Aktea Ship Aerial Drone PhotoIn 2016, Union of Greek Shipowners  (UGS) celebrated 100th anniversary, and internationally renowned filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari and Greek production house HAOS film  was asked to create a tribute film Seven Seas, which reflected the greatness of Greek seamanship and shipping in the international shipping arena. This film first screened in November 2016 at the celebration held at Athens Concert Hall, attended by Greek President, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, the country’s Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, and three former Prime ministers, among the some 1,800 guests who celebrated the founding of the Union.

 

 

Watch a sample video reel from this shoot:

HAOS Films Chose PhotoFlight Aerial Media team to provide aerial video footage of  large Greek commercial vessels at two locations in the US – New York and Louisiana. PhotoFlight Team used a two operator team and SLR camera to deliver great cinematic footage to the delight of the client. The largest of the challenges we faced during this project was planning and coordination with the ships, as their schedules constantly change to adjust for weather, tides, harbor pilot availability, etc. We stayed in constant communication with the ships bridge via satellite phone, and used marine tracking app to get a better idea of the ships location.

We used land and boat based crew to film the arrival of a container ship CSCL Europe to New York City. We followed the ship as it entered NYC harbor under the Verrazano-Narrows bridge, meeting with three barges before making its turn towards Port Elizabeth in New Jersey.

For the second part of this project, we traveled to New Orleans in Louisiana. We were following a tanker MT Aktea, transporting crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi River delta, to a terminal near New Orleans. We scouted multiple locations along the river, and then tried to get ahead of Aktea in our car as it travelled upstream, and then catching it the following morning berthed at the terminal.

Aktea Ship Aerial Drone Photo

This was our second large drone video project involving tracking commercial ships, and thanks to this experience we can offer problem-free project execution and incredible results to our clients in marine and shipping industries.