Glen Coe
Glen Coe was on my list of places to visit and do some filming right from the get go. It is such a magickal, majestic and grand place. I knew I wanted to capture the size of a person alongside the huge mountains and really get a juxtaposition between the size of the person and the path and that of the mountain and the wider landscape. I checked the mountain weather forecast and it looked promising, although it turned out to be quite different.
It was actually much busier than I was expecting with all parking near the devil's staircase and the white cottage either taken, or not to be attempted in my mini if I wanted to keep my axle intact. So I drove up a little further and decided to take a walk up the valley. It was pretty windy and the drone was really struggling to stay in place. With bogs either side of me I also didn't want to risk sending it too far out to the side as I wouldn't be able to retrieve it if it crashed. Good choice as it did in fact crash 3 times during this little outing. Once when the battery was running low and I accidentally crash landed it into a puddle, on other crash landing and then a gust of wind as it was about to land on my hand which blew it clean away and into the heather. Poor thing!
But I was able to capture some good footage of the path as it trailed off into the distance in the valley and try some new overhead shots of me walking down the path. A bit too gusty to leave the drone up for too long though and try any dance shots, especially with the weather incoming
After sheltering from the weather at the Glen Coe visitor centre I decided to try the devil's staircase again in order to get some shots of the magnificent Buachaille Etive Mòr, and luckily there was a space. Off I went up the devil's staircase, part of the West Highland Way, accompanied as ever by the midges!
You don't really need to try to make the Buachaille look good so I just did some simple shot of the path, tried to fly higher to get a view up the valley as well, being careful of the wind still (I had got a strong wind warning on the drone earlier just down by the road). Then some follow shots and a circle to make sure I got the whole picture of the setting. I did try some dance shots but mucked up the drone position so the depth of field was very weird against the background so scrapped that.
Now to just decide what to do with the footage. I wore quite bright colours compared to the previous shots so quite a different feel. I had a play around with the footage the following day and put together an edit I'm quite happy with that just follows the journey along the various paths but still unsure of the sounds to go with it. Maybe a poem, maybe some of Rebecca Solnit's work, something to still ponder on.
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