Eskimos from Above

The flags were blowing!

The Assignment: Film the Leo Brady Exercise Like an Eskimo New Year’s Day Plunge
The Plan: Drone, GoPro, Still Shots
The Crew: Mitch, Jenifer, Neil
The Forecast: mid-60s, NW wind gusting to 35 mph

When planning a drone shoot in January, air temperature is usually the biggest variable. Drones can’t fly much below freezing. Coastal Drone Marketing (CDM) got a lucky break with mid-60s for New Year’s Day. But the wind forecast made an alternate plan necessary. 20 mph winds are okay. 25 mph is not great, but doable. Over 30 mph - yikes. So, in case of strong winds, CDM also had the gimbal-mounted Nikon ready to go for on-the-scene video.

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Neil’s responsibility was to get the still shots; Jenifer, armored in her dry suit, took the GoPro to run with the plungers; Mitch had to decide between the drone or the Nikon.

“Luckily, the wind was almost directly west, no north in it,” said Mitch. A west wind meant that if a gust over-powered the drone, it would blow out to sea not back into the crowd. Also, by staying low he’d be able to avoid some of the wind altogether. But he was going to need to severely limit his airtime to save the battery.

The challenge for an event such as this is the brevity. While CDM’s permit from the Town of Bethany was for two hours, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, the Plunge itself lasts only a tiny fraction of that. The announcer starts counting down from 10, 9, 8…the crowd joins in, 3, 2, 1.  Everyone screams. Then the plungers run towards the ocean, flip, fall, dive, or dip into the water, and run out. Then it’s over. If the camera gear isn’t ready, you’ve missed it.

With the wind, Mitch couldn’t keep the drone up very long without draining the batteries. And he had to be down the beach from the plungers so that he wouldn’t fly over anyone (a big no-no) which meant he couldn’t hear the countdown. But he got it in the air and over water just in time to catch all the frenzied action.

“Everything worked out,” said Mitch. “Neil caught some great pre and post plunge expressions. Jen got some fun reactions. And I got the drone up in time to catch it from the sky.”

Check out the results!