Flying-Cam

Production : Warner Bross
Country : UK

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

For the third year in a row, Flying-Cam has been called in by Warner Brothers to spend some quality time with Hogwarts' best-known student, Harry Potter. Once again, Harry Potter climbed aboard Flying-Cam's"broom", and took off to the skies above Scotland for the filming of the latest instalment, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

Due to confidentiality agreements, the details of Harry's most recent flight plan will not be available until after the release of the film, but as this was the third trip for Harry Potter with the Flying-Cam Team, rest assured that he was taking to the skies with a very accomplished "flight crew".

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Proving that the challenges of film-making better all those who rise to the task, new ground was broken on the set of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".

For the first time Flying-Cam took off wearing some of the most recent technology that the industry has to offer- the Cooke S4 primes. Using the Cooke 14mm and 18mm S4 lenses was just one of the ways in which Flying-Cam strives to achieve the vision of the production, and the lenses helped accentuate the beauty and majesty of the shots delivered by the Flying-Cam Team. The rugged terrain, monumental rocks, and Hagrid's house all came within the reach of Flying-Cam's potential.

The Flying-Cam was used to fly thought the monumental rocks, starting from above a soaring to the Hagrid House. To allow a perfect vantage point on the site, the Pilot was on a tower anchor on the edge of the high cliff. The passage between the stones was only 10 ft wide.

On another location, the Flying-Cam was used to film many plates used later for compositing with CGI pictures.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter's second year at Hogwarts, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", had a rather bumpy beginning, and if the Weasley's flying car had not come to the rescue to get him to school on time, Harry would have had quite a difficult beginning indeed.

In an absolutely perfect meshing of story and style, Flying-Cam came in to shoot this sequence, not only the P.O.V.s but all of the plate shots as well.

In an utterly stunning location, the car catches up to the train to follow it to school, but the boys are not quite as accomplished pilots as we have at Flying-Cam, and as they fly under the giant railroad bridge the car spins a complete 360 degrees. To execute this "barrel roll", the patented Flying-Cam remote head simply spun, thus allowing the drama to be controlled by having the car spin as it was passing directly under the arch - while the train itself was passing overhead. After achieving this P.O.V. of the car, numerous passes were done, one for every view out of the car's windows, so that the sequence could be completed with the boys on a green screen set and the dynamic plates shot by Flying-Cam giving excitement and veracity to every shot in the sequence. All in all one of Flying-Cam's bumpier rides, but thankfully, Harry arrived safe and sound, and another uniquely exciting sequence was aided by the use of Flying-Cam.