Podcast: Miles O’Brien – Drones Change The Way News Stories Are Told

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As an early proponent of drones for television news stories, journalist Miles O’Brien says this technology has fundamentally shifted the way stories can be told. O’Brien is a well-known independent science and technology reporter with stories appearing frequently on PBS. AVweb spoke to O’Brien Tuesday at Xponential 2016, the trade and technology show of the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International in New Orleans. O’Brien is hosting the daily general sessions at the show.

O’Brien pioneered small drone use for television work out of necessity and lack of budget, filming a documentary on how big cities can protect themselves against rising water. Some of the shooting was to be done in the Netherlands where the Dutch have centuries of experience keeping the sea at bay. He wanted aerials for his story, but was quoted $23,000 for helicopter and camera rental. That experience led him to build his own drone months before the first DJI Phantom appeared.

“I discovered immediately that it was not just a lot cheaper — I could have put 23 drones in the drink and still been ahead. But it was also amazing, the footage I got, it was so different than a helicopter, flying low along a levy or a dike, literally with a flock of birds with me and getting these amazing shots. The power of it was immediately obvious to me,” O’Brien told us.Now a drone accompanies O’Brien on all his production work around the world. He says the DJI Inspire, a high-end prosumer drone, offers the best combination of cost and quality.

O’Brien has found that having drone aerials fundamentally changes the way a story can be told. He’s done a couple of documentaries on the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and Japan using a drone to capture imagery impossible to shoot any other way. “Fukushima is a very difficult story to get a handle on in the big picture. They’ll tour you to the plant, but you can’t really get the overview that you want,” he said. Using the drone “gave such a different understanding of the story that you would have never gotten it no matter how long you stayed trudging through the trenches on the ground. That ability to look down, to have the God’s-eye view, really does change the way you tell stories,” O’Brien said.

You may recall that O’Brien is a longtime general aviation pilot and flew a Cirrus for many years. In 2014, his left arm was amputated after a freak accident and he’s been mostly absent from the cockpit since then. In our interview, O’Brien told us that he’ll soon take a checkride to requalify for pilot in command duties.

Duration: 6:28

File Size: 5.5 MB download here

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