CNN Deploys a Drone for Historic Selma March Coverage
While covering a recent historical event, CNN made some history itself: It used a drone for the first time in covering domestic news.
The network teamed with Austin, Texas-based HeliVideo to fly a DJI unmanned aircraft over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to get aerial footage for stories about the 50th anniversary of the civil rights march there.
“The product is powerful,” says Greg Agvent, CNN’s senior director for new operations. “It really is powerful, it’s not just flying for a different view, it was the perfect scenario, because the story is that iconic bridge and all that it means to the Voting Rights Act, to the people of Selma, to the people beyond Selma.”
Using HeliVideo’s DJI Spreading Wings S1000, equipped with a Panasonic GH4 camera, allowed CNN to get not only aerial views of the famous bridge but also to record a segment with a reporter walking across the bridge.
“So the drone is flying over the Alabama River in parallel with the bridge as the reporter is walking the center line,” Agvent says.
Whenever a car crossed the bridge, however, the shoot would have to be abandoned. CNN had spotters at either end of the bridge to watch for traffic, which was sparse at the early shooting hour but was still there.
“We’d yell, ‘car coming’ and we’d have to fly off,” he says.
The historic shoot almost didn’t happen. The company originally hired to fly a UAS backed out, so “HeliVideo came in to save my bacon,” Agvent says.
CNN, in partnership with Georgia Tech, has an existing certificate of authorization to fly UAS, and was able to obtain one for this shoot in less than 24 hours. But then weather intervened as the HeliVideo crew and CNN staffers tried to fly through Dallas to Selma.
“Everything worked out,” he says. “The guys got in from Austin at about midnight, and we were back out at 4:45 a.m. We made it happen.”
The COA extended from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. but “we were wrapped by 10:30. It was so efficient and so quick. We probably shot in total about an hour and a half worth of aerial footage … we had the HeliVideo guys back in Austin by Sunday night.”
CNN also used the occasion as part of its research agreement with Georgia Tech and the FAA, bringing a university researcher to document the flights.
“We come away with a lot of what I hope is valuable research, a real scenario, real research, to help the FAA with the rulemaking,” he says.
The DJI S1000 didn’t fly above 250 feet, Agvent says, which was enough.
“At 250 feet, we were able to get an amazing panorama of the bridge and the city,” he says.
The main benefit of the UAS, Agvent says, isn’t really that it’s cheaper to fly than a manned helicopter, but that it provides more intimacy. A manned helicopter shot would have been at around 1,000 feet, but the little UAS was able to fly close to the bridge.
“We were able to fly at bridge level, parallel to the bridge, to get a walking standup from our reporter,” he says. “It really is about the product that is much more intimate. If a news entity works on context and understanding, context and understanding happen up close.”
