AV News: Alton Brown Talks Drones

You might know Alton Brown as the host of Cut Throat Kitchen or other shows on the Food Network or from many of his cookbooks. Now, the food and science enthusiast is making a name for himself in the drone community. Our Tyler Mason caught up with Brown before his recent show at the Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis to talk about and fly drones. If you follow Food Network personality Alton Brown on social media, you’ve likely seen his daily flybys of the theaters he performs at on his touring show. Brown and his camera man, Lamar Owen, have used drones to showcase each venue they visit. It’s an idea that came about before they began their “Eat Your Science” tour, a culinary variety show that is currently in the middle of a 40-city schedule. When Brown and his crew arrive in a new city, one of the first things they do is launch the drone, piloted by Owen. The end result is stunning visuals of old, historic theaters. “Part of that is because we’re respecting and appreciating – celebrating, even – local spaces. We bother to do research. The shots are fairly loving. The whole thing is to celebrate that local house. It’s not like, ‘Oh, look at us!’ It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, look at this place we’re lucky enough to be in.’ So I think the people in those cities respond to that. They respond to the respect. They like the story telling. And they like seeing something in a new way.” The feedback on social media has been positive, as Brown’s 3 million Twitter followers and nearly 300,000 Instagram followers reply with positive comments on these flyby videos. When prior commitments in Durham, North Carolina prevented Brown and Owen from capturing drone footage that day, Brown’s fans were left wanting more. “We had other engagements that morning, so we just didn’t have time. That was like 15,000 hits saying, ‘Where’s the drone?’ So we were like, ‘Now we have to do that every day.’” Not every flyover includes footage of the outside of the theaters, but each video highlights that particular theater’s inner workings. Owen operates the drone, a Yuneec Typhoon 4K, while Brown stands on stage. Brown later voices over each video, including a bit of history about each theater. Now when the Eat Your Science tour rolls into each town, the locals look forward to the drone flyovers. “The people that work the houses, the local crews and the management, they’re watching these videos. So at first, when we first started, people were kind of grumpy about it.” “They were like, ‘Can you just do it quick and can you just hover over the middle and stay away from my priceless artifacts?’ And now that they’ve seen them and seen what we do and how we really say good things about their space, when we get there they’ve already watched the ones from previous houses, so they’re all excited about it.” Though Brown is a fixed wing pilot, he leaves the drone flights to Owen, who admits he didn’t have much experience with drones before the touring show began. “I had very little drone background before this project. We talked about doing this and then a couple of drones showed up at my house and said, ‘Take some time to practice.’” ALTON: “I’d never seen anything you couldn’t shoot.” The biggest challenge of each flyover is piloting the drone indoors, where the drone can’t use GPS. Without it, even the slightest amount of air flow can alter the drone’s path. When Owen tries to get close-up shots of chandeliers or other intricate details of theaters, he’s got to keep a close eye on the drone. “There’s a little bit of pucker factor the first time you do it inside in a real space, because you can’t just slam it down anywhere. You’ve got to bring it back to the stage to land it.” ALTON: “Remember the updraft in Hartford where it literally tried to suck you into the ceiling?” LAMAR: “There’s been several of those. And a lot of these old places have things you don’t want to get sucked into – chandeliers and irreplaceable things.” As the Eat Your Science tour continues through May, so too will the now popular theater flyovers. As for his future with drones, Brown has some ideas of how he might be able to incorporate them on his popular Food Network show, “Cutthroat Kitchen.” “I’ve been wanting to use one to deliver things, like you’ve got to wait for the drone to deliver your parsley or whatever.”