AV Focus: PART 2 - AV Productions at Air + Style LA

At AirVūz our video production department has done some pretty cool gigs, but for every amazing aerial shot, there’s a lot of hard work behind the scenes. For our latest AirVūz Original Program , we want to share with you an in depth look behind the scenes – profiling how companies and people in the drone industry are working to make it a success. This is AirVūz Focus ! CLICK HERE! VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: Angie: Welcome to part two of our special behind the scenes look at AirVuz Productions exclusive access to Air in Style LA 2017, I'm Angie Avestruz, and this is Airvuz Focus. With a day of flying under their belts, the Airvuz pilots were almost ready for the live broadcast of the Air in Style finals. But with key rehearsals rained out on day one, a little warm up flying was in order [00:00:30] for day two. Jay: So the next morning we ended up flying right away over at Dodgers Stadium, we had the extra batteries, and we thought it would be a great way to start the day. Tyler: We decided to say hi to some college friends of mine, Katie and Nick, we thought it would be a cool place to fly the drone. And it was on our way to Chevez Arena, so it worked out well. Jay: I'll be on copter watch. Tyler: They hadn't seen a drone before, so we put the drone up and kinda showed them their neighborhood. Katie: Oh that's so cool. Tyler: You need a visual observer [00:01:00] in LA, there's a lot of helicopter traffic. Mike: We had to hit up Dodgers Stadium because it was so close and it's so awesome, so we decided to take the drones up, dust the rust off, and get ready for the day. Jay: I like how you're just like ... Mike: Oh, dude, we can totally get over there. All right gentlemen, you're going [00:01:30] to want to watch this. Jay: Oh I see this, you're coming from like the third baseline. Mike: Yeah. Jay: You can't even see third base though, you kind of just ... Tyler: You're tilting. Mike: Yeah, well I wanted to do a flyover first. All right. Tyler: That was weird. Mike: There's a chopper behind you? Jay: The plane is pretty high up there. Tyler: Yeah, you're fine. Mike: We flew a really long way out there. I did lose feed a couple times, so the aircraft just managed. Tyler: [00:02:00] Gotta bring this guy home. Mike: Oh, I'm just going to do a quick flyover. Tyler: Check this out! Angie: After the morning tune-up, it was time to head over to the Air in Style venue by USC. After shooting the intro for the AirVuz news story, it was on to the warmups, and then semifinals. Tyler: [crosstalk 00:02:22] Is that ours? Mike: Yeah, that's us. Announcer: Here we go you guys, hey, ho, LA we are about to go into run [00:02:30] number one. Are you ready?! You see that, you scream and the lights turn on. Backside 16 and a backside 1440! And he moves into first place, Gold! Jay: [00:03:00] Taking clip after clip of all these amazing jumps, you don't realize in the moment that one of them wasn't even that good because made such a small error, but it was phenomenal because the second he landed you could go back on your camera and watch that action, and knowing that you have the instant replay of it. Announcer: Up next [00:03:30] we have the overall tour leader. Make some noise, for Marcus Kleveland! Again, only 17 years old, Henry what is in the water in these other countries? I don't know what's happening. 2nd Announcer: Marcus Kleveland, he's [00:04:00] got that Norwegian blood, that viking invader ... Here it is. Backside triple pull, 1440, [crosstalk 00:04:01] what?! Angie: With the semi's done, it was onto the finals, which were broadcasted live on the go90 app. Tyler: For a big event like this, with a lot of stuff going on, communication is key, and I was the only one of our crew that had the headset so it was important for me to be able to hear the director, and then relay it to Mike and to Jay. Just a heads-up dispatch. This is Tyler. We're gonna have our drone up near the ramp in about one or two minutes here. We'll be flying for most of the competition. Mike: Alright, finals. Tyler: Alright, let's do it. Mike: And we up. Announcer: [00:04:30] Let's take a look at this international field of riders we got out here. It's eight athletes. They get three runs, and the best two run scores are added together, and the highest score total wins. Jay: With Mike and Tyler operating the drone, I went up on the high platform right under the jump to see Max Parrot, and being right underneath them for those jumps was out of this world. 2nd Announcer: Here is [00:05:00] Max Parrot, cab 1260, triple cork. Announcer: That looks cab 1620, triple cork. 2nd Announcer: So Max Parrot, pulling out all the stops on run one. Announcer: Yeah, that just put the rest of the guys in a pressure cooker up top. Mike: Alright, ready? Tyler: Yeah. 2nd Announcer: You were talking earlier about the pressure cooker. Nobody rides better in it than this kid right here. Seb Toots, on the run in for run number one. [00:05:30] Backside triple cork, 1440. And he just kicked off what may be one heck of a night. Mike: We should get a routine of going down and then I'll go out and we'll get the wide angle every time. Tyler: We're gonna loop back around? Mike: Yup. Tyler: 13, standby. Announcer: Landing, the more amplitude you have, the higher that's gonna score with the judges. Tyler: We're live, we're live. Announcer: If there's one thing that any crowd can understand, [00:06:00] it's how big you go. [crosstalk 00:06:02] Tyler: We had to be on our A-game, but they could cut to our shot at any time during the broadcast. Mike: So we always had to have the shot framed up properly, just in case it did cut to us. We didn't want to be looking at the road or something really boring. We always wanted to have the ramp featured. Tyler: Standby 13, standby 13. We're on. Mike: We're on right now? Tyler: Just briefly. Announcer: For the overall title, [crosstalk 00:06:28], it's gonna be this kid right here, Marcus Kleveland, battling [00:06:30] it out all throughout the night with Sebastian Toutant. Tyler: Got to move quick, man. Announcer: But it is anyone's game. 2nd Announcer: Wearing that #1 [inaudible 00:06:37]. What is Marcus Kleveland going with after today? Here's a goofy footer. Announcer: Look at him wind up, backside, triple cork 1440. Mike: Alright, I'm going to land it. Tyler: You're going to land? Mike: Yup. Tyler: Alright. Yeah, they shouldn't cut to now, wouldn't they? What are at battery, oh, 32. Mike: Alright. So, we were flying the Inspire 1. It's got a little less battery life in it, so [00:07:00] we were taking 'em down at about 35%, just for safety purposes. We don't want to run the battery too low. Tyler: Sweet, alright. Let's get these charged up. We definitely want to risk it on pushing it with the battery life. We have plenty of backups so we would take it down when we needed to. 13, that's us. Mike: Okay here we go. Tyler: Alright we're on we're live. Oh, sick. [crosstalk 00:07:24] Mike: Are we on? Tyler: Yeah, we're on. Badass, keep [00:07:30] her going. Mike: Still on? Tyler: Yeah. Slow up a little bit, slow up a little bit. Announcer: Final rider to drop before we do it all over again. [crosstalk 00:07:37] Mike: We're still on? Tyler: Alright, we're off, we're off. Yeah, that was a long shot there. Mike: Yeah, they were liking it. Tyler: [crosstalk 00:07:44], dude. Announcer: Let's see what we see, when we see it, which is coming up right now. Torgeir Bergrem. He's [00:08:00] going backside 1440. Tyler: Battery error. Mike: Alright, bring it down. Tyler: What's that all about? Mike: I dunno. With a battery error, you don't want to mess around. You might have a bad cell, and the drone could just lose power at any time. You gotta swap that battery out. Do not fly with a battery error. Angie: After a quick swap of batteries the guys were back in the air, not missing a beat. Mike: Cut to us this [00:08:30] is beautiful. Aw, man, like, they got ... Tyler: They did cut to us once when were on the flight so ... Mike: Yeah, they got to do that again, man. That looks too good not to. I better save this to SD card. We were shooting 4K so our cards were filling up really fast, but because they were taking our live feed to the truck, we didn't want to bring it down, so we maxed out the cards, but left it up they could cut to our live feed. Tyler: 13 that's us. 2nd Announcer: Marcus Cleveland. You have the potential to not only win an LA Air and Style title, you're also [00:09:00] winning the overall tour title. Announcer: That's what you want. [crosstalk 00:09:04] 2nd Announcer: Lot easier for Marcus Cleveland. All he has to do is ... Tyler: And we're out. Sick. Mike: Oh man. Tyler: That's twice with the lights out. Mike: Yeah, they're gonna [crosstalk 00:09:14] Tyler: Are we on? Mike: Are we? Okay, let's keep it on. Got him? Tyler: We're off now. [crosstalk 00:09:21] That was a quick take. 2nd Announcer: Look how steep that inrun is. That camera angle really shows you how fast these guys get going. Announcer: Cab 1260 from Seppe Smits. He lands a little [00:09:30] bit in the backseat. That won't do it for him. Here you got the standings after run 2. Sven Thorgren, the only rider that's put down two scores that are 70 or above. Everyone else kind of fell or bobbled. Mike: How's that brightness? That too bright? Tyler: Looks a little bright, yeah. A little overexposed. Mike: How's that? Tyler: I think that's better. Don't you think? Mike: Yeah, that's good. Announcer: We're just about to get underway [00:10:00] with the third and final run at the third and final stop of the ... [crosstalk 00:10:05] Tyler: Stay even with it. Pull a little bit back. Announcer: We are in Los Angeles. This kid right here, could put it down on run 2, but ... [crosstalk 00:10:13] Mike: I'm actually gonna cut in front. Oh, shit, that was loud. Tyler: What was that? Mike: That was just the boarder. Tyler: Was it really? Mike: Yeah. Announcer: Max Parrot. Just about to drop in. Live announcer Henry Jackson has the thousands of people, [00:10:30] the throngs of people chanting Max. Here he goes. Frontside triple cork. [crosstalk 00:10:35] That might be lights out for the field. 88.6 for Max Parrot, your new leader. With a two run score of 178.6. Tyler: You cutting across? Mike: Yes. Tyler: Alright, that's cool, I got this. 13. [crosstalk 00:10:47] Announcer: Max Parrot just came out and dropped bomb. Tyler: Alright we're on. Flying with Mike is great. He's a pro. Maybe it's his military background, [00:11:00] but he's pretty cool under pressure. We're live. Being the only one with a headset and we didn't have a monitor made it kind of tough. But we were always ready when they needed us. Mike: Alright, still on? Still on? Tyler: Alright, we're off. Mike: Alright, I'm gonna try to catch this drop, eh? Tyler: What's that? Mike: Let's try to get a little low. Oh, damn, we got a sprinkle on our screen. Tyler: Oh, shoot. Bring it in. Mike: Might as well finish this battery maybe. That's not too unheard of to see like a drop [00:11:30] on a cam. Tyler: I'll try to keep that off. Ah, we just got another one though. Mike: Alright, let's just get this. 2nd Announcer: He needs to go all the way to first right now. Which route is he taking? Oh, it didn't get him there, but he was going for it. Mike: They're pulling some insane stuff right now. It was sprinkling on us and our iPads were getting covered with water so it was making it a little difficult to see the screen. Damn, this rain, it's almost to the point where we shouldn't be flying. Tyler: Almost to a point where [00:12:00] what? Mike: We shouldn't be flying. Tyler: Really? Mike: Yeah, if it gets any harder, probably call it. Tyler: Yeah, I'll trust your judgment on that. Mike: Rain makes things a little difficult when you're flying. How was it? Jay: Super lit! Mike: Hey, how many more ... what are they at? Jay: Three guys left, fam. Tyler: What's the deal with that music starting now? Mike: Is this Major Lazer? Jay: Yeah. [00:12:30] Do you want me to dry your screen out for you? That kinda sucks. Mike: Yeah, sure. Tyler: Stay right there. Mike: That's good. Alright, I'm actually gonna try to get Major Lazer in the background, right here. Announcer: Directly after that we're going right into a Major Lazer concert. Air and Style 2017 is just about wrapped up. Mike: Alright. We're just gonna do one come back, with everything in frame, with like the lights and shit. They got us in standby? [crosstalk 00:12:59] Alright, [00:13:00] I gotta bring it in for the landing. Jay: Let's get a Major Lazer shot on the way back. Mike: Yeah, that's ... look at this light show. Oh, we got so much rain on the lens. We're soaked. Yeah, I think, with the rain, I don't think we can fly much more. This isn't good. And we're just gonna keep getting water. Tyler: Yeah. Mike: When the rain started coming down a little harder, we made the executive decision to just bring the drone down and not risk it. We came to a safety [00:13:30] conclusion that, let's just bring it down. We're just gonna keep getting water on there. Tyler: It was just too much to fly in, but we only missed a couple jumps. I think we got all the important stuff. Interviewer: The winner, of the Los Angeles Air and Style, Mr. Max Parrot. Announcer: On behalf of Tom Onroso, I am Preston Strels saying, we'll see you next year. Tyler: Once the live broadcast was over, we were pretty much done with what we needed to do, but the rain did eventually let up and Mike was able to get the drone of up for a little bit of footage of Major Lazer, which, to see the crowd and see the light show that was going on there, that was [00:14:00] something I hadn't seen before. Mike: Major Lazer put on a crazy show. They had fire cannons, they had balls rolling around. Super epic. Jay killed the slow-motion game. He was getting access all over the place and he got these amazing slow-motion shots. Jay: It was one of the craziest crowds I'd ever seen. They had all these cool lights and pyrotechnics, so you just had to get a nice slow-mo shot, and instantly the shot was amazing. Mike: They put on an [00:14:30] awesome set. Angie: Air and Style LA 2017 was a huge production, but it went off without a hitch. Mike: Air and Style was so cool. I mean, they combined snowboarding and music. I mean, it's sweet. Tyler: Lot of work, lot of late hours, but it was worth it to be involved in something like that ... Was, something I'll never forget. Jay: That whole Air + Style experience was so valuable to myself and everyone else at AirVuz, so we want to thank them for [00:15:00] bringing us out there and letting us do what we do. Angie: Stay tuned to Airvuz.com for more in-depth looks behind the scenes in the drone industry. Thanks for watching AirVuz Focus.