that stood out. I had flown the drone very close to decorations, giving a beautiful and unusual perspective and a sense of grandeur. I put that shot into my "best of 2023-24" wedding showreel. After all that, I couldn't not put it in.
