At the present there are 5004 approved operators recorded by the CAA as active.
I seem to recall the figure had reached a high of 5600 or more. A decrease of more than 600 in a few months.
With costs of nearly £200 a year to renew the permit and insurance of £300 to £700 a year. Equipment costs, running costs you have to be sure that your business model is robust.
5004 Approved Operators
My feeling is that with over 5004 approved operators there is not enough business to support all the operators. Its not sustainable.
Some of the approved operators are part of large organisation’s, companies and emergency services. But the majority will be small one person providers.
As the regulations tighten there will be more potential as more and more illegal operators will find it more difficult to operate. I also find that more companies require evidence of CAA permit and insurance before work begins.
At Skylark Aerial Photography which began 5 years ago, much work was placed in building a robust business model.
- Investing in multiple aerial platforms
- Offering free services to build up a reputation
- Log many hours of operation to practice
- Knock on doors to introduce the company
- Look very closely at what can be offered
- Review your pricing structure
Three Years
It has taken three years before a profit was made. By providing a good service over 50% of work now is by referral and 40% of income is generated by long term contracts or affiliations with large companies. The most profitable work is survey which accounts for 40% of the business income work stream.
Diversify
The Edit
It became apparent that being a drone business as a stand alone provider will not generate an income. One year into the business operation the business plan was altered to offer editing. High end Apple Macs were purchased along with one of the top three editing suites.
Again free editing was offered initially to allow practice on one’s own film to edit.
After a year you soon find that you have your own style.
Ours are short cut edits and we are very adept at filming over 4 hours of footage and providing a 2 min high quality edit within half a day ready for use on web sites and social media.
Alternative Footage
Looking back over the edits, it could be seen that the aerial filming was great, but we began to add some ground footage, sound recording, use of GoPro. Now most of the work produced will feature drone, ground based gimbal, GoPro and time-lapse.
Using varying LUTS in the edit suite and licence paid music scores, the final edits produced set you apart from all the other drone operators.
Equipment
Invest and Invest
It’s no good operating with one drone, two minimum, two iPads with DJI equipment and many micro high speed SD cards. You will find that drones do break and do break down. No good being part of a film crew with a broken drone.
Good quality camera is needed for the high end stills. For marketing brochures you need to be shooting with X5, X5s, X7 if using DJI and multiple lenses. The DJI Mavic Pro 2 has an excellent camera and now can be used for printed publicity material shots.
At Skylark we use 5 drones (4 quad copters and 1 fixed wing), two are just purely for survey, and one can be used in all weathers for survey. We are about to invest in an RTK drone for survey, an investment of nearly £9000.
Such is the growth of survey business this can be justified in the business model.
Website, Social Media and Blogs
Write & write material
Make sure you have a website professionally built. Use lots of high quality images and video to show case. Write at least one blog per week and update social media, in particular Face book, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Practice
Fly that drone
Practice and practice your technique, get to know all the functions. Some of the DJI automated functions are a real benefit but know how to use them. Practice your safety technique in case of a drone failure.
More important how you use that camera to best effect, exposures, film rate, image size.
But do you have the eye and technique to offer a unique perspective and footage? Drones can be used very effectively and safely low down and remove the need for a camera car, dolly or track.
Location & Weather
Being based on the edge of the Lake District a lot of business comes from the tourist industry. A lot of the footage is geared up just for that and the ability to produce final edits quickly is paramount. But the weather here in the North West can be very unpredictable and wet. Its important to look at the forecast and be ready to deploy during the good spells.
As the season closes the requirement for drone material reduces. Now’s the time to look at your equipment needs, up date your operators manual, review your marketing. Here at Skylark we now have two business streams.
Film and survey. Survey work is now conducted all year round. It maybe the company will be divided into the filming business and survey business as separate entities.
Indoor Filming
With the latest drones a new business stream has been provided. The latest DJI drones can be flown in doors very safely and with one person.
They are also very stable and fly more accurately than out doors. The quality of the film is superb. Aerial inspections can be carried out very quickly, safely and cost effective inside factories, churches, ancient monuments, aircraft hangers.
Always think outside the box. Drones do not just have to be used to inspect outside they can be used very well inside buildings and structures.
PPE and Safety Regulations
When providing footage or survey for large contractors its imperative that you or your company are aware of safety requirements for that industry. Do you have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)? Are you familiar with their safety regulations? Have you been inducted into their site rules and been signed off? Are you a member of a site safety body?
Being aware of these rules, regulations will stand you in good stead when tendering for business on large sites.
Collaborate
Word of mouth does help. Working with fellow film makers is a great way to not only get work, but pass on work. By striking up a working relationship with another film maker it not only adds another angle to your portfolio but offers more chance of working on interesting projects where you would not get a chance to film or produce if you provided only aerial footage.
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