Olympic TV aerial coverage

[JerryG]

I've been out of the pprune loop for a while but have just been watching the Mountain Biking on the Olympic coverage and felt compelled to say what a magnificent job the aerial team are doing on that event. It's tight, stable, imaginative, and creative, with many variations on a theme, lots of interesting relationships between foreground and background, and great variety between wide shots and tight shots.

Without knowing who is doing what (and with apologies to any old mates who have been involved in the other rather lacklustre outside events) the pilot/camera operator combos for the Sailing and the Mountain Biking have produced really stand-out results. :D

Congrats guys.... great job!

Cheers
JerryG

[Pink Panther]

Totally agree,:ok: and all done from a Schweizer while checking out the freewheel unit by the sounds of it.:} Don't you just love the audio feed in the background.:E

PS, thought I saw what looked like the undercarriage of a puma in some of the night camera sweeps.

[Senior Pilot]

Jerry,

Have you any idea who are providing the coverage and uplinks? Excellent work, I got the impression that some of the night stuff was from an airship, I heard no rotor noise which would have indicated otherwise.

BZ to those involved :ok:

[Chris P Bacon]

Arena have the BBC news aircraft covering events along with another two covering for NBC. They also have the Sky News aircraft working. All aircraft are AS355F's.

[42psi]

Many of the events have used remote controlled cameras mounted on zip wire affairs for the ariel shots.

Similar set up as inside a stadium, if you look at some of the wider shots in the mountain bikes you may see the towers with the wires.

Don't think the sailing used them though

:eek:

[rotorfan]

I've just watched the closing ceremonies as broadcast on (and produced by) the American NBC. There were aerial shots of gorgeous countryside and magnificent estates. Just beautiful. I assume rotary platforms. Did any of the forum members do some of this flying?

Did security measures impact everyday flight to the extent that many worried about in threads weeks ago?

Well done to the hosts! It was a brilliant set of games.

[tegwin]

Looking at some of the photos of the closing ceremony on the BBC website you can clearly see a couple of dirigibles floating above the stadium.

[Heli-Jock]

I Think Excell Charter out of Stapleford in Essex had the contract for 4 No AS355's with cameras, to patroll the Olympics.

[Brilliant Stuff]

One blimp was involved at times but I only saw it during the Olympics once on the TV. And I saw it once passing the office.

I know for a fact a 355 was filming the opening ceremony and another was heavily involved with the sailing.

And yes there were also cameras on wires suspended from tall masts like at Eton Dorney/Lee Valley.

[MightyGem]

The opening shot of the closing ceremony(long shot of the stadium) showed an AS 355 above the stadium.

[mickjoebill]

There were a few cable cam rigs, the most impressive was strung between two 300ft towers, 2.5km apart for the rowing.
The cable broke but was replaced without too much hassle.

Over 30 stabilised cameras in use in London.


The 3d TV broadcast transmission had an open mic of the arena, the sound of a helicopter was quite prominant, sounded like a AS355. Pity the organisers were not moved to have an EC 135 in the fleet.
Something to consider for Rio?

Here is a DIY cablecam system which wasn't in use during the olympics, love the use of mark I stabilised system;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpNOL9I6mPU&feature=player_embedded



Mickjoebill

[JimBall]

Mr Bacon: to correct your info. The Olympic Broadcast Service had at least 8 AS355s running Cineflex systems, and links from BroadcastRF. There was an additional AS355 for the exclusive use of NBC. These were all run from Stapleford by MW/Excel. (Although the NBC machine came from Arena.)
Down at Weymouth were 2 AS355s with a 3rd "spare".
The logistics of all of this were co-ordinated by Ian Evans, who assembled a great team of pilots with OBS cam ops.
OBS specified twins - and the contract went to a UK company.

All good.

[farmpilot]

The 3d TV broadcast transmission had an open mic of the arena, the sound of a helicopter was quite prominant, sounded like a AS355. Pity the organisers were not moved to have an EC 135 in the fleet.
Something to consider for Rio?

Or just step away a bit for the sensitive parts?

[Ian Corrigible]

Coinidentally, Flight just published an article on the subject: How the London Olympics were filmed from above (http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/in-focus-how-the-london-olympics-were-filmed-from-above-375436)

Extract:

[Aerial Camera Systems] gathered together a fleet of camera platforms and crews. Six Eurocopter AS355F1 Twin Squirrels were sourced, most of them from air operator's certificate holder Excel Charter, based at Stapleford Tawney, Essex. Four of these would be required at any one time; two overlapping to provide a continuous feed during lengthy events, a "hot spare" ready to go and a "cold spare" fitted with a fourth Cineflex V14 high-definition camera system.

Each tail number was issued a Mode S Hex Code, authorising it to enter P111, and Evans drafted and submitted a detailed flying programme to cover the 16-day festival of sport. Downlinks for the high-definition images would be provided by a pair of King Air turboprops stationed at 20,000ft above London. These offered a more elegant and cost-effective system than that deployed during the 2004 Olympics in Athens, where up to half of the 14 aerial filming helicopters had to be dedicated to "re-bro" (re-broadcast).

Away from London, three further ACS Twin Squirrels covered the sailing events off England's south coast - at Weymouth and Portland - from the HM Coastguard helipad near the regatta control. Images from these helicopters were the basis for some ground-breaking graphics by the BBC clarifying the positions of the race leaders. Fly-bys were also required at each stadium in the nationwide football tournaments. By rigging a series of cable cameras, ACS removed the need for additional vertical coverage of the equestrian, rowing and BMX events.

In total, the ACS fleet flew more than 300 hours during the Games, with a further 50 hours contributed by the Weymouth- and Portland-based helicopters.

I/C

[uncle ian]

JimBall has it right and the 'Flight' artile confirms the basic facts.

JerryG's kind comments were very well recieved. He will be well aware that Mountain Biking is just about the only event that allows for any creativity from the film crew which is why I selfishly allocated that event to myself. I am, nonetheless, very proud of the output from the entire team delivered without a single hitch. I have little to say about the opening/closing ceremonies where our input was minimal.

I haven't seen any of the footage Rotorfan mentions as it's only available on NBC. Those beauty shots were done last summer by the multiple award winning operator Dave Manton of ACS. Again I was privilleged to be the driver for those sequences.

[Bob the Doc]

I know at least one of the drivers for this. He was above the 139 that 'HM the Q and Daniel Craig' jumped out of. Looks like he had a good time

[TRC]

Flying Pictures have issued this press release, which I post with their permission:


A YEAR OF BONDING FOR FLYING PICTURES

Having worked on the new James Bond film, Skyfall, earlier in the year, Flying Pictures was delighted to be offered the opportunity to supply their expertise to Danny Boyle and his team for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The stunt involving Mr Bond and Her Majesty was performed as a result of 6 months of planning and absolute secrecy.

The challenge involved the complexities of permission, meticulous organisation and management, perfect camerawork and precise timing. The ultimate show depended entirely on everything being in place precisely on cue so that the live stunt could be intercut with the recorded footage, which Flying Pictures had shot for the BBC over several months.

Even though the recorded footage included mythically flying the monarch and spy by helicopter through Tower Bridge (it had to be closed for almost an hour), the media never caught on to what would eventually result.

Flying Pictures supplied live aerial coverage of the Ceremony and all the recorded aerial footage of the Isles of Wonder sequence along the Thames, the four choirs and of course the flight of Mr Bond and Her Majesty as they travelled from Buckingham Palace to overhead the stadium.

Head of Film Services, Andy Stephens said “This was the Flying Pictures team at its best, but our thanks must also go to all the production teams at LOCOG and BBC, Wing Commanders Dawn Lindsey and Paul Moss who assisted with the co-ordination as well as the Civil Aviation Authority inspectors Howard Mersey and Lawrence Hay for granting the permissions required for this most memorable event”

The Flying Pictures team included the following:

Helicopter pilots: Marc Wolff, Will Samuelson, Peter Hall and Sam Eddings; Aerial cameramen: John Marzano and Adam Dale; Head of Film Services: Andy Stephens; Administration: Lucia Foster-Found and Paul Rosser; Microwave Technicians: Richard Lincoln and Pierre Chenot; Safety Engineers: Steve North, Phil Pickford and Tom Clode; Technical support: Will Handley, Glyn Williams and Dave Francis.

Isles of wonder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tm7NWsxRRc&feature=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tm7NWsxRRc&feature=relmfu)

Happy & glorious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5abat5NEU&feature=player_embedded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW5abat5NEU&feature=player_embedded)


More information can be found in the latest news section on their website Aerial Filming, Cineflex, Aerostats and Adventure Management from the The Flying Pictures Group (http://www.flyingpictures.com/) Or on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/flyingpictures

[Brilliant Stuff]

Brilliant!!! Brilliant!!! Brilliant!!!!! Top Notch!!:ok::ok:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[JerryG]

Ha ! Well done Uncle Ian. So who did fly the sailing, they deserve an honourable mention in despatches?

Very glad the whole thing went off safely, it's no small feat to achieve.

(and very glad you can still walk all the way to a helicopter!).

[RVDT]

So who did fly the sailing, they deserve an honourable mention in despatches?

Obviously these guys here!Irish Commentary

[uncle ian]

Portland was covered by:

David Arkell
Tom Saunderson
Dougie Ried

A bitch of a job down there without the variety the rest of the team enjoyed. I will pass on the compliments of the true professionals among you. Thanks