Drone film festival: ‘Nothing to fear from this business’

Pending airspace regulations supported by festival speakers

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“Society thinks we’re crazy,” says a narrator in a grizzled British accent. “Some of us are.”

Moments later, footage reveals the man and two friends approaching the edge of a sheer cliff, the afternoon sunlight shadowing the valley far below. The man assures the audience he has no desire for death.

“But with just one little step,” he continues. “Everything gets much more intense.”

And the three men jump, in tandem, off the ledge. What follows is two minutes of breathtaking footage as the men, over and over, BASE jump off impossibly high cliffs into rocky, far-away valleys. Then comes the truly surprising part.

“Taking the final step, and overcoming my deepest fear, makes me feel more alive,” intones the jumper. “I have acrophobia. I’m afraid of heights.”

Film fest draws diverse crowd

Acrophobia was just one of 24 films screened at the first-ever U.S. Drone Film Festival on Saturday at the OKC Museum of Art. In a cozy auditorium inside the museum, local industry experts and filmmakers from around the world converged with hobbyists for a day of short-film screenings and TED-style speeches about the drone industry.

Every film shown was under five minutes long and shot at least half by drones. The festival was founded and organized by Ersin Demirci, head of the Small UAV Institute and a doctoral candidate studying unmanned aerial vehicles at Oklahoma State University.

Not everyone came for the same reason. Local resident Rita Hejny said she was only there for the love of film.

“I’m not a drone enthusiast at all,” she admitted.

Others, like Norman resident and commercial drone user Lonnie Crego, said they were there to hear the speakers.

“They had some information I thought I could use,” he said. “I’ve been flying RC [radio-controlled aircraft] for 30 years.”

Just before 1:30 p.m., the lights dimmed in the auditorium. The first film screened was Jordan From the Air, a three-minute journey though Jordan’s cities, deserts and ruins.

Acrophobia took home the honors for the action category. Laurent Youmi, a Frenchman who attended the festival and gave a short presentation about his work, won the landscape category for his film From Russia to New Zealand. It featured footage Youmi shot during a 15-month journey through 11 countries.

Other films included footage from locations like Istanbul, Colorado, Switzerland, Mauritius, Hawaii, France, New York City, Indonesia, Brazil and the Galapagos Islands.

Lectures highlight drone regulations

Following “Jordan From the Air,” festival emcee Allan Hendrickson took the stage for the first time. Hendrickson, author of Think It, Feel It, Have It, introduced each speaker and film to the festival audience.

“Does anyone know how many RPMs the first drone could generate?” he asked. “It didn’t register. It was on the back of a pigeon.”

Hendrickson then introduced the festival’s keynote speaker, Stephen McKeever, the Oklahoma Secretary for Science and Technology. McKeever talked through many of the practical applications of drones, like agriculture and weather, as well as the public’s changing perspective on them.

“Those who are not in this business,” he said of the drone industry, “have nothing to fear from this business.”

McKeever suggested that regulatory uncertainty was impeding industry growth, and that the Federal Aviation Administration’s forthcoming decision on nationwide regulatory policy would have a stabilizing impact on drone use. It was a theme echoed often throughout the day.

The U.S. Senate recently approved legislation that would give the FAA — not the states — exclusive regulatory power over drones.

Jamey D. Jacob, director of the Unmanned Systems Research Institute at OSU, agreed with McKeever’s assessment while also stressing the need for safety.

“The United States has the safest airspace in the world,” he said. “We want to make sure we keep it that way. I think it’s important that we do have a uniform set of regulations. We don’t want to have a patchwork of rules.”

Not toys anymore

Other speakers on the day included Dronebois CEO Nick Brown and Chris Kucharski, film and music liaison for the City of Tulsa.

Brown discussed his company and his personal passion for drones. His slideshow featured a picture with Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant, a drone hobbyist with whom Brown has discussed and flown UAVs.

“These [drones] aren’t toys any more,” Brown said. “These are tools that are going to change the world.”

Kucharski spoke mainly about Tulsa’s new partnership with LATAS (Low Altitude Traffic and Airspace Safety), which will limit the restrictions on UAVs within the city limits by allowing drone operators to communicate with the FAA and air-traffic controllers. He said Tulsa hopes to become one of the more drone-friendly cities in the country.

The day’s speeches were woven between film categories: action, narrative, architecture/places and landscape. Awards were distributed to the critics’ favorite in each. Category winners were presented a trophy and a year-long subscription to Adobe Creative Suite.

“The first year was a great success,” Demirci said after the festival concluded. “We received more than 180 film submissions from 44 countries, and people came all the way from New Zealand and Brazil. We are so happy to have this in Oklahoma City, and we’d like to have it again in upcoming years.”