I would not consider this a "safe" way to get these shots. Safer than putting a human up there, but there is always the danger of shooting down the drone. Especially if you are shooting from the middle of the action.

What a fresh perspective, going through the fireworks!

Thanks for sharing.

VMP

very interesting perspective, but to pick up on an earlier comment:

i would have been a little concerned about the safety of the drone getting involved in some sort of mishap with an explosion (think flack ww2 style), and even more so from the possible claim from an innocent spectator hit by the drone on it's way down...

The stand-off distance on these large professional fireworks shows is pretty far. So I doubt the probability of spectator injury is very high. What would be my worry is flying a $2500 Quadcopter through that air-burst barrage without getting blown to bits.

@brighterside - Like Gary James I believe the spectators would be far enough away. As for the drone - I did say "safe", not necessarily without monetary cost :)

Some nice shots in there. Pity about the inappropriate music. Would have been much better with live sound .

If you've ever seen a video taken with a Quadcopter that had unedited live sound, you'd understand why most have added music soundtracks. All you hear from the GoPro camera mic is the drones exceptionally loud rotor noise.

A ground based audio recording of the fireworks display would have to be mixed with the aerial video footage to achieve what you're talking about.

The drone might have been piloted by a person among the pyrotechnics who knew where to fly it to avoid being hit.

Pretty interesting idea. I didn't care for the 360 sweep as I lost my bearings. Also it would have been nice to have the last shot snap to black exactly in sync with the final note of the music. But then, I've seen YouTube audio sync issues, and it might be that the sound and video were in sync before the upload.

It would have been nice to cut in ground-based shots of the fireworks, the audience reaction, the scene at the launch site, and some background "whompf-bang!" audio of the event.

Finally, I'd suggest to the cameraman that all movements should be very slow and deliberate. I think that's how the pros would have done it if there were part of a big-budget project.

>>>> exceptionally loud rotor noise<<<
Well naturally. Live sound means sound recorded of the event, not that it is recorded at the camera.
The images suggest that it is likely that the copter suffered a few strikes of small particles, and I did say "some good shots", meaning that it could have been a lot better with more skillful editing and inclusion of B roll.

Yes, some exceptionally good shots and a few indifferent ones..
Like others I felt it would have been way more interesting to see what was happening from the usual perspective and then cut to the middle of the action. For sure much of the thrill of fireworks comes from the sound and that was really missed by me.
As for the risk to the drone, it'd be very small. WWII flack downed very few planes, its main impact was psychological. Those gunners were trying very hard to hit the target with high velocity shells packed high explosives that created a lot of shrapnel. Fireworks lack all of those attributes plus drones are quite resilient...until they fly into a tree.

Bob.

Bob,

That's interesting to read about the difference between flacks vs fireworks.

VMP

Bob,believe me when I say that you are underestimating the mass and hardness of those star pyros that create the streams of showers following a shells air burst. For several years I was involved semi-professionally (meaning unlicensed - did you get that NSA) in setting off large July 4th fireworks shows in rural farm country. To the misfortune of myself and others, we found that if the wind shifted to blow the unburned explosion debris towards the parked cars and spectators (which usually numbered in the several hundreds) we'd find small dimples in the roofs and hoods (bonnets for you folks that drive on the wrong side of the road) from those ball bearing sized unburned stars falling and hitting the parked cars. This occurred even outside the 500' stand-off we tried to keep between our 4 launch pads and the spectators.

If those densely packed unburned star pyros can put a dent in a metal car body, they can certainly play havoc with a plastic Quadcopter. The guy who shot this video had dumb luck on his side.

Here's the unfortunate flip side to that amazing footage :(
Flying A Drone Through Fireworks May Land You In Prison

Mike

It wasn't that aircraft were resistant to flak, the difficulty was getting enough shells to explode near enough to the aircraft. Many aircraft were damaged by shrapnel but survived because the hits were not lethal. Persuading pilots to fly into the bursts would have greatly increased kills.

For sure the large mortar style fireworks are very dangerous. A heavy object leaving a barrel with enough velocity to reach over 1,000' alone will easily kill, and anything remotely aerodynamic falling from that height could also kill.

Watching the video what I saw was someone flying the plane taking a calculated risk. He's either well above the height where the shells are timed to detonated or far enough away so that the craft isn't close to the detonation. To me the lucky / unlucky divide is at the 50/50 mark and the chances of the craft being fatally hit were under 10%. In other words he would have been unlucky if the craft was lost.

There's also the question of risk to spectators and the Forbes article rs170a linked to is also stretching credibility trying to construct a scenario where an incident involving a drone causes death or injury to a spectator. What does concern me is the very real possibility of the sky becoming filled with drones. Then even the improbable becomes probable at some point. I've been close to one of the biggest drones money can buy and that was one scary piece of gear. I would say it is lucky that so far only one person has been killed by one.

Bob.

Cool images. Very inusual point of view.
Crappy montage.

Erni

Even if an explosion blew the heli course it would stabilize again because they have GPS gyros that auto correct itself. I know because I have one of them.

Some fantastic footage there. Well done to the guy for having the balls to go for it. On the edit; there must have been some music playing live, which would have sounded weird with the cuts. If I shoot fireworks (from the ground) I cut between 2 cameras, but keep the whole of a music track.

Wow, the hysteria around this video is, well, no surprise. 'If it flies - be afraid of it' seems to predominate every discussion.

Ever been duck hunting? Even a shotgun aimed at a flock of ducks more often than not, misses every bird in the air. While the burning sparklies are usually smaller than a BB, the odds of being hit (like flack in WW-II) are incredibly rare. In fact, at 1:13, the camera *is* hit, but the drone is so stable that you barely notice.

Something else that no one noticed - the flight was entirely over a large body of water. So in the unlikely case of being disabled from a firework impact, the opportunity for injury or damage to anyone on the ground is infinitesimally small.

And the music really sucks.

"the odds of being hit (like flack in WW-II) are incredibly rare."

True. But you're ignoring one really big difference. WWII bombers were not trying their best to fly INTO the flak just so they could take pretty pictures. And I'm sure I don't have to go into details, but if you are intentionally flying into the flak ( fireworks air bursts ) the closer you get to the point of detonation the more dense the "flak" becomes. Many scenes in this video show the Quadcopter nearly flying into the densest zone of air burst detonations over the launch pads.

I agree that it was unlikely there was any risk to the shows spectators. All I'm saying is how incredibly risky -dollar wise- it was to take this video. Of course it's possible the copters owner might be wealthy, and the loss of a $2500 video platform would be no big deal. In any case most of the video was spectacular. But I concur completely with all the negative comments regarding the music track, the editing, and the overly fast rotational panning. With this video paving the way for future drone based copycat aerial fireworks videos, I can't wait till next year to see all the "blooper" shots that show the recorded death spirals of the drones going down in flames because they got too close to the show. Time to start stocking up on Popcorn and Raisinets.

Just when I thought the drone video of the fireworks show couldn't get any riskier for potential loss of the aircraft, this shows up.
Someone flys a DJI Phantom Quadcopter into an erupting Volcano.