MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: My
name is Michael Holzwarth, as Philip said. First and foremost, I'd like
to thank you guys in advance for giving me the opportunity
to, for lack of better terms, drone on about drones for
about a half hour here. Today, I'll briefly be covering
the part 107 guidelines, the differences
between hobby flying and 107 commercial flying,
different policies, procedures, and my experience thus
far in the industry. At any time, if you
guys have any questions, feel free to interrupt. I don't mind. And I'm going to leave some
time at the end for questions. And if any of you guys want to
come up and check out the bird up here, please feel free. All right. This first slide
is going to talk a little bit about my journey
thus far in the UAV industry, or UAS. Bought my first drone in 2014
to take with me on a trip to Hawaii, edited
up some footage, posted my content to
YouTube, and got a little bit of semi-viral success-- about 50,000 views. And then a licensing company
actually reached out to me and said, hey, we want to
utilize some of your footage. We want to sell it. We like it. And I just said, man, I
just made this for fun. I can make money doing this. This is great. And saw a little side
revenue stream there. After I started making
a little bit of money, I was kind of hooked. And when the first
round of 107 exams took place roughly
two years ago, I told my father
at East Coast, I want to be the very first person
in the state to take that exam. I passed. I was the first person in
the state of Massachusetts to hold the 107. That reign of terror
lasted roughly five minutes till the kid next to
me passed his test. And then there was two. I then had some local success. Next, I made a video, as
Phillip was alluding to, on Cape Cod over at Wellfleet. If any of you are familiar
with the Beachcomber. I absolutely love that place. Went and flew my drone
there, posted a video. All the local news
channels picked it up. And about two weeks later,
I received a nice $1,500 fine from the ranger
station in Cape Cod. They fined me for-- what was it-- some kind of Piper
Plover Puffin bird out there. I was flying over a sanctuary. They were not happy with that. And I was operating a
UAS over a national park. I want to stress, though,
the FAA didn't fine me. It was the ranger service
that gave me the fine. I kind of chuckled at it,
because I made about $4,800 off the footage, and that made
the fine kind of worth it. In the fall of 2016, I
basically hit some viral gold. I took my drone up to
the Kancamagus Highway during the fall, made a
nice little foliage video. Couple licensing
companies picked it up. And that very next day, it
ran on Good Morning America. I got some national attention
to the tune of about 4.7 million views on the video. Still counting-- people
still watching that thing all the time. Especially in the fall,
it gets a lot of play. You might be wondering,
what does 4.7 million views equate to in dollars? I'll admit, it's not that much. I wish it was $1 a view,
but, unfortunately, is not. I think I made about
$10,000 off that. But something I was
just doing for fun, and I had no intention of
it going viral or getting that kind of success. So it was definitely a plus. After I got that
national attention, a local production
company called Above Summit, here in
Somerville, contacted me. Where you been all our lives? Come work for us. And now I'm a production
coordinator and Lead Drone Op over at Above Summit. Next slide. This slide, basically
just provide you with some links to the full text
of regulations, introduction material, and any other
relevant documents. You guys can take a look
at this on your own time. All right. Next, we're going to talk
a little bit about hobby [? versus ?] 107. Let's talk about the difference. Hobby operation is
just how it sounds. You want to go out and take
some pictures of your kids or do whatever, that's
on your own time. That's hobby. But if your intended use
is for anything commercial, you are required
to obtain a 107. Some examples-- real estate
photos, aerial surveying, thermal imaging,
search and rescue, industrial pipeline inspection,
things of that nature even. If you're working for
or with a non-profit, you still have to
obtain your 107. PHILIP GREENSPUN: What are
the asterisks there, Michael? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
We'll get to it. We're getting there. So some basic
operating rules are shared by both hobby
and 107 operators. You have to keep
visual line of site, must follow basic
safety guidelines, maintain altitude of
400 feet or below. Something to note, like
Phillip was saying, you'll see these asterisk bullet
points on the right-hand side under "107." You can get waivers and
exceptions from the FAA to kind of break these rules. We're going to talk a
little bit more about that as the slides continue here. We'll circle back to that. Slide 4 talks about
multi-person crew. They don't tell
you that you have to have a multi-person crew. Sometimes it's
really not needed. If you're working for, let's
say, a real estate company and they want you to take some
photos of a residential house, you're standing right
in front of the house. You don't really need
a visual observer-- someone looking for obstructions
or things of that nature. You can pull it off yourself. But in more of a professional
setting, or depending on the scope of your job that
you're using your UAS for, having a visual observer
is definitely helpful. I have some buddies that work
in the industrial sector, inspecting pipeline
that's 30, 40 miles long. They actually use
10 visual observers. And they stage them with
radios and binoculars along the pipeline,
just for added safety. And then they have
the operator kind of cruising, walking with the
drone, if you will, sometimes. But my personal experience
on movie sets and things of that nature, we operate
with a three-man crew. We have a visual observer,
a camera operator, and then someone behind the
wheel of this thing right here. You will notice
this camera on here can be independently operated
by its own set of controls. And then the drone
can be operated by its set of controls,
which allows you to get more dynamic range of shots. Drone can be going this way. Camera can be panning
the other way. Drone can be rising up
as camera goes down. So it really brings
some versatility to your shots and
things of that nature. The last bullet
point here mentions that the drone operator
need not be certified, but a 107 operator
must be on-site. You might be wondering when
this would come into play. I get a lot of requests
from wedding people-- wedding people,
videographers, photographers, things of that nature. They look at the drone as kind
of another tool in their bag to utilize when they're
doing their gigs and things of that nature. They don't want to get a 107. They don't want the hassle. For them, it's easier
to pay me $100 just to show up and make sure
they're doing everything on the up-and-up
and supervising. It always amazes
me, too, at weddings why someone would want
this loud spinning machine over their ceremony. While they're giving their
"I dos," all you hear is [IMITATING DRONE]. Some people actually
want it for the video, though, and want it for
prosperity, I guess. All right. Human factors in
decision-making-- alcohol and drugs. Obviously, don't operate
under the influence, no matter how tempting it is. Have a couple of beers,
want to fly on the beach-- not a smart idea. Let's see here. Crew resource management--
this basically stated, the more
people you can bring into the operation, the better. Nothing wrong with
an extra set of eyes. Fatigue and stress-- obviously,
not a good time to operate. Here's one of my favorites,
talking about attitudes. The FAA, they list
five attitudes-- anti-authority, macho,
impulsivity and vulnerability, and resignation. The one I see the
most out there is anti-authority, all the time. People want to fly where
they're not supposed to. They want to fly longer
than they should. They want to fly
in no-fly zones, 800 feet by Logan,
right by the runway. That's just not
beneficial for the hobby, not beneficial for anybody. That Logan example-- Logan is actually currently
doing something about it. The company DJI, which
Philip mentioned earlier, they're actually the leader
in commercial drone systems. They recently came up with this
product called DJI Aeroscope. And what Aeroscope does,
whether it's a DJI drone or not, if you fly into Logan airspace,
it will ping your bird. And it will tell them your
location and serial number. The serial number is going
to go right back to you. You're going to lose your 107. And you're going to
get some hefty fines. It's just not smart to fly in
Logan airspace or any airport airspace, for that example. Why do you want to mess around
with the manned aircrafts? Let's see here. Next, we're going to get into
performance you'll basically find the same performance issues
that you do with fixed wings, but the drone,
obviously, is going to be more sensitive to these issues. Things like high-density
altitude, humidity, weight, high winds are all
examples of items that are going to
negatively impact the performance of your UAS. So definitely be
cautious of that. Loading-- I always like
talking about this. There is no book yet about how
to properly load these things. Now, this drone
that I brought in, this only has a limited amount
of camera and imaging systems that you can mount
here onto the drone. So this camera
actually comes off. This whole entire
three-axis gimbal system here can mount off. And you can put
interchangeable-- if you wanted to put
thermal, let's say-- let's say the police
call me, and they've got somebody missing
or somebody kidnapped. And they think
they're in this area. I can do grid patterns
with thermal imaging to find these guys. So that's this type of drone. But when we're on movie sets
and things of that nature, we're using what-- the term we
call it is a heavy lift drone. We have a drone that has a
wing span of about 10 feet from prop to prop. It's massive. It can hold up about 40 to 50
pounds on its own stabilizer. And the problem
is, is that there's so many different
kinds of cameras that this thing could mount. You could mount
an Arr Alexa Mini. You could mount
a Canon, a Sony,. Cameras that you see people
walking around the common, taking pictures with, you can
mount on these types of drones. The issue is, they're
all different sizes. They're all different shapes. They're all different weights. And there's no real book on how
to properly mount these things. So what we do is
test, test, test. We go out to wide open fields. Here's a good example. Last month we did a
movie called Knives Out. If any of you have
seen James Bond, 007-- that actor, Daniel Craig. We were doing a movie for that. And they wanted
this about $100,000 camera mounted onto
the drone for the job. If that's not nerve-wracking
enough, flying $100,000-- but then we were nervous. We were like, look, we've
never flown that camera before. We've never tested it on
this heavy-lift drone. So we actually made the studio
give us the camera for a week. We took it to a wide open field. We played around
with it for a while. And we got it
dialed in perfectly. The last thing you
want to do is show up to a job and kind of
"wing it" with six figures worth of equipment, where
you're working around a guy that gets paid $20 million a movie. It's just a recipe for disaster. So make sure you're
always testing all the time,
especially if you're loading different things. You could definitely have fun
with loading these things up, too. I was telling Philip
a story the other day. About five years ago, when
I had my first DJI Phantom, I mounted some Roman
candles on the landing gear, chased my buddies around. So you could definitely
have some fun there. There's nothing in
the book about that. Moving on, drones at night-- you do need a waiver
to fly at night. And we'll get more into how
to apply for these waivers and what portals you have
to go through with the FAA. The DroneZone is actually
for flying at night, and, again, I'll
get more into that. You can, however, operate-- we
like using the term golden hour or civil twilight, if you will. The only rule is,
you have to have a small strobe or
anti-collision lights on there. We always like to mount
on this drone right there, just to make sure we're not
getting anything in the camera image. Or we don't want the footage
to show the strobe, obviously, but we want to play it safe. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Michael, hold on a sec. So is there an official
mounting spot for a light here? Or you just have to-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Velcro. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Velcro it on? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Gorilla tape. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Interesting. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Let's see here. Regulatory fine print-- don't
be careless or reckless. Don't drop stuff. If you crash and it causes
significant damage, which I believe the FAA considers
$500, you do have to report it. Luckily, I've never run into
that issue, which is nice. Pre-flight-- pre-flight is huge. Just like fixed wing, you
want to do pre-flight. You can see all the pre-flight
requirements here on the slide. In my personal
experience, I've seen situations go very bad because
pre-flight has not happened. Literally, three weeks
ago, I had a buddy who bought this same exact drone. Actually, it was a
version before this. This is a DJI Inspire 2. He had a DJI Inspire 1. It was very cold outside. And he just fired it up
and took off right away, did not pay attention
to his battery voltage. About eight minutes
into his flight, his bird dropped like a rock. And that was about a $5,000
loss, just going out, having fun with your buddies. So pre-flight is
definitely something that you want to
pay attention to. Personally, I double and
triple-check before taking off. A lot of times, what I do-- I'll do my walk around the drone
to make sure everything's good, make sure connection
links are fine. And then what I'll
do, when I take off, I'll let it sit for about 30
seconds right in front of me, five feet off the ground. I'll watch the controls. I'll watch everything, make
sure my gauges are right, make sure I have good
connection to satellites, make sure it's GPS locked, make
sure my Return-to-Home button is readily available and marked. These are expensive. This setup right here,
you're looking at $10,000 into this thing. So a little extra
time pre-flight is definitely worth it. Also, remember, pre-flight just
doesn't include only the drone, as well. If you're working
with a multi-crew, double-check your comm systems. Double-check your batteries. Double-check the props. Make sure they're not chipped--
things of that nature. This reminds me of one story. I actually did have a crash
once about three years ago. You guys know what stand-up
paddle-boarding is, right? People stand up on the paddle
board, and they do this thing. I had a company ask me to film
them at night in Marblehead. And it was this big, open
bay with a ton of boats. So we had, like, 40
yards of open water and then nothing but
a boat parking lot. And these guys at night were
going to put LED strip lights all over them. They had these spotlights to go
under the water on the board. And they were going to do some
nighttime black light yoga session out there in the water. Sure. If your check clears,
I'll go film it. No problem. So I say to myself, all right-- I'm looking at the situation. And I say, all right, there's
a bunch of boats out there. I do not want to hit them. It is going to be night. I will not see them
when I'm flying. What can I do? So I walked up to where I
was going to launch from, dip my piggies in the water
right there, and said, all right, I'm going to fly the
drone out to the first boat. And I'm going to look
at my control set-up, and I'm going to note how
far away I am from the boats. I think I was 90 feet away. So I told myself mentally,
when it comes time to film this at night, I
will not go past 90 feet, or I'm going to hit a boat. What do you think the
problem with that is, anyone? Anyone know what the problem
with that assessment is? What else moves? AUDIENCE: Tide. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Thank you. The tide. I was a bonehead. I did not consider the tide. So about two hours later when
it came time to do the job, I put my piggies in the
same water right there. But guess where that water was? About 20 feet out. So I'm thinking to myself,
I got 90 feet to play with. I don't know. I want to say, one
of my last shots I wanted to get, I had them
all lined up, all the lights. Everything looked cool. They're all doing a "yay." And I wanted to
orbit around them. And halfway around my orbit,
I hear "crunch," "splash." I hit a boat mast. Luckily-- very luckily-- the drone hit the mast. The battery came out
of the compartment. The battery is what
I heard splashing. The physical drone--
and more importantly, the memory card
with my footage-- landed on the boat,
which one of the guys ended up getting for me. So that was good. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Michael? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Yes. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Quick question-- I thought these drones had sonar
anti-collision systems like-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: These do. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Yeah, so why-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
They most certainly do. And quite frankly, between-- I don't want to endorse this. You should always fly with
your obstacle avoidance on and your vision positioning
sensors and things of that nature. For me, personally, it
blows my shots all the time, so I turn them off. PHILIP GREENSPUN: I see. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: If
this is a tip of a house and I want to go over the house
and reveal what's behind it, but I want to make
it look cinematic and I want to clip that
roof real close and then reveal what I'm
revealing, too many times I'd try to clip it close-- I'd hear "beep, beep, beep." No, you can't. Your shot's now blown. So personally, I turn them off. For beginners, I'd recommend,
do not turn them off. Fly with them on
until you're very comfortable with these things. Again, they're not cheap. They're expensive. PHILIP GREENSPUN: So a consumer
in that boat situation, the drone wouldn't
have hit the boat, because the anti-collision
system would have-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: If
I had it on, correct. If I had it on, correct. You'll notice on the drone,
this is obstacle avoidance. This is obstacle
avoidance right there. It's got visioning
position system on the back and an obstacle
avoidance on the back, as well. So they like to say
they're idiot-proof, unless you turn everything off. Next slide, we're going
to talk a little bit about operating locally
here in the Boston area. In order to fly commercially
in the Boston area, you have to be a 107. And you must obey, we
call it, the grid that ATC at KBOS created. And let's just take a
look at the grid here. So you'll notice on this grid,
this is the local Boston area. Every little square
there has a number. That number
represents the height that you can achieve if
you obtain the waiver. And you also have to
be 107-certified to fly in this grid. You can do hobby
flights if you-- theoretically, you're supposed
to call the tower if you're doing a hobby flight
and make them aware that you're going to be
flying in the airspace. In my personal
experience, every time I've called, no one picks up. You leave a voicemail. But if you are
flying commercially and you are
107-certified, you do need to pay specific
attention to this grid. For example, if I wanted
to fly in Boston Common, you can see right in that
area, there's 100 box there. So without a waiver,
since I'm 107-certified, I am allowed to fly
100 feet in the Common if I hold the
authorization to do so. And we're going to
get more into when do you go through the DroneZone
and when you go through LAANC. And we'll talk about
that in a second here. Any questions about the grid? Anyone? All right. AUDIENCE: I have a-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Sure. AUDIENCE: So [INAUDIBLE]. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Excuse me? AUDIENCE: If I'm doing a
hobby flight, [INAUDIBLE]---- are they the same? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: No,
it's kind of backwards, to be honest with you. Theoretically, if
you're a hobby flyer, they tell you you have
to be 400 feet or below. So in theory, if you
called Logan and said, hey, I'm flying in
the Common today and I just wanted
to let you know-- I'm just doing it for
fun and messing around-- theoretically, you
could fly 400 feet. Is that smart? No, because what's
going on around there? Med flights, helicopters,
things of that nature. Ton of people underneath. I see it all the time. I'll walk down the public
garden or whatever. And I'll see people
taking off their drone, flying around like an idiot,
having a grand old time. And I'm just thinking
to myself, all it's going to take is
for you to hit someone, and you're going to be on
every news station tonight. All right. Let's get into a little
bit of the waiver process. There's two portals for
waivers and authorizations. One's called the DroneZone,
and one's called LAANC. The DroneZone is used
for night flights, wide-area authorizations,
and exceptions, such as those asterisked
items that we were looking at earlier, like
flying over people, flying from a moving vehicle,
flying over 400 feet, flying at night,
things of that nature. And also, the DroneZone is meant
for wide-area authorization. So I hold a bunch of
wide-area authorizations. That whole grid that
you saw, I basically applied for the entire grid. So I applied through
the DroneZone, said, hey, FAA, I work
commercial in the area. I don't want the
pain in the butt of having to go through
the LAANC system every time I get a job. Just give me the entire grid. And that's good for two years. Now, the difference is, LAANC
is same-day authorization. So let's say I get
a job in Chicago, where I'm not always
operating out of. And I notice that the address
they gave me in Chicago has a little box around it. It's class D airspace. And they say I can
only go 200 feet. Well, if I don't hold
a waiver for Chicago, then I would use the
LAANC system just to get authorization
for that one box that I'm operating in for
that specific day and time. They will give that to
you within 24 hours. Now, for the wide-area
authorizations, or if you wanted to fly at
night or over the grid box-- if they say, hey, you can
only fly 100, but you say, hey, the building I want
to film is over 200. I need 300 feet or
something of that nature. You have to go
through the DroneZone. Now, the problem
with the DroneZone is that it's a two to
four-month waiting time. So it always behooves
you, especially if you're going to work in
your local market, to get these
authorizations beforehand. I don't know anyone
that's going to offer you a job four months in advance. Hey, in four months, I want you
to film this down the street here. Usually, these things
happen pretty fast. So it always behooves yourselves
to get all your authorizations and get all your
waivers kind of in line. Next slide here, we're going
to talk about the certificate. Basically stated--
read the regs. Study up. Take the test. Personally, with my affiliation
with East Coast Aero Club, they have a great
testing center, great people over there. So please make sure you
go East Coast Aero Club. Slide 16, certification
for traditional pilots-- take an online course. Apply through IACRA and
you're off and running, or flying, as they say. Slide 17-- for you
guys in this class, you do have a couple options. Any private pilot
license holders out here? Anyone? Hey. All right. Private pilot's license--
no exams really required. If you do not hold a
private pilot's license, you must schedule your 107 exam
at your local testing center. Slide 18, we're getting
back to the hobby and 107. We highlighted some of
these asterisked areas here. I can talk about these
a little bit more. This is all about the
power of the waiver. For example, about six months
back, the Discovery Channel was down here. And they asked us to do-- they had a restored Viking ship. And they were taking that
Viking ship from Nova Scotia and sailing it down
the East Coast. And the Discovery Channel was
doing this big documentary show about it and
how the journey went and the problems
that they ran into. But for me, the problem
I was running into is, I have to fly from a boat,
which is a moving vehicle. I had to be over 400 feet. And they wanted some of
those shots at night. Luckily, we had all
these waivers in place. If not, we would have
had to tell them, hey, it's going to take
two to four months for us to get these waivers. And they would have went
to the next company. So it always pays to have these
waivers and authorizations in place. This is embarrassing. Slide 19 is some of the recent
accomplishments and projects that I've been working on. Few A-list names up there. What I can say,
locally in this market, is, we have seen a major spike
in TV and movie productions being made in New England,
specifically in Massachusetts. It's been great for
us, which is fantastic. Keeps us extremely
busy, which is great. Hiring gigs are fun. They are lucrative, as well. The problem is, there
is a lot of pressure. When I was doing the Equalizer
2 movie, we're flying-- we actually used this
drone right here. And they wanted me to fly the
thing over Denzel Washington's shoulder. And I'm saying to myself, man,
one gust of wind or mistake, I could slice this
guy's face open. So there is a lot of
pressure associated with it. Directors and DPs-- Directors of
Photography-- they want things done the first time. Time is money. Imagine if you were-- there's one time where I
was chasing a motorcycle, and there were some
explosions going off. It took six hours to
rig those explosions. They're only going
to go off once. If you mess the shot up,
it's going to cost them another $6,000 to rig up. It's going to take half a
day of time to do it again. So there's a lot
of pressure to get it done right the first time. But generally, these jobs
are few and far between. The primary jobs
that we usually do-- marketing and
promotional videos, documentaries, things
of that nature-- can be a little less pressure. But once you get into
the upper epsilon of doing feature films
and things of that nature, be on your A-game. All right. A little bit about life on set. Higher end productions,
you can expect about $2,000 a day per operator,
which is lovely. Even the visual
observer, making sure that we're not hitting power
lines or things of that nature, the guy's just looking
up and paying attention. He's making a great
day's pay there. But again, there is
a lot of pressure. That $2,000 per day-- I need to note, too-- that's not including gear
rental insurance and media rental and everything else
that comes along with it. So I work for a company
called Above Summit, as I mentioned,
here in Somerville. They're usually charging
$20,000, $30,000 a day when we're on a movie. That's just a little piece
of what the operators see. We generally work
in a three-man crew. When you're on TV and movies,
it can be extremely humbling, as well. A lot of times
we'll nail a shot. The director will love it. Everyone will say,
oh, that's great. You did such a great job. Then the TV show
comes out, and you're like, where's my footage? They don't use it sometimes. And you get kind of
bummed out about it. So it can be a
humbling experience. You could spend weeks
and hours on set, flying, creating footage,
getting them content, and barely any of
it will be used. I was talking earlier
about the Equalizer movie with Denzel that I did. Seven days on set-- got
them roughly two hours of raw footage. And about seven seconds
made the final movie. I love the seven
seconds, but wish there was a little bit more. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Michael,
what was the 12 days on set to 12 seconds in the final cut? Which movie was that? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Oh, I think-- yeah, that was the Equalizer one. Maybe it was 12
seconds, not seven. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
And why bring a book? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
I'm getting there. PHILIP GREENSPUN: OK,
you're getting there. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: I'm
getting there, buddy. The bring-a-book
thing-- don't literally bring a book, because you'd
just look pretty silly. The main point of the
bring-a-book thing is, it can be extremely boring. You got to remember,
the whole movie is not made with this thing. They're generally doing action
sequence with the drone, tracking shots, establishing
shots, top-down, where you're high
up and the camera's pointed straight down--
things of that nature. But there's about 30
other camera equipment and people out
there that are also getting their shots--
their ground shots and things of that
nature-- which does take up the bulk of the
movie or TV show or whatever. So I have found
there have been times that I've been on
set 12, 14 hours, and I've only flown this
thing maybe 10, 20 minutes. So there is a ton of downtime,
hence the Bring-a-book And sometimes it can
be disappointing. Last year we did a pilot TV
show for NBC called Suspicion. It was a very fun shoot. They had a stunt
guy getting dragged on the back of a
Cadillac Escalade. And we got to track
it and film it. And we just got some incredible
footage, some incredible shots. Everyone was super happy. The show wrapped. The first couple
episodes of the pilot-- it gets sent off to NBC. A bunch of guys in
suits were there. And they said,
yeah, we hate this, and it just got
scrapped altogether. And the good part is,
their check still cleared, but we're not seeing
any of that work. That's about it for me. How do I click this
link to get it to work? Phil asked me to string
together some footage that I've taken personally,
so you guys can kind of see the drone in action. All the footage you're
going to see here actually was not
done with this drone. This is more of a
professional drone. This was all done
with a DJI Phantom. This is a drone that you
could literally pick up at Best Buy for, like, $1,000. I like having it,
just because you can throw it in the back of
your car and have around. If you ever see something
fun to go out and film, you have it there. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Questions, questions? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Yeah, guys. Hit me with some questions
while this thing is playing. Anybody got any
questions for me? If anyone wants to come up
and play with this thing or take a look at it, feel free. What's going on, man? AUDIENCE: What is the
endurance of the drone? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
This drone right here-- dual battery system. So you'll notice, it's got two. Cool thing about this
particular system-- self-induced heating
batteries, which is great in the wintertime. Cold equals bad battery voltage. So with these things, heating
and going, that's great. In regards to range, if
you're wondering about range, this can go a mile up
and four miles out. Do I want to do that? No. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] time? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Time? Estimated time, 22 minutes
to 24, depending on load and how aggressive
you're flying it. This thing has something
called Sport mode or Ludicrous mode-- whatever you want
to call it-- that you can get this thing up to, like, 80. And it's going to suck the juice
out of the batteries real quick if you're thrusting full
throttle for a while. But if you're just hovering,
it could get 25, 26 minutes. Back to the range
thing, yes, this thing can go a mile up
and four miles out. I never like to do that. I look at this thing
as a big bag of money. You want your
money close to you, or you want it four miles where
you can't have your eyes on it? You'd be surprised, though. A lot of people do
like doing that. They call it "range testing." I call it stupidity. Let's see how far we can
send the thing before it has a battery failure or
before it auto lands-- not something I like to screw
around with, personally. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Should be up now. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Anyone else? Sir. AUDIENCE: I actually
work in [INAUDIBLE].. And this fall, we
had our first drone. Should we require a
107 pilot for this? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: For what? AUDIENCE: For
wedding photography? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Wedding photography? Yes. Anything you're going to make
money or promote yourself-- 107. Just think to yourself, if
I'm just out having fun, I don't need a 107. AUDIENCE: We have
photographers coming in. We have a $50 fee to use
[INAUDIBLE] photography. And you try to tell
them [INAUDIBLE].. So the photographers don't
want to pay [INAUDIBLE].. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
They do need to be 107, or a 107 operator has to--
you can hire a guy like me to just be there and say,
hey, you're doing everything on the up-and-up. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Make sure to read back the question, because-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Oh, I'm sorry. PHILIP GREENSPUN: For the video. Yeah, no, it's fine. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Got it. Anybody else? AUDIENCE: You mentioned
that you often don't see most of your
footage in the final cut. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Sometimes, yeah. AUDIENCE: Are you allowed at
all to publish that footage? Like, hey, this
is what we didn't use in this movie [INAUDIBLE]? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: So
this is what we do. So in a lot of our contracts,
when we get initially approached by Columbia Pictures
or Lionsgate or something of that nature, they'll send
us a volume of their contract and what we're allowed to
do with the footage, what we're not. It's almost like
an NDA, as well. You can't post
behind-the-scenes stuff. You can't blow yourself up
on social media or things of that nature. Sometimes we put verbiage in
there that says, hey, after-- we say we want to
use the footage for our own personal promotion. What they generally
come back and say is, you can do that after
the movie's come out. They don't want you
promoting something that they don't get first
dibs at promoting first. So after the movie is
released, usually you give it a month grace period-- that in-between period before
it's on Netflix or DVD, but it's out of the theater. Then we usually feel comfortable
to kind of self-promote with that footage. Anybody else? Are you guys all mesmerized
by the drone footage? PHILIP GREENSPUN: Come on. [INAUDIBLE] video. Look at that. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: That was
actually Big Island, Hawaii right there. That's local. That's in West Boylston. PHILIP GREENSPUN: I tell
people that my dream is to get as good footage
out of a $400,000 helicopter as a person can get
out of a $400 drone. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: The
helicopter guys absolutely hate us. We are stealing their
market share exponentially. Are the movie studios-- they have to hire the
photographer, the pilot, the fuel, the time,
the cost, all that, or they want to hire us
at a third of a cost. And we're going to get
better, more dynamic footage. So doing it out of helicopters
is going to the wayside. And everyone's kind of
going to these machines now. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Yeah, so Michael said this was about $10,000,
including the camera. There is just a
piece of metal that's FAA certified through a
supplemental type certificate called the Tyler Mount. And you just connect
this to your helicopter, I think, landing gear
or something and then put the camera on
this piece of metal. And I think that
piece of metal-- the cheapest ones I've ever
seen are about $12,000. So just a piece of metal that
has been through the approval process and all the
paperwork costs more than the entire drone system. And the camera balls can be
in the $400,000 or $500,000, $600,000 range that go
underneath helicopters. Robinson actually makes
a cool news copter. It's all FAA certified
right from the factory. I think it's in the
million-dollar range that has the ball and the
camera and the transmitter back to the TV station. But as Michael
said, do we really need those in the drone age? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Yeah. No. AUDIENCE: For the
engineers [INAUDIBLE],, what sort of features
or capabilities would you like to see in the
next generation of drones? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: The
next generation of drones, what capabilities
would I like to see? I'm currently, right now,
talking to a bunch of people-- I guess not capability,
but they're doing a lot with augmented reality. And I think you're going to
see a lot of that coming out. I'm sure you guys
have heard of-- and I'm going to sound
really nerdy here-- but Pokemon Go on
your cell phone. And you can see the little
Pokemon guys running around. Now, imagine if I
wanted to train somebody on how to properly fly a drone. Then I could put these
rings or circles or maybe directions on the
screen when they're flying to go through the hoop
and make a figure 8 or things like that. So I think we're going to see
a lot of augmented reality stuff coming in and
things of that nature. Also, they're
making them smaller. That's another big thing. And they're making them more
diverse with image systems. What you can mount-- being able to mount something
smaller, more powerful. They have cameras now that
have hundred-time zoom on one end of the camera. And then on the other
end, they have thermal. So you can switch back
and forth between the two on the same drone. So things of that nature-- kind
of making them more efficient. And battery time, as
well-- that's a big thing. People want drones
that are going to fly for hours, not minutes. So I think you're going
to see a big push in that. Sir, go ahead. AUDIENCE: Sort of
in the same vein, in terms of controlability
and autonomy, what does the standard
control look like? Is it just two sticks? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Yeah,
sticks [INAUDIBLE].. I've got a couple right up here. This is it. These are controllers. I'll level with you. If any of you guys have ever
played first-person shooter games on Playstation,
it's about the same. One remote for the pilot,
one remote for cam op. PHILIP GREENSPUN: It's the
same remote, basically? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
It's the same principle if you're playing a first-person
shooter, left and right on the joystick. PHILIP GREENSPUN: But camera
operator and drone operator get the same physical remote? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Correct. PHILIP GREENSPUN: OK. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Correct. Does that answer the
question for you? AUDIENCE: Well, the
follow-on question was, in terms of where do you see
things going or capabilities wanted by customer, in terms of
autonomy, would it be better-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: So thank. You thank you for reminding me. The keyword there is "autonomy." So there are different programs. Now, I don't use them
personally a lot, because my application is
more cinematic and doing things of that nature, which
I like to fly manually. There's more feathering and
kind of finesse to that. But a lot of people that
are doing industrial, like surveying and
things of that nature-- this thing is as
powerful as it gets. There's a program
called Litchi that you can attach to this drone that
you can run off their operating platform. You can put waypoints
in and say, all right, go to point A at 50 feet. Snap a photo. Then go 20 feet up. Go to the right 100 feet. Then take a video,
and then go down. So you can pre-program
these things. A lot of my buddies do it. They make great money. And all they do is, they
program the grid into the drone, they hit Go, and
then they sit back, and they watch the thing
do the job for them. And there is-- there's great
money in the industrial sector with these things-- with autonomous flights
and things of that nature. The only time I've ever used
waypoints is to do something called a hyperlapse, if anyone
knows about photo or video. A time lapse is something
where you take a photo, then you move the camera,
take a photo, move the camera, take a photo. A hyperlapse is when you include
motion in something like that. Waypoint feature is great. We put a waypoint
at point A. And then 300 feet away, we
put point B. And we say, every two seconds
from A to B, take a photo and go to this straight line. Then we string all
the photos together, and you get a cool,
little hyperlapse effect. So sometimes we
use the autonomy. Honestly, the enjoyment,
for me, is flying manually. I don't want to just
enter in a bunch of data and say, OK, go do your job. I'd rather be on the controls
and having fun with it. So hope that answers
your question. Sir. AUDIENCE: Yeah, I was
going to [INAUDIBLE].. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Some
guys in the studio, again, who do the industrial kind of
stuff-- yes, they'll utilize the functions for autonomy. But again, personally,
I just don't. I like flying manually. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
Over here, Michael. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Sir. AUDIENCE: How much flying
experience do you need to [INAUDIBLE] and do the
close shots that you-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
That's up to you. That literally is how
comfortable you are with it. Some people I know never take
the obstacle avoidance off. They think it's
there for a reason. They don't need to get that
really tight, close-in shot. A lot of people just do
what we call high and wide. You just fly the
thing up 300 feet. You get a nice landscape view
or whatever you're looking for, and you have the collision
on for that or whatever. But again, you probably saw
some of those close shots I had in that video. You can't obtain that with
the avoidance system on. Me, personally, I think within
three weeks I turned them off, man. I was like, this is not for me. I just wanted to
jam on the thing and get some great footage. So the safety was impeding
it a little bit for me. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Behind you. AUDIENCE: I just wanted
some more clarification about [INAUDIBLE]. You said 400 feet was
the maximum height that I can fly [INAUDIBLE]. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Well, not that-- it can fly well over 400 feet. But you're only allowed
to fly up to 400 feet. AUDIENCE: Can I be flying in
my neighborhood's backyard? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Sure. The funny thing is, why
do you want to, though? Why do you want to be
three feet off the ground, risking your couple
thousand-dollar piece of equipment when you can
just take a handheld camera and walk? AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You saw in some of
the shots there. I'm skimming waves at a foot
off the waves, skimming them. So yeah, you can fly really low. Again, you have to have your
sensors off for that, though. The sensor systems that
are on these things will say, what are
you doing, you idiot? Don't fly me like this. So in order to achieve it,
you have to shut them off. AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] So
if you're three feet off the ground in your
neighbor's backyard, is that considered your
neighbor's property? Are they allowed
to not let you-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Yeah, that's
a slippery, slippery slope-- the privacy laws and
things of that nature. A lot of the bad press
that drones get-- like, oh, I was
sunbathing in my backyard, and I saw a drone
way up in the sky. And they're invading my privacy. And it's just like, well,
really think about that. You look like a little ant. How much privacy am
I really invading? Hand-held cameras
with telescopic lens are going to invade more
privacy than this thing is. PHILIP GREENSPUN: So I think
it's an evolving legal area. The classical law has
been that the airspace belongs to the public. Only the FAA can regulate it. But that's been eroded. I think a few states have
been passing anti-drone laws-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
They've been trying. PHILIP GREENSPUN:
--of various kinds. So I don't think it's a-- I think it's an
untested legal area. There was a question over here. AUDIENCE: So the main aviation
has the ADS-B by 2020. Did drones have the
upgrade [INAUDIBLE]?? MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
They're talking about it. PHILIP GREENSPUN: Repeat
the question, please. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: I
don't know the acronym. What's the acronym again? PHILIP GREENSPUN: ADSB. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Yeah, fixed wing has to have ADSB
installed by 2020. So the question was, are drones
going to have to have them? The problem with
it right now is, they don't make them
lightweight and small enough to equip on these things. When they do and the
technology is there, I'm willing to bet
you're going to see it. Yep, absolutely. The problem is the weight. You can't throw
that extra weight in and get any kind of viable
performance out of it with them right now. But as the technology
gets better and they make those
things smaller, I'm willing to bet
you're going to see them on every single one. Yep. AUDIENCE: The guy sitting
to your right [INAUDIBLE].. MICHAEL HOLZWARTH: Can you do
that [INAUDIBLE] really slow for me? Anybody else? Sir. AUDIENCE: When you're
piloting, how much are you looking out at the
drone versus looking-- MICHAEL HOLZWARTH:
Great question. Great question. I've seen so many people crash
their drone because they are-- I call them screen warriors. They got their control here,
and they got their iPad mounted. And they can see everything. And they're, oh, my
god, this is so great. Boom, they hit a tree. Why did they hit the tree? Because the camera--
now, this drone is a little bit different. When this drone takes off,
this landing gear actually raises up above the body here. So this camera down
here can spin 360 without getting the
legs in the footage or anything of that nature. But your general
consumer drone, when you're looking at your
iPad when you're flying, you're seeing what the
camera sees, which is great. But what you're not
seeing is your peripheral. You're not seeing that your
props are out this far. And if you're just sitting
there, looking at the screen, you'll end up
clipping something. You'll end up doing something. My general rule of thumb,
if I'm flying by myself-- I set up a shot. I look at the screen. A lot of times, though--
and this just comes with experience-- I can look at the drone and
know what the camera's seeing. In a professional
setting, that's why you have a
multi-person crew, why you have a visual observer,
because a lot of the times when you're getting paid and
you're under pressure and time crunched to get
the shot, your head needs to be dug
into that screen. And that's why you need
radio communication with a visual observer to
say, hey, you're clear. No obstruction 25 yards. Have at it or whatever
the case may be. But flying for fun by
yourself, my advice would be, look up at your bird
every now and again. I've also had people that
have flown and then been like, well, wait, where is it? Because, again, these things
can go a mile up and a mile out. And all the sudden, they're
like, wait a second, where'd my drone go? Now, luckily, for
lack of better terms-- and excuse my language-- I call it the "oh, shit" button. But there's a button right here. So when I turn the drone
on, what it does is, it communicates to satellites. It marks a GPS home point. Now, if I'm being an idiot and
I'm sending it out a mile away, the drone is smart
enough to say, hey, I only have enough
battery percentage to get back to your home point. And it will kick me off
the controls altogether, and it will fly itself back and
land right where you took off. Same function as,
where'd my drone go? I can't find it. If I really needed to,
you hit that button, and the thing will
fly itself back. Now, if you utilize
that function-- this is getting back to
the sensors and things of that nature. If you have your
sensors turned off, you're in trouble, because
what the drone is going to do is take its most direct path
back to your home point. If there is a
building in the way, it will hit the building
if your sensors are off. Now, if your sensors are on-- I actually have
this set up to where if Return-to-Home function
kicks in, the sensors turn on. And then I also have
it set up to where if it meets an
obstruction-- let's say there's a building here. Oh, no, I don't know
where my drone is. I hit Return-to-Home, and it
comes towards the building. It will sense it, and
it will raise altitude until it clears it. And then it will clear
it and continue on back to the home point. I never like to rely on
Return-to-Home, though. Never. I don't feel
comfortable with it. I like knowing-- again, using
the bag of money situation, I like knowing where
my bag of money is at. I don't want it to
get away from me. You guys can come up
and pick this thing up. It has some weight to it. If this thing fell 400
feet and hit somebody, they're in trouble. You're in trouble. So it behooves you to always
have a set of eyes on it and pay attention to
everything you're doing there.
