Drone filming on the Thames: the giant floating Burberry handbag
If you happened to be walking beside the Thames on June 25th 2021, you might have rubbed your eyes in disbelief at the sight of a giant Burberry handbag floating down the river!
Our third project with the iconic British fashion house saw us capturing aerial imagery — photos and videos — of the large barge-mounted bag drifting along to Tower Bridge — the first of several global sightseeing tours for the upscaled luxury accessory.
The sculptural profile of Burberry’s Olympia bag really lended itself to gigantification, looking as much a natural part of the London skyline as the riverside architecture it sailed by!
Sara wrote up all of the flight plans, liaising with the Port Authority of London to talk safety and strategy. We also spoke to River Thames marine activity specialists Livett’s, whose impressive portfolio includes events on their wide range of boats and barges, on-river video production, and PR stunts.
Livett‘s have kindly listed Solent Sky Services as one of their go-to aerial media providers for the Thames area!
Livett’s took us down the Thames in pursuit of Burberry’s XXXXXXXXXL bag on a refurbished police patrol boat while we flew, hand-catching and hand-launching our drone from the bow.
This was a change of pace from our previous two jobs with Burberry, which called for tight aerial acrobatics and one-take footage of fashion collection showcases. Bobbing down the river and occasionally pausing to give passers-by a chance to snap pics of the head-turning installation was a touch more relaxing!
We maintained our usual high standards of professionalism and perfection, though. Our crew included:
A pilot — responsible for taking off, flying, and landing safely, following flight plans and protocols, and communicating next manoeuvres to the camera operator(s)
A camera operator — focused on doing all the things a ground camera op does (optimising exposure, focus pulling, etc.) while reacting to the pilot’s moves, and feeding back details of the shots they’re aiming to capture so that the pilot can adjust speed, direction, etc. accordingly when needed
Competent observers — formerly commonly known as ‘spotters’. Here to keep an eye on the sky and the pilot’s surroundings. Watches for hazards and communicates warnings to the team, site managers, property owners, etc.
We used the Inspire 2 with a selection of Zenmuse X7 lenses, shooting in Apple’s broadcast-ready ProRes format. A DIT (Digital Imaging Technician) offloaded our video files at the end of the day, and another incredible shoot was done.
A week later, the second giant handbag was spotted on Palm West Beach in Dubai. Both sightings stirred up a good amount of press attention. Here are some snippets from the London and Dubai videos, with our drone footage in the London ones:
A few weeks after that, Tower Bridge — which Burberry’s production crews paid to raise for the bag’s thoroughfare — got stuck in its open position! Nothing to do with this project, rest assured. Around the same time, YouTuber Tom Scott released this intriguing video showing the bridge’s inner workings:
Our great appreciation to production company Twelve AM for loving our first two projects with Burberry and hiring us for this thrilling third adventure. And endless thanks to Livett’s for helping make it all happen, and for featuring us on your ‘River Thames Drone Filming’ page — very honoured.