New FAA rules in the works

[rob norton]

I would say zero, zilch. It's Hollywood, they only hire big boy toys here. Seriously. I've been shooting low budget TV and features yet they still had the big octocopter carrying an Alexa mini. Very little market here for low end drone work.

When I shot in the Sahara Desert for Prison Break a few years ago, the production flew in the drone team. From Finland. For just two days work. They didn't hire from Italy, the flew the dudes in from Finland, I shot a little piece on the whole drone thing
as Prison Break was known for that iconic opening helicopter shot over a guard tower at Fox River Prison in Illinois from S1 so many years ago and they recreated it in Morocco, which was doubling for Yemen in the story.

These guys had a $100k drone package, full FIZ for any Arri or RED, the drone was huge, complex and heavy, I don't know the manufacturer but it was big and could carry really heavy cameras. Their day rate was impressive, they didn't need to work very often to make
a good living ;-)

Thanks PD. Yeah I've heard stories where on feature films (over here) the drone unit is essentially on call for $500K and just slot into production at a moment's notice. It must be pretty tough to get into the features game but nice for anyone landing those contracts, except the stakes are extremely high. Though I'm sure approved, a lot of those high end systems still receive some extensive customization ie you'd better know what you're doing.

Maybe as a pure dollar figure you can say the i2/x7 is low end when compared to the overheads of the larger drone companies along with their camera packages but I wouldn't say it's low end as far its capabilities.

To compare with the budgets of the broadcast world, I did some drone work for the BBC expecting to go out with the i2. They'd been using p4 pros for months and my p4 pro was completely fine for their needs.

I'm pretty off topic here, sorry/not sorry.

 

[Barry G]

I would say zero, zilch. It's Hollywood, they only hire big boy toys here. Seriously. I've been shooting low budget TV and features yet they still had the big octocopter carrying an Alexa mini. Very little market here for low end drone work.

I've got a forum friend (based in big-boy town) who shoots regularly for HBO, Hulu, Amazon, FX, Netflix etc., a lot of it on the I2/x7/x5s. His company is scaled with everything from Mavic to heavy lift (and some crazy pursuit drones they've built in-house). According to him, they fly the I2 more than anything else. TV schedules often don't have the time to manage heavy lift, and often they aren't doing the kinds of shots that require that kind of team. And sometimes the I2 due to its small size is just a better tool. Check out the first and last season of Snowfall for some shots you simply couldn't do with heavy lift. Sure, on the biggest productions, the DP wants to fly an Alexa because the rest of the show is being shot on it, and when your slate has 100 drone shots, it makes sense to bring in the guys with the semi, or a real helicopter.

 

[puredrifting]

I've got a forum friend (based in big-boy town) who shoots regularly for HBO, Hulu, Amazon, FX, Netflix etc., a lot of it on the I2/x7/x5s. His company is scaled with everything from Mavic to heavy lift (and some crazy pursuit drones they've built in-house). According to him, they fly the I2 more than anything else. TV schedules often don't have the time to manage heavy lift, and often they aren't doing the kinds of shots that require that kind of team. And sometimes the I2 due to its small size is just a better tool. Check out the first and last season of Snowfall for some shots you simply couldn't do with heavy lift. Sure, on the biggest productions, the DP wants to fly an Alexa because the rest of the show is being shot on it, and when your slate has 100 drone shots, it makes sense to bring in the guys with the semi, or a real helicopter.

True. I've been shooting on Homeland, Prison Break and mostly higher end features where I see these drone deployed. I worked on a Hallmark movie last year in Palm Springs where I think they shot some aerials on the P4 Pro and it looked fine in the edit. I don't think it's a question of if the DJI and lower end drones look good enough for a lot more than you would think, it's more of an image thing on the shows I work on. If they are union, they are going to get a union op, union op is going to have the big, expensive stuff because that's just how it goes. I personally have seen the X7 RAW and think it can look amazing and I was thinking, "Who the hell wants to fly a $60k Alexa Mini when this thing looks so good for $7k?"

I agree, I think the market, at least in my area, is all locked up but if I lived in Idaho or Colorado, I'd probably buy the new Phantom or the I2 with the X7 and make some money. I hired a drone team here for one of my projects with the I2 and the results were okay, this wasn't with the newer X7 cam or even the X5, I don't think? I hired another operator for our Catalina race with the P4Pro in 2018 and the footage looked really great, it kind of blew me away that it came from a $1,500 consumer drone.

 

[rob norton]

True. I've been shooting on Homeland, Prison Break and mostly higher end features where I see these drone deployed. I worked on a Hallmark movie last year in Palm Springs where I think they shot some aerials on the P4 Pro and it looked fine in the edit. I don't think it's a question of if the DJI and lower end drones look good enough for a lot more than you would think, it's more of an image thing on the shows I work on. If they are union, they are going to get a union op, union op is going to have the big, expensive stuff because that's just how it goes. I personally have seen the X7 RAW and think it can look amazing and I was thinking, "Who the hell wants to fly a $60k Alexa Mini when this thing looks so good for $7k?"

I agree, I think the market, at least in my area, is all locked up but if I lived in Idaho or Colorado, I'd probably buy the new Phantom or the I2 with the X7 and make some money. I hired a drone team here for one of my projects with the I2 and the results were okay, this wasn't with the newer X7 cam or even the X5, I don't think? I hired another operator for our Catalina race with the P4Pro in 2018 and the footage looked really great, it kind of blew me away that it came from a $1,500 consumer drone.

Yeah, I think it more fits into the space where a second camera hire just for the drone (eg alexa mini) is out of the question and the time taken to prep the main camera for flight would cut into some serious time (and overall cost).

Some industrial applications will actually deny the p4 and opt for the i2. Despite essentially acting as a single battery, the pair of i2 batteries is more redundant than the single p4 battery. So image quality was hardly in the equation and safety was the priority (according to the company's definition).

 

[jb.]

... but if I lived in Idaho or Colorado, I'd probably buy the new Phantom or the I2 with the X7 and make some money.

Unfortunately here in Colorado the market is largely gone... at least for standalone drone ops. No one (even bigger budget stuff) will pay what it costs to deploy a dual-op Inspire 2 setup.

I had an Inspire 2 and X5S... it shot beautiful images... not at all far off of the X7 for video. It just wasn't profitable to keep it around because so many people are happy with the results from a Phantom 4 Pro or a Mavic 2 Pro... So I sold it and have a pair of Mavic 2 Pros I keep around for the stuff that will work a drone shot into the budget. For what I'd use aerial stuff for (and how little shows up in the edit) the M2P is excellent.

 

[Run&Gun]

Unfortunately here in Colorado the market is largely gone... at least for standalone drone ops. No one (even bigger budget stuff) will pay what it costs to deploy a dual-op Inspire 2 setup.

I had an Inspire 2 and X5S... it shot beautiful images... not at all far off of the X7 for video. It just wasn't profitable to keep it around because so many people are happy with the results from a Phantom 4 Pro or a Mavic 2 Pro... So I sold it and have a pair of Mavic 2 Pros I keep around for the stuff that will work a drone shot into the budget. For what I'd use aerial stuff for (and how little shows up in the edit) the M2P is excellent.

I have a friend who is a drone pilot with big octo’s and he said outside of the really high-end, he was usually flying a Phantom and most people were happy with that.

 

[firehawk]

I am really pleased with my P4+ with built in screen. It's super fast to deploy and the image quality is fine for all my work so far. We use it much more than our Inspire pro.
Yet if these no regulations go through using the little P4 will become much more of a hassle.

 

[Greg_E]

Haven't read the whole thing, but the already illegal activities that have been committed will not stop people from doing illegal things. What this will do is prevent me from buying a little 300 gram foam "ready to fly" or "bind and fly" airplane to fly in the park. This new rule applies to ALL unmanned aircraft.

Here's an example of something that will be blocked https://www.horizonhobby.com/produc...0mm-bnf-basic-with-as3x-safe-select-p-efl3550 3 feet wingspan and 46 ounces (1000+ grams). The most dangerous part would be the brushless motor because everything in the airframe is foam or CF reinforced foam (a spar in the wings?).

The hobby of RC models is dying a slow death, this will very likely kill it.

As usual, the jackasses started to wreck things, then "commercial opportunity" dug in and decided they want it all for themselves. Just imagine the amount of stolen packages delivered by "drone" dropped in the middle of your front yard. And all the packages that will get soaked sitting in the rain in your front yard. A really good use for this technology. Lets also not forget that the delivery "drones" will be massive! If one of those falls on your head, you'll be in serious condition. Get struck by a spinning blade? Not something I want to think about. Think I'm exaggerating? How big is the aircraft that's required to fly something like an Alexa Mini? Even something big enough to fly a Canon 5D or Canon Cinema camera? Now think about the weight of some of your packages, and think about the value of some of your packages. Do you want your brand new XYZ camera delivered by one of these things, makes the Ooops we dropped it companies look good if it does drop one (which they will).

And by the way, Gatwick was never proven to actually be a "drone", it could have simply been a fear of "drones" and bargaining tactic since the airport was up for sale at that time. They never recovered any aircraft, and never proved anyone was even flying there.

 

[firehawk]

 

[puredrifting]

I don't trust lawyers.
I don't trust DJI at all, they're a Chinese company with monitoring and reporting policies
that are complicit with the totalitarian Chinese government.

Basically, ridiculous things are coming in owning and flying a drone as a hobbyist. As a pro,
it's just the cost of doing business but it sounds as if the FAA is on an active mission to
mostly eliminate casual hobbyist use of drones. It's a shame that stupid people have reduced
what was once a fun, interesting and challenging hobby to a compliance war.

 

[Run&Gun]

I don't trust lawyers.
I don't trust DJI at all, they're a Chinese company with monitoring and reporting policies
that are complicit with the totalitarian Chinese government.

Basically, ridiculous things are coming in owning and flying a drone as a hobbyist. As a pro,
it's just the cost of doing business but it sounds as if the FAA is on an active mission to
mostly eliminate casual hobbyist use of drones. It's a shame that stupid people have reduced
what was once a fun, interesting and challenging hobby to a compliance war.

And since they are all "connected" devices that are tied to apps on cell phones for control, they can be "bricked" at anytime.

But honestly, you're only one bad firmware update from having a useless brick, anyway. Anyone still have a GoPro Karma? Didn't the all just essentially get "bricked"/grounded because of a bug in their firmware that doesn't recognize the date rollover on the GPS system so they can't access it and as a result cannot take-off/fly?

 

[puredrifting]

And since they are all "connected" devices that are tied to apps on cell phones for control, they can be "bricked" at anytime.

But honestly, you're only one bad firmware update from having a useless brick, anyway. Anyone still have a GoPro Karma? Didn't the all just essentially get "bricked"/grounded because of a bug in their firmware that doesn't recognize the date rollover on the GPS system so they can't access it and as a result cannot take-off/fly?

It'll be interesting to see when the first cases go to court that use this data as digital "evidence" for unrelated to flying charges for suspects and persons of interest. You know it's going to happen and happen often.
While I think Apple is another evil empire, I give them props in their, so far, middle finger to law enforcement trying to force them to unlock the phones of suspects. I suspect DJI will not be
nearly as loyal to their users, if they haven't already rounded that corner already.

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend you read Edward Snowden's book, "Permanent Record". It's pretty sobering for us Americans, what the NSA, an agency that your tax dollars finance, is doing with
the data and especially metadata they collect on us every day. Heck even this post will be added to my metadata account the NSA keeps.

Hi NSA snoops! I see you. Go get lunch, you look miserable having to keep metadata tabs on my boring life.

 

[rob norton]

It'll be interesting to see when the first cases go to court that use this data as digital "evidence" for unrelated to flying charges for suspects and persons of interest. You know it's going to happen and happen often.
While I think Apple is another evil empire, I give them props in their, so far, middle finger to law enforcement trying to force them to unlock the phones of suspects. I suspect DJI will not be
nearly as loyal to their users, if they haven't already rounded that corner already.

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend you read Edward Snowden's book, "Permanent Record". It's pretty sobering for us Americans, what the NSA, an agency that your tax dollars finance, is doing with
the data and especially metadata they collect on us every day. Heck even this post will be added to my metadata account the NSA keeps.

Hi NSA snoops! I see you. Go get lunch, you look miserable having to keep metadata tabs on my boring life.

From the 2012 article 'Andrew Keen: Why 1984 Is Upon Us (Digital Vertigo)'

"Instead of Big Brother, what exists in today’s age of great exhibitionism is what the American novelist Walter Kirn calls, a “vast cohort of prankish Little Brothers equipped with devices that Orwell, writing 60 years ago, never dreamed of and who are loyal to no organized authority.” Kirn’s “Little Brothers” are all of us, the people—the peeps, in both form and function— whose smartphones, tablets and billions of other so-called “post-PC” devices put as much surveillance technology in each of our hands as Orwell gave Big Brother’s entire regime in Nineteen Eighty-four."

 

[Run&Gun]

It'll be interesting to see when the first cases go to court that use this data as digital "evidence" for unrelated to flying charges for suspects and persons of interest. You know it's going to happen and happen often.
While I think Apple is another evil empire, I give them props in their, so far, middle finger to law enforcement trying to force them to unlock the phones of suspects. I suspect DJI will not be
nearly as loyal to their users, if they haven't already rounded that corner already.

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend you read Edward Snowden's book, "Permanent Record". It's pretty sobering for us Americans, what the NSA, an agency that your tax dollars finance, is doing with
the data and especially metadata they collect on us every day. Heck even this post will be added to my metadata account the NSA keeps.

Hi NSA snoops! I see you. Go get lunch, you look miserable having to keep metadata tabs on my boring life.

From the 2012 article 'Andrew Keen: Why 1984 Is Upon Us (Digital Vertigo)'

"Instead of Big Brother, what exists in today’s age of great exhibitionism is what the American novelist Walter Kirn calls, a “vast cohort of prankish Little Brothers equipped with devices that Orwell, writing 60 years ago, never dreamed of and who are loyal to no organized authority.” Kirn’s “Little Brothers” are all of us, the people—the peeps, in both form and function— whose smartphones, tablets and billions of other so-called “post-PC” devices put as much surveillance technology in each of our hands as Orwell gave Big Brother’s entire regime in Nineteen Eighty-four."

We're basically doing the governments job for them. Our phones, our drones, hell, even our refrigerators and TV's... And Alexa... WE ARE PAYING MONEY TO PUT SURVEILLANCE DEVICES IN OUR HOMES AND CARRY THEM ON OUR PERSON 24/7. If someone would have told the NSA 20 years ago that it would be this easy to keep tabs on us, no one there would have believed it. "How can we get a surveillance device into every citizens home without them knowing it and afford it in our budget?" "Sir, we won't have to. They'll stand in-line to buy them. And carry them with them 24/7. And they'll make it even easier for us, because they'll post the most intimate details about their lives and what they do every minute of the day with perfect strangers on this thing called 'social media' ." "BULLSH!T. The American people aren't that stupid. They care about their privacy too much."

 

[Eric Coughlin]

If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend you read Edward Snowden's book, "Permanent Record". It's pretty sobering for us Americans, what the NSA, an agency that your tax dollars finance, is doing with
the data and especially metadata they collect on us every day. Heck even this post will be added to my metadata account the NSA keeps.

Hi NSA snoops! I see you. Go get lunch, you look miserable having to keep metadata tabs on my boring life.

Let me break out some math. 55,000 employees at NSA. 327 million Americans. One NSA employee for every 5945 Americans. 40 hours in a work week, 144,000 seconds. 144,000 NSA employee seconds per week / 5945 Americans = 24 seconds of time that an NSA employee can spend on each American per week. If we go off of world population of 7.7 billion, then it comes out to one second per week per person.

Which of course means, you have to be important enough to them for their personnel to devote real time and attention to you.

 

[jb.]

Let me break out some math. 55,000 employees at NSA. 327 million Americans. One NSA employee for every 5945 Americans. 40 hours in a work week, 144,000 seconds. 144,000 NSA employee seconds per week / 5945 Americans = 24 seconds of time that an NSA employee can spend on each American per week. If we go off of world population of 7.7 billion, then it comes out to one second per week per person.

Which of course means, you have to be important enough to them for their personnel to devote real time and attention to you.

It’s cute you think they need to have humans crunch that data.

It’s all done using machine learning and AI on massive supercomputing clusters.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

Oh, so 55,000 employees play video games eight hours a day while AI does all the work. I chose my words carefully; it still stands that human personnel have very limited time to spend on people who have not raised suspicion, so if the AI never targets a person than a human employee will likely never monitor said person. Even after all the AI info is gather it still needs to be viewed by a person at some point and they’ve only got 1-24 seconds per week per person to review that data.

And I also have doubts on AI being well equipped to interpret data. People can joke and use sarcasm talking about terrorist activities, and I don’t know how AI is programmed to recognize jokes and sarcasm so as to not report it to humans and thereby waste the humans’ time.

People often have difficulty telling if I’m being serious or not; AI would have a much harder time.

 

[puredrifting]

Let me break out some math. 55,000 employees at NSA. 327 million Americans. One NSA employee for every 5945 Americans. 40 hours in a work week, 144,000 seconds. 144,000 NSA employee seconds per week / 5945 Americans = 24 seconds of time that an NSA employee can spend on each American per week. If we go off of world population of 7.7 billion, then it comes out to one second per week per person.

Which of course means, you have to be important enough to them for their personnel to devote real time and attention to you.

Read/listen to the book Eric. That's the insidious thing about the metadata collection. They are archiving it forever. And it's metadata they care about most because of keyword searches and organizational reference. They don't need to analyze your data at all. They have an archive on your every move for life, which can be easily compressed and then opened and explored anytime the government wants to investigate you. If you pop onto their radar for ANYTHING you do for the rest of your life that rubs them the wrong way, IRS, ATF, any other alphabet agency, for any reason, they have the ultimate digital treasure trove of everything you've done your entire life. Who you spoke with, what you said, any "impure thoughts" from a governmental perspective
that you've ever had. That is and should be terrfiying to every American. It's beyond Orwellian and could be used to make your kids, grandkids and great grandkids lives a living hell deep into the future.

We are all screwed. Privacy no longer exists and as Americans increasignly accept this as "normal" ie; every American under 35 pretty much already does, our governments control, leverage and power over us is absolute, totalitarian and really just as bad if not worse than what China does it it's citizens, ours is just much more subtle and covert.
Information is power and they have it on all of us. Our government is supposed to serve us, not rule us and with this terrifying new reality, they own us.

 

[Eric Coughlin]

If you pop onto their radar for ANYTHING you do for the rest of your life that rubs them the wrong way, IRS, ATF, any other alphabet agency, for any reason, they have the ultimate digital treasure trove of everything you've done your entire life. Who you spoke with, what you said, any "impure thoughts" from a governmental perspective
that you've ever had.

Well yeah, but that goes back to, don't do anything that would make you pop up on their radar and you don't have much to be worried about. They don't want to waste time monitoring the lives of boring law abiding citizens. I would imagine the vast majority of Americans have not done anything that puts them under high scrutiny from the NSA, because as mentioned, the NSA does not have the manpower to monitor the vast majority of Americans, AI or not. So, they've only got time for those Americans who raise red flags. Which I guess just means if you're planning to start a revolution, stay off the grid.

"Impure thoughts" reminds me of, "You never had a camera in my head."

 

[jb.]

If you haven’t computer pre-screening for you, you have a lot more than “1-24 seconds” of time with a human.

I could go into more detail about why the “I don’t need to fear the surveillance state, I didn’t do anything wrong” thing is a really naive approach to privacy, but i don’t have the time tonight.