The Drone Revolution: From Toys to Industry Giants

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to Real People, Real Life.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Thank you so much for stopping by today.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks for the invite.
Drones yeah, we've heard a lotabout them on the news lately,
all these interesting droneencounters.
Uh, you have a company calledhollywood drones they're not
toys anymore, um, I remember andit has the industry.

(00:37):
It well, from my perspective,seems like it has just grown
exponentially from some toysyou'd get over at the toy store
15 years ago to some of thesethings I see on YouTube insane
competitions, and you have anevent coming up that is going to
showcase some of the best droneflyers in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up, though, about the
drones all over the place.
I would like to start with thedrones over in New Jersey and
the lights.
So here I think I can break itdown into its simplest format.
If you're doing somethingsneaky or stealthy and you do
not want your drone to be seenbecause you're doing something
sneaky, stealthy or against thelaw, then you certainly do not

(01:21):
turn on the lights on the drones.
So when everybody asked meabout it, I said if I was doing
something I wasn't supposed todo illegal, nefarious, something
like that I certainly wouldn'tturn on the lights.
So now we know that they wereactually there for the FAA and
they were there for thegovernment and they were there

(01:41):
doing all these things that theywere supposed to do in private
person.
But I thought it was kind offunny when everybody saw lights
in the sky.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And I said yeah, yeah , if you didn't want your drone
to be seeing the lights wouldn'tbe on.
And you and their sensors Imean, if they were high end,
their sensors that they canoperate without the lights,
because, yeah, and yet the onecouple of pictures I saw, I saw,
uh, typical, uh navigationlights yeah, red and green, and
for people that aren't pilots,you know they, they, they help
you, or, uh, identifying the skywhich direction the plane is
flying or the drone is flying.
So, yeah, I loved all thetheories.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, just turn them off and then it's dark and then
you can't see.
And if anyone has any questions?

Speaker 1 (02:14):
definitely reach out to Skip.
He knows what is going on inthe drone world.
It's dark, yeah.
So let's talk about this eventbecause we're going to be there.
The podcast will be there.
We're going to be interviewingsome of the best drone pilots on
the planet.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
So the idea for the event.
I think my first drone eventwas in 2013, and it was called
the LA Drone Expo and peopledidn't even know about drones
and there was no DJIs and allthat and there was actually
protesters there because theythought it was a military drone
convention.
So there was people that therewas coffins out in front and
people were laying down deadbecause they thought it was like

(02:53):
a predator drone expo, when itwas really just about they were
toys then and they were just abunch of toy drones.
That was my first one.
I started getting more involvedwith them and speaking with
them, probably about 2015 at theinner drone inner drone in
vegas.
It's the first major, majordrone show.
What was different about it wasit had a lot of the industry was
new.
So, like the wild west, youknow the fpv guys, you know the

(03:16):
cinema guys and all thesedifferent categories of drones,
home builds everybody's startingout.
So it's really exciting.
Um, it had a level ofentertainment.
Um, it wasn't.
It wasn't corporate, it wasn'tcommercial.
It was a lot of fun.
So over the ensuing years it itstarted developing more of a
corporate feel to it.
It started developing morecommercial feel to it and the

(03:38):
last few, and then they stoppedinviting me to talk.
They used to have me talk allthe time, right, I mean, I used
to talk about cinema, I used totalk about education, used to
have me talk all the time, right, I mean, I used to talk about
cinema, I used to talk abouteducation, and it was like, well
, you know, skip, we're reallybusiness to business and we have
these agriculture drones andthere's drones that you know
clean buildings.
I said, okay, fine, whatever.
So I do the trade shows becauseI like them and it's a good way
to network with people and someof my friends, but I wanted to

(03:59):
do my own.
I wanted to do one that broughtback the excitement of FPV
drone racing.
I wanted the excitement ofcinema, you know, filming for
drones and the fun of it, andnot make it so business to
business, but more business toconsumer.
We have a strong educationplatform for grade schoolers and
high schoolers and middleschoolers.
It's called FIDI USA.

(04:20):
It's the drone soccer, which isrelatively brand new three
years.
People can compete with thesedrones in a cage, completely
safe, and it's a good way forthem to learn the hand-eye
coordination that's needed tofly a drone prior to actually
using the monitors and stufflike that.
So I wanted to get that.
I wanted to show our drone stuntprogram, where we teach pilots

(04:43):
how to fly drones, in movies andtelevision shows and I wanted
to talk.
I wanted to talk at my show.
Since they wouldn't let me, Ifigured they won't let me talk
anymore.
There are shows on a creativeshow where I can talk and that's
kind of the concept.
So from there it's grown andgrown and grown.
I mean so.
Fida USA, fida International,is the organization that
sanctions drone soccer aroundthe world.

(05:05):
People laugh at it when I saydrone soccer, but almost a
billion people in the PacificRim watched the world finals
that took place in Korea lastyear.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
A million, a billion A billion people, a billion with
a B Drone soccer.
Can you explain just brieflyexactly what that looks like?

Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's like Harry Potter cribbage.
What you got is you have a cage, so I call it the bounce house.
It's a blow up cage.
It's about, I think it's, 10feet by 15 feet high by 20 feet
long, and there's two goals inthere and there's five players.
So the idea is for a scorer tofly to the other side of the
cage and through the scoreboard,through the, the, the scoring

(05:44):
ring and then score point, andthen it's up to the up to the
other pilots on the opposingteam to block that drone.
So they're actually physicallydrones are physically in each
other yeah, the drones are incages, so they're surrounded by
a cage, um, so they don't breakor they don't hurt anybody.
There's two sizes.
They call the 20, 20 centimeterand a 40.
So the 21s are very easy to fly.

(06:06):
They're good for a grade school.
We've been teaching them how tofly from first grade to sixth
grade and up.
Palm Springs districts.
The Palm Springs schooldistrict has them in all their
schools, starting at the at thefirst grade level, always up to
the high school level.
So it's great for hand-eyecoordination.
You can fly these drones insideand the kids are really
interested in them because it'scompetition.

(06:26):
It's sort of like.
It's sort of like taking thefun of a computer game right and
then making it real world, youknow.
So they're really competing.
Then there's the 40 class.
The 40 class is more of aprofessional class, usually for
older people, as in high schoolseniors, college students,
usually for older people, as inhigh school seniors, college
students and international teams.

(06:47):
Those go 100 miles an hour.
The cage is twice the size thatthey fly in and the games last
three minutes and they areincredibly fast.
Somebody can, from zero toflying across and score in less
than a second.
They're so quick.
And it's the same concept fiveguys in each team, you have your
blockers, you have your scoresand uh, and then, and the whole

(07:09):
tournament takes place, takesabout, takes about, uh, nine
minutes to do a tournament andthen you're on to the next one.
So the uh, the originalqualifiers were being held in
korea, because that's thecompany that created it,
manufactured and built it andthen created a sport around
their product.
So here's the product.
It's like.
It's like okay, we got askateboard, now what do we do

(07:29):
with it?
Well, we go out and create thewarp tour so people can compete
with it.
So, oh, we got this greatproduct, now what do we do with
it?
Well, let's create a sport.
So they created a sport, theycreated the sanctioning, they
created the rules, they createdeverything.
The world finals have been inbeing held in Korea, and 36
nations, or 40 nations, 10people per team I mean, it's
that big.

(07:51):
So Tim Ingram, who's the head ofFIDA, became the head of FIDA
USA about three years ago.
He was at one of the tradeshows, saw it, actually, I
brought him over to the boothand said look at these, things
are really cool.
He and I had been involved indrone education for about three
or four years prior, but wereally couldn't come up with a
product that we can put in thehands of grade schoolers.

(08:11):
You know we DJI drones andflying them in a gym and you
know there's certain level oflike safety skills.
You needed that.
You didn't need to fly a dronein a cage.
So he saw him, really liked it,licensed the whole sanctioning
body for North America.
So any FIDA USA drone soccertournament, if it's sanctioned
and if it's by the rules, has togo with him.

(08:32):
Now there's regions andchapters now growing all over
the country and so he wanted tohold the world final qualifiers
in the United States.
So it would be the first timeout of Korea for then people
going to the world finals inSeptember.
So that was going on inNovember and he's like, hey, I
got this big event I'm puttingon.
You want to just like have adrone show.

(08:53):
I'm like, yeah, sure, let'shave a drone show.
So it went from drone socceronly to FPV racing and FPV
filmmaking, to stunt and stunfilmmaking, to.
We got guys now that are comingwith drones that wash solar
panels, wash windows, do searchand rescue.
It's all demo, it's allhands-on and the company, that

(09:15):
companies that aren't involvedin the sports end of it, like
the, the drone, soccer and theracing, or the cinema cinema.
End of it, which is what I'mdoing with filming and
production stuff like that.
Um, there's, they're coming todemo their other stuff that
people you know for education.
So it's entertainment,education, sports, all relating

(09:36):
to drones, and uh.
And the big thing for mybackground is, um god, I seem
like I'm all over the place.
My background is television andfilm.
Right, so I've been in TV andfilm for 25 years.
I was at my first.
Jobs were at Fox Television,fox Sports.
I've done work for UniversalPictures, I've done work for
Paramount, I've done work forGoogle and HBO, so all of them.

(09:59):
In some cases it was TV shows,in some cases production, where
I was providing content to themor producing for them.
Most of my backgrounds insecond unit stunt work.
So we're always trying to comeup with cool ways to do stunts,
and that's kind of how I gotinvolved with the drones.
I saw the drone, I figured it'dbe a good thing to do with the
stunts.
So what I want to do was Iwanted to create which the other

(10:22):
expos don't have.
I wanted to create anentertainment cinematic
experience for opening night.
So we're going to have athousand-drone light show over
we're going to be in a footballstadium thousand-drone light
show.
Esther Anaya, who's aninternational recording artist,
electronic violinist, a couplemillion followers online.
She's going to be performinglive on stage along with the

(10:46):
drones.
We're going to have the orbs,which are the 40 centimeter
soccer drones all tricked out inneon.
They'll be flying around thefootball stadium about 100 miles
an hour Drones in the air.
Violinists we teach alightsaber stunt class as part
of our cinema cinematographydrone class.
So we'll have actual jediknights that are from the movies

(11:08):
that teach.
So these are professional stuntpeople.
Um, so it's going to be starwar themes, because that's one
of our bigger programs.
So star wars music orbs flyingthrough the sky that looked like
they came off of the millennium.
Falcon, a violinist on thestage, laser lights, drones.
So it's going to be like onehour of just insane drone type

(11:29):
of light show.
Hopefully, that nobody's everseen before and we're going to
live stream it on NBC.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
So NBC takes the feed .
Fantastic they're going to takethe feed.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
We have our own page.
It goes around the world sothey're a big partner with us.
I've been working with NBC forprobably eight years with drones
, so they're on board, localaffiliates on board.
We'll have the mayors from PalmSprings and we'll have the
district supervisor.
I mean we've got everybody.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
Everybody's coming.
When is this event and how canpeople attend?

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Good question.
It's March 21st, is the openingnight event.
That's Friday night and it'salso it actually starts at four
o'clock in the afternoon,although the show doesn't start
till about six, six, thirty,ends at nine o'clock.
It's all day Saturday, likeeight to five FPV drone racing.

(12:21):
We'll have the drone soccereliminations, bracket
eliminations, and we'll have allthe demos that have to do with
all the breakout sessions.
We'll have a lightsaber camp,we'll have the drone FPV
motocross camp.
We'll have all these differentcamps that people can jump into.
And is it a free?

Speaker 1 (12:37):
event, or is it tickets required?

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yes and no and yes and no.
So the website isPSDroneFestcom.
Ps stands for Palm Springs.
It's in Palm Springs.
So yes, it's in Palm Springs.
It takes place at Palm SpringsHigh School, downtown Palm
Springs.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
March 21st.
March 21st and it's PSDrones,no PSDrone.
One word fest PSDroneFestcom.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
All the information is there.
There's discount codes forhotels we're going to have after
parties.
It does cost money I think it's$75 for the weekend the whole
weekend because there is aSunday, but you can get
individual days or you can getdiscounts so you can come.
If you just want to come to theopening night ceremony, you can
do that.
If you want to come to threedays, you can do that.
Competitors, if you want tostart a drone soccer team, you

(13:32):
can pay your registration.
People come in for free, A lotof the vendors and the speakers.
There's discount codeseverywhere if you look for them.
If not, you to eventbrite, youpay the 75 bucks and you still
enjoy the whole show and whatbetter place?

Speaker 1 (13:48):
palm springs on the first day of spring, make a
fantastic weekend weekend out ofit.
Discounts at hotels guys got togo.
Ps drone festcom yeah, foodtrucks.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
We're gonna have all kinds of food trucks.
I mean there's gonna be foodtrucks out front, there's gonna
be.
It's gonna be.
I don't see a carnivalatmosphere because you know
there's an opportunity if youare a drone person, we're going
to have companies there thathire drone pilots.
So, if you're a drone pilot,there's going to be several
companies there that are goingto be displaying products and
demoing that hire drone pilots.

(14:20):
There's going to be othereducators there.
There's breakout seminars.
We have some big name speakerswhich I have written down
somewhere that I can tell you.
I'll tell you about a littlebit later.
So sure, look them back up.
So big name speakers that arehuge in the drone industry.
But I don't want people to feelthat they have to know about
the drone industry or be part ofit, to not go.
It's for people that want tofind out about it and don't know

(14:43):
about it.
It's an opportunity for them togo and figure out what they
want to do or if they want to beinvolved in this program.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
And, as we mentioned earlier, the exponential growth
of this from toys to industry,monetization, careers, as you
mentioned just a second agocommercial drone, drone pilots,
people getting paid to do this.
Now I'm a pilot a private pilotand I was introduced to uh

(15:12):
these guys coming in and takingfaa tests uh, paul knabe, who
was on the podcast earlier.
He knows about airspace.
He knows pretty much everythingbesides actually flying an
airplane all of the rules thatpilots need to understand,
difficult tests, difficultinformation, san Diego County

(15:33):
being one of well, southernCalifornia being one of the most
difficult places to fly in asit is, and to have certified,
licensed drone pilots.
For the safety of everyone, Ithink it's fantastic that the
FAA has gotten involved in this.
Not a big fan of overregulation, but in this particular
situation, it could be verydangerous to pilots on flying

(15:56):
airplanes with drones in the sky.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Before there was the FAA license, there was something
called the 333, 333, and it wasto fly a drone and it was
pretty much a legal document,basically like an affidavit that
you had to say look, I'llfollow these rules, I'll learn
these rules, but you know,whatever it was so complicated
that you'd have to get an FAAlawyer to do it.
It cost me $1,000.

(16:21):
Because I started flying in2013.
This legislation came along in2015.
It cost me $1,000 to hire anFAA lawyer to fill out the
paperwork to send to the FAAAbout two or three.
They were talking aboutlicensing and about two or three
years later I don't know if itwas 2017 or 2018, they came out
with the 107.
And so when I took the test, Iwas in the first batch that took

(16:41):
the test.
There were no drone questions,it was all pilot questions.
It was all pilot questions.
It was all from part 61.
So I studied, I didn't I.
There was no drone courses togo to online.
There was Sporty's pilot.
So I went to Sporty's pilot, Iwent to a couple other ones
online, I studied those thosestudy guys for private pilot and

(17:02):
then I took my 10 oh seventests.
And in the drone industry toget a job.
They're not really interested inwhat you score on a test, as
long as you scored a 70, whichis the bottom line to get the
license.
They're really.
They really want to know howmany flight hours you have
legitimate ones.
But but I got a hundred becausethey say it's not important.
Only if you score a hundredthen it's important.

(17:23):
Then then what they still havewhen I was taking my lessons and
remember I was teaching though,so I needed a score.
I just started teaching, so Ineeded to score 100.
So then, two years later, wehad to do a recurrent where we
actually had to go back to theFAA testing center and take the
test.
It wasn't online and I scoredanother 100, which is good

(17:53):
because, again, I'm teaching itright.
But since then and that's goingback about four years now or
six there, the, the recurrenttest, is online.
So you, once you get youroriginal test with the faa it's
uh, 60 questions you need toscore 70.
That means you can miss 17questions.
Um, then when you do it again,you can take it online.
The online test isn't easybecause it doesn't let you go on
to the next page of the testuntil you pass the quiz
questions underneath it.

(18:13):
Now you certainly could have abook open or a computer open to
help you, but the FAA just wantsto keep reminding you what to
do, because a lot of, eventhough the questions have become
drone-centric, there's still alot of FAA questions.
The questions have become, uh,drone centric, there's still a
lot of fa questions.
I mean, you still need to knowall the airspace and you still
need to know about uh, um, umdifferent.

(18:33):
You still have to know how toread your sectional chart, you
still have to know wait, youknow weight and balance and all
this stuff, airplane guys.
But there's less of that asthere's now more drone specific
questions.
Um at grossmont.
Well, I teach at threedifferent colleges la tech, la
city college in grossmont, andthese are all drone education
programs are there degreesinvolved or just certification
programs just certificationprograms.

(18:55):
Um, they're all non-credit.
Uh, initially I started off atgrossmont college with a grant
program and we maybe had 10students and that might might've
been where Paul started withthe grant program.
I don't think he started withthe actual college what they
call a catalog course.
So I was at Grossman for aboutthree years.
Four years became a verysuccessful program.
So I had my own curriculum,right, my own curriculum for

(19:18):
teaching the 107 and then forflying.
But I was taught that by abunch of military guys in
Phoenix at the Unmanned VehicleUniversity, which was, I don't
want to say paramilitary, but itwas where training industrial
companies taught how to fly bigdrones.
So they were well aware of whoI was from the trade shows and

(19:39):
since they were all militaryguys and they were getting more
and more civilians to take thecourse, they wanted somebody
that had a civilian attitude intraining as opposed to some
staff sergeant yelling firejones fire jones, you know and
getting in her face.
And so it was.
They were having a problem withtheir communication so they
figured they'd bring in a guythat was a little more casual,
obviously, to teach that.

(19:59):
But I had to go through theircertificate program, their
training program.
It's like a one-year program,it's fifteen $15,000.
I didn't have to pay and I gotcertified in everything like
everything Residentialinspection, building inspection,
power line inspection, solarinspection.
I flew $50,000 in Teldrones.
I mean I had to learn how tofly everything that passed their
course to be certified by themto teach.
But I still broke it down intobasically you need to learn how

(20:24):
to fly forwards and backwardswith with the right stick and
left and right and you need togo up and down with the left
stick.
You need to be able to fly adrone by looking at it before
you can look at the monitor.
And that's the course that wetook.
The 107, I just taught it theway I learned it focus heavily
on rules, regulations and lawsand memorizing the stuff you can
memorize and they just sort ofan overview and a study guide of

(20:50):
things that aren't really formemorizing.
Right, it's easy to know that.
Oh, I can.
Only the law says you can flyto 400 feet.
But now, oh, here's, here's asectional chart, or I got to
figure out whether we read theweather.
You know um codes.
They're a little harder becauseyou have to learn something.
So memorizing to memorizing, tolearn At Grosvenor College.
So then three years ago, webecame what's called a catalog
course.
So we're in the catalog, we'renot part of a grant.

(21:12):
I had to write the curriculumitself for approval by the Board
of Regents in the colleges ofSan Diego, the college Dean
Javier, dr Javier, providedsomebody that actually writes in
college speak, sure, you knowthe big words.
So I wrote the curriculum.
I wrote the curriculum the wayit needed to be People that

(21:33):
write with big words.
This is before AI.
I could have done it in AI.
So the people that wrote withbig words wrote it out in big
words and then about six monthslater it was approved by the
state.
Wow, so state course, one ofthe first.
Potentially there's others, butI think we were first.
So then the class in thecatalog started growing.
So initially, when Paul wastaking it, maybe you have 10
people, 15 people, we have 50people.

(21:54):
Wow, paul became an instructor.
He was a student that became aninstructor, outstanding pilot,
good friend, contributed a lotto the training program.
But he's just too busy in thereal world to be a professor
anymore Too busy in the realworld.
Yeah, Roseanne Denton was astudent, also became an
instructor.
So the dean came to me andwanted me to hire my team.

(22:17):
So technically I'm the directorof the program.
It doesn't mean anything, itjust means that I have to answer
all the emails, I have to talkto all administrators, I do all
the BS work but I still get tofly, fortunately, out in the
field and teach, and I teach the107 class all by myself on a
Zoom.
So Roseanne Denton she wasWomen and Drones of the Year

(22:37):
pilot.
She's one of the instructors.
She's worked with me on a bunchof film projects.
So we've done Jordan Sparksconcert, we've done NBC parades.
We've done all that stuff.
Outstanding pilot, greatteacher we have.
Ramon is also a student who'sbecome a very good pilot
Technically speaking.
Technology wise, the guy's awizard with a computer and the

(22:59):
technology and all theelectronics.
So each of the instructorsbrings something to the table.
All of them are great with ourstudents and the course has been
extremely successful.
We have a cinema course and abasic.
We have an advanced course anda basic course in what they call
these eight-week semesters andthen so we have what amounts to

(23:20):
three classes each semester thateach can have 24, 25 people and
when, since we started threeyears ago, we've been full.
Our next class starts in April.
It's almost always full.
I'll be full in September.
I don't have you just have tolook for students.
We don't have to do thatanymore.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Well it's become an industry.
Well, that's the next part.
So that's the that life, careerchoices that people can make.
And, speaking of hollywood, andas, which is a portion, a
portion of what this is, it'stransformed cinematography,

(23:58):
sports.
I mean, some of the drone shotson these golf for the pga are
unbelievable when they flythrough the courses, you know,
eliminating helicopter shots, ohyeah, and getting real close-up
shots of things that youcouldn't do with a helicopter
where you're zooming in Costsavings, unbelievable.

(24:20):
Then we're now in the industryof home washing panels.
Safety, right there, guysaren't climbing up on roofs with
water and slipping and fallingPower lines.
They used to do that withhelicopters.
Again, safety I mean.
So just the safety that thesedrones have provided to industry

(24:41):
is pretty amazing and peoplethat go into it.
It isn't just a toy thinganymore.
What can the student expectthat has no drone experience and
signs up with your level?
One course.

Speaker 3 (24:59):
That's a good question.
So we prefer that they don'thave any experience at all,
because most people that havelearned how to fly have learned
how to fly by watching some someyo-yo on a youtube video.
More likely crashed into hisface, right?
So we prefer that they don'tknow anything and we teach them
from scratch.
They we have, most of ourstudents do not know how to fly
at all and by the end of thebasic class they are all experts

(25:21):
pretty much when it comes toflying and all the safety.
So they can, they can, they're.
They're not ready to go out anddo movies, they're not ready to
go out and get a job yet, butthey certainly are quite
comfortable with buying theirown drone.
At that point we provide thedrones, for the school does
provide the equipment.
That's good, and so they afterthat they go out and fly, fly by
their drone.
And, uh, I don't think we'vehad anybody that.

(25:43):
We've had a few people thathave tried to do more extreme
things and have crashed.
But the idea is they can buy adrone and set it up at home and
know how to fly safely and, ifthey wanted to, they could start
their own little drone business, maybe in real estate or
something like that, or shootingweddings, or they could come to
our next class, which isadvanced um, that's the um, the

(26:05):
we call advanced cinematography,but basically there's branches
out to that that go intodifferent industries, but it's
really an advanced course.
So they, they learn the basicsof how to fly, they understand
the controls, they can becomfortable and not nervous when
they're flying.
They come to the next course,which is the advanced course and
kind of like the basic course.
We teach them how to fly thedrone by looking at it.
It's called it's called 3Dspatial orientation.

(26:31):
It's the idea of knowing wheresomething is in 3D space.
We have a drill where we havethem fly okay, take off and fly
the drone 25 feet out and stopwhen you think it's 25 feet.
So people, some people put it50 feet, 100 feet.
They don't know where 25 feetis in the air.
They don't know where 25 feetis straight up.
So by the time they get donewith that first class, they have
a good idea of where the droneis in space.

(26:52):
How far away is it, what doesit look like when it's flying?
We have them fly these squares.
When they're precise, they haveto fly the squares, stay over
the lines that are painted onthe ground, stop when they're
over the cone, the corner ofeach square, you know, within a
three foot diameter.
So it's pretty precision, it'sa lot of precision flying so by
looking at the drone.
Then when we take them to theadvanced class, they don't get

(27:14):
to look at the drone anymore.
Now they have to look at themonitor.
They have to learn how to flywith a monitor, because all your
inspection is done by lookingat the monitor and taking
pictures.
All of your cinematography,obviously, is done by looking at
the monitor.
But the mental concept is, ifyou understand 3D orientation,

(27:35):
if you know how to move a droneforward, backward, left and
right when you're flying it andyou're looking at the monitor,
kind of like in the back of yourmind, you know where the drone
is.
Right, you know, okay, well,I'm over here, I'm looking over
here, I see where I'm.
Yeah, I'm probably over on thisside, or I'm 25 feet that side.
So you put that all together andthen after that, we, we break
them into, we, there's 18verticals, so there's, like you
mentioned, there's about 18professional careers you can

(27:58):
that rely, rely on drones.
Now, um, we provide them with,with probably four or five.
So once you're in our class youlearn.
It's very important to learn,to really learn how to use it.
Even if you're not going to bein cinema or photography, you
need to learn how to use thecamera because all the jobs
you're going to get you're goingto use the camera right, and
that's how the people are goingto enjoy the content.

(28:20):
Yes, when you, when you do powerline inspections, you're taking
pictures of power lines andpower line couplers.
When you're doing solar panelinspections, you're taking
pictures of solar panels, notLIDAR.
You don't need LIDAR to see adamaged solar panel.
You don't need LIDAR.
You know a camera that sees inthe dark or blues and reds to

(28:40):
look at a broken power coupling.
So you're using the regularcamera and you need to get close
to the power line.
You need to get close to thewindmills to look for cracks and
breaks.
So you need to have theconfidence to fly.
You need to know how to use acamera.
You need to know the rules ofthird and the framing and focus
so that people at the datacenter can read those.
So what was happening was a lotof companies, soaring Eagle

(29:11):
being one that does windmillinspection, c2, which hires the
power line inspections forEdison and PG&E.
We have a company that doessolar panel inspections.
They were hiring pilots atdifferent schools that knew how
to fly and knew about thetechnology and knew about the AI
and automated stuff.
They didn't know how to fly thedrone or use the camera.
They didn't know how to go outin the real world and learn how
to use a camera.
So now we have these companiescoming to us.

(29:31):
They're coming to Grossmont,they're coming to me.
Soaring Eagle hired 15 of ourstudents for jobs that pay
$75,000 to $80,000, right out ofthe gate, right as soon as they
graduated, to do windmillinspections, windmill

(29:52):
inspections, c2, edison.
Pg&e has taken 10 of ourstudents.
They're making ninety thousanddollars a year right out of the
gate, right out of our our classto a one year basically spent
taking our class.
Ninety thousand dollars a yearthey've taken.
They want more.
I cannot provide them withenough pilots.
Uh, soaring Eagle has juststarted a building washing,
window washing company wherethey have these giant drones

(30:12):
that fly up and down buildingswith power pressure hoses.
They need 100 pilots from me.
They're coming to me frompilots.
These organizations will be atthis expo.
We work.
There are partners.
What we did was they took us ontraining missions with them.

(30:33):
They have their own trainingand so what we did was we took
an actual what they actually doin the field and created a
training program on that,standardized, that we teach at
the college.
So they go through our advanceand they say, hey, who wants to
learn how to do power lineinspections and maybe you'll
have a group of five there whowants to stay with me in the
movie stuff, a group of fiveover there.
And then we work with nbc.

(30:55):
So we work with nbc andstudents that take the cinema
program can intern at nbc bothin palm springs and in san diego
.
So because me, roseanne, pa Paulat one time were instructors
that work in the drone industrylike really work.
I mean, look at me now I justcame from teaching, I'm going to

(31:16):
another job.
I mean I've been out in thefield all day and because of
that real world experience thatwe continue to have, we're able
to translate that to a programand then teach it immediately.
We literally can pivot on adime.
I could go out today and shoota special thing for a client.

(31:37):
We're working with a companythat does robotic dogs on
security.
So what this company is goingto do is they're going to have
robotic dogs that are going tobe part of a security detail at
those closed-in rich communitieswhere rich people live behind
the walls, kind of like they'vecreated their own prison.
I love to say that, hey, I livein this gated community.
Oh, so you live in your ownprison, okay, whatever.

(31:58):
But the idea is they havesecurity, security gates,
security guards, so the dogswill patrol on the ground and
they'll be married with dronesin the air and the drone
operator is going to make ahundred dollars an hour.
He's gonna make ninety dollarsan hour to provide security
they'll be at the trade showdemo, demoing their job, their
dog.
It's also for industrial, it'salso for communities, but the

(32:20):
idea is dog on the ground, dronein the air and and they work,
they work together.
So we're working on theirtraining platform.
So it's kind of like I get toplay with everybody's new toys.
Yeah, just all of them, it's ablast.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing fun toy.
People have always beeninterested in remote control and
the entry-level pay isunbelievable and it's growing.
Yeah, you're kind of like thedrone father, the drone father

(32:52):
of the new industry.

Speaker 3 (32:53):
Oh my God.
You know what's great is Dawn,who's my production manager and
our office administrator.
She buys me all these dronerelated shirts.
I have one that says the quadfather.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
The quad father.
Yeah, so that's pretty good.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
It's too bad If I would've known you were going to
use that I Quadfather theQuadfather, sure.
So that's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
It's too bad if I would have known you were going
to use that, I would have wonthe Quadfather.
I just thought of it.
I'm thinking you know we'retalking toys 12 years ago,
literally to major industry,with significant pay, college
courses cataloged approved bythe state.
This is a career path that Inever even thought about.

(33:29):
I guarantee you a lot of peopledon't know about and it's fun.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Well, yes, let's.
This is a fun.
It's, let's, it's, it's not.
They're not toys anymore, butwhen you're flying them they
feel like a toy.
It's so much fun to fly them,the FPV where you wear the
goggles and fly around.
I mean, I was started takingflying lessons just before the

(33:56):
pandemic and the uh, the theschool I was teach I was taking
lessons at, um, at thermalairport.
They closed during the pandemicbecause you know you're in a
152, which is the tiny system,as you know, and you're like
right next to the instructor, sothat ended fast like literally,
yeah, I got.
I got four hours of actuallysingle engine flight time.
I do intend to go back becauseI know I'll pass a ground school
without a problem.
But so the funny part about itwas we've been doing all of

(34:18):
these.
They were the toys and theywere fun, everything was fun.
It's still fun when I go outand do it.
When I go out and do I mean Ido inspection jobs, I do a real
estate job.
I still do those.
I've decided not to go inindustry or corporate.
I've been there in all mytelevision and film experience.

(34:39):
I don't want to work for Foxanymore.
I don't want to do anythingcorporate anymore.
I just don't.
I don't mind doing stuffindividual gigs for the studios.
I do a music video we're goingto do esther's music video do a
lot of television or independentcontract.
Independent, just, you know gotmy own little film business.
You need cinema, hire me.
You know, I don't even.
I used to do a full package.

(35:00):
I would do a commercial where Ihad the cameras on the ground
on tripods, like you do, and soI'd be involved in directing it
and filming it, and then I getthe drone shots as part of the
team.
I don't even do that anymore.
I'm like get somebody else toput the camera on the ground.
I don't want to put a camera onthe ground, shoulder, I just
want to fly the shots.
I did this great commercial forthe uh Givenchy store.
Um, the biggest spot I thinkI've ever done downtown R Rodeo

(35:23):
Drive, beverly Hills, the GioGosh, the ladies are going to
kill me the Giovanni Givenchystore, one of those high-end
stores on Rodeo Drive With adifficult name to pronounce yeah
, we Well, they're all like yeah, of course, chanel or whatever.
Anyway, the nice store.
So they shut down Rodeo Drive.
We had police there.

(35:44):
Interestingly, the BeverlyHills have their own drone air
force.
It patrols downtown, it patrolsa shopping district from, I
think they said 10 in themorning until eight at night.
Two drones 150 feet just up anddown each street looking at

(36:04):
everything going on.
So we had to coordinate withthem.
So they were on site, we shutthe street down and I was that
night.
They wanted FPV stylecinematography, which is
different than FPV racing.
So I had my permits, I hadeverything.
They had the whole street shutdown and here I am just blasting
down Santa Monica Boulevard.
I dive down on a Rodeo drive.
I fly along through Rodeo drive.
I come up on the back end ofWilshire and I loop back in and

(36:25):
fly through the store, throughthe store, through the store.
Yeah, and the store has a spirein it.
So I fly into the store up thespire.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Is there someplace somebody can see this video?

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Yeah, I am.
Well, I cut my own version ofjust the video, so you can.
Yeah, I have it online.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
So one of my.
I think maybe that'd be great.
I'll definitely link it.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
It's Beverly Hills.
It's the coolest thing I'veever done.
Yeah.
I mean it was like a freaking$50,000 shoot.
You know, it was just one day,one night, four hours.
It might permit that it was$5,000 with the city, just to be
able to do that stuff.
It was neat too, becausethere's a Ferrari in the scene.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
The Ferrari zips down in front of store and I gotta
come across and slide into theferrari.
So it's just like, wow, it's ablast, so fun.
Who does your?

Speaker 3 (37:11):
post-production on something like that.
Oh, um, well, that was that wasthe.
Their agency did that.
But I cut my own stuff.
I've been editing on premierepro for since it came out 24
years.
Uh, I also edit on final cutpro.
I edit on I like that wondershares film war is kind of fun
for doing stills.
So I do all my own editing.
I don't you know my own project.

(37:32):
I still like going out in thedesert and just flying, just you
know, ripping one way oranother, so, but it's fun and
everybody that takes the courseit's fun.
You know, the idea is even whenyou're doing power line
inspection.
It might be boring to do powerline inspections but it's still
fun.
And the fact that you're flyinga drone, you're out in the
wilderness, maybe you're atMount Shasta and it's freaking

(37:54):
beautiful and there's a littlebit of snow on the ground and
you're flying the drone aroundand looking at power lines and
you're making $90K a year,that's fun too.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
We're providing an amazing service too, especially
with the wildfire situationswe've got Be able to get into
these areas, get right up close,have a standardized training
program.
So the data that's coming back.
I mean it is a job and there isa lot of work.
I guarantee you.
Like anything, it's a lot ofwork, hard work.

(38:23):
You have to get the shot, youknow one and done type thing.
You can't spend all this timeand come back to the
post-production and you didn'tget what they needed.
So I get it, I get the pay, Iget the learning curve.
It would make sense A lot ofpeople don't understand the work
behind the scenes to do evensomething as simple as a podcast

(38:45):
.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
It's.
Yeah, that's true.
You know, anybody can fly adrone, without a doubt.
You go to a store, you buy one,you can put it up in your yard.
But these type of programs youknow, drones for doing cinema,
drones for, like, the power lineinspection, the solar
inspection, windmill those arehigh risk jobs for the, for it's

(39:06):
easy to crash into a windwindmill.
It's got its own vortex, thewindmill spinning.
They turn them off when you'reinspecting them, but windmills
are are placed in areas wherethere's wind.
That's correct.
I mean like there's always wind.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
Driving the banning pass out of palm springs, your
car gets blown all over itdoesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, windmills are where it's windy, so that's
something a drone pilot hastaken consideration Power lines,
they sometimes get three orfour feet, you know it's easy
for the wind or get attacked byan eagle or something like that.
So, and your flight skilllevels?
It's, it's, flying a drone is alearned skill, right, it's
learned.
Which means if you don't flyevery week, if you don't fly

(39:46):
every other day, that skilldiminishes.
And I tell that to my studentsall the time.
We have really greatprofessional cinematography
students that their last classat Grosvenor was December 13th
and they just started up threedays ago with this semester and
we had them out there runningpractice flight patterns.

(40:08):
Half of them were off.
They have to be precise andthey were off because they
didn't fly and it's easy to loseit.
Now I'm fortunate in my job.
I fly three days a week at theschool, you know, doing demos
for the students on how a lessonis flown, and I have a shoot
this Saturday.
I have a shoot in Calabasas,not Calabasas Down here
somewhere this Saturday.
I have a shoot in Calabasas,not Calabasas Down here

(40:29):
somewhere Saturday.
It's a 19-building apartmentcomplex.
I started out with residentialhouses, like everybody does.
It's easy, it's a low-hangingfruit and now I don't do that
anymore because I just do.
I shoot for developers andarchitects, so the video.

(40:50):
I don't do basic real estatelistings anymore.
I teach students how to do that.
But now I do like creativestuff where I go in there and
shoot it.
Um, a lot of it's at sunsetpotentially, or at night, so
it's a creative element for thearchitect or the developer to
showcase the property.
It's not necessarily a salesproperty you know I would.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
I was thinking about your comment where it's a
learned skill.
You got to practice, practice,practice the physics, however,
and in my mind I'm picturing adrone designed to wash a
building.
With a pressure washer, you'readding another force.
Okay, so now you have literallya water jet pushing this thing

(41:31):
back.
Um, you know how does I mean?
That is a separate skill.
All together, it's okay.
You've learned to fly a drone.
Now let's put something onthere that's going to throw
everything you learned to a newlevel what's that?

Speaker 3 (41:47):
well, so you're're speaking from.
Only a pilot would know everyaction is a reaction.
That's something for a pilot ora rocket scientist or anybody.
That's just.
You know, isaac Newton, youknow for every force there's an
equal and opposite force.
You're absolutely right, and wewere talking about that to the
students and the guy at thecompany.
If you have a drone and it's ahigh-powered water jet pushing
this way, that drone's going towant to go that way and a

(42:09):
pilot's going to have to beaware of that and compensate for
that.
Additionally, there's two typesof drones.
One has a tank on it and theother one has a hose that goes
to a pressure washer, so thehose it's dragged right.
That's another issue you've gotto worry about.
You can't back into it.
You can't back into it, youcan't turn around it.
So you have to worry about thehose, you have to worry about
the direction.
When it has a tank, well, thetank it's going to be a much

(42:31):
heavier drone and the water isgoing to be moving around in it.
And it's going to get lighter asit goes and the water is still
going to move around in it.
So there's a lot of skills thatyou need.
I have, according to DJI, nowDJI logs.
They log the.
There's a black box in everyone of the DJI.

Speaker 1 (42:50):
That's a drone company, drone company.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
Dji is a drone company, most popular company in
the world.
The U S government has it outfor them because they think
they're spying for China.
Whatever, I sit on the droneadvocacy council.
So for six years I've beenfighting whatever conspiracy
theory, rumor, blah blah.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
So for six years I've been fighting whatever
conspiracy theory rumor, blah,blah, blah about how the Chinese
drones are spying on Americans.
We've heard a lot of those justrecently.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
So it's like.
So another one of my bigarguments they're giving away
secrets of where our air bases,our military bases are and our
nuclear power plants.
And I said well, you know, Iknow where Miramar is, because
when I drive down the 15,there's a big sign that says
Miramar.
So I don where Miramar is,because when I drive down the 15
, there's a big sign that saysMiramar.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
So I don't really think they need drones to find.
There's Google.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Earth too.
You can look at almost anything.
Yeah, exactly, there's GoogleEarth, but I mean it's like when
you drive out to Phoenix, thenuclear power plant, there's a
big sign that says nuclear powerplant this way.
And I think the satellites theChinese have are probably better
than the cameras, even on thesedrones.
So there's all that, but thatall being beside.
So they have black boxes inthese drones that store data on
the drones.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
Is this a requirement by the FAA or is this something
the DGI has done independently?

Speaker 3 (43:57):
The FAA requires you to keep a log like a pilot.
It can be digital and DJIs.
You can access the flight timeand everything in the DJI drone.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
So you don't have to record altitude, speed,
everything.
So, like on a plane ADS-B, youpretty much can track any flight
.
Now that's requiring ADS-B, sosame kind of technology on these
drone flights.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
Yeah, I can pull my logs and actually have a map and
you can see my drone flying onthat you can watch the overlay
and everything.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
altitude speed.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Everything.
So also your hours and hoursare very important.
Most companies, when I firststarted this, wouldn't hire you
unless you had 50 hours offlight time.
Now I know you understand abouthaving flight time hours, but
you'd be surprised how manyhours people think they have
flying a drone and they don't.
You know it, it's flying thedrone.

(44:51):
It's like your hours you got.
The drone has to be in here,has to be flying to flight hours
, right, uh, and so it can beanything, though you could be
flying around your house, but abattery initial batteries were
only 15 minutes, 20 minutes.
Somebody oh man, I flew fivebatteries say I must have been
out there for five hours.
No, you were standing outside.
You're probably tired.
You think it was five hours.
So, um, dji, every year, sendsout a certificates and they tell

(45:14):
you where your rank is inamount of hours.
So I'm at 99.9 of the pilots inthe entire world.
I have 1600 flight hours wowwhich is like that's.
It's a lot of charging batteries.
Yeah, it's like 90.
Yeah, it's because I fly almost.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
People don't understand how hard it is to
accumulate flying hours inplanes.
You know when the plane isflying well technically, when
the engine turns on.
However there's so much to it.
You've got your pre-flight,you've got all the things you
know.
On a plane, all your pre-flight.
On the drone, all yourpre-flight.
There's got to be.
I mean, these aren't cheap toysanymore.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
No, no, the entry-level though.
You can get a really good.
Dji has advanced theirtechnology so much that you can
get an entry-level drone.
I think they have somethingcalled the Mini 3 Pro.
They have the Mini 4 pro withwith a monitor, with the actual
monitor, you can get in thething for six, seven hundred
bucks.
You can get that drone.
It's got a professional cameraon it.
It's got a professional youknow camera on it.

(46:15):
It shoots in 4k, it's got allthese camera settings and it's
as good as a gopro camera andyou could go out if you want to
and do real estate photographyand cinematography.
Realtor realtors on average willpay you $150 a house to take
pictures of it and $250 to dovideos.
But the pictures there's only12 photos.

(46:35):
There's a listing.
A real estate listing is 12photos.
What it is is it's a picture ofthe house from each corner and
each flat side.
That's eight right Corner,corner, corner, corner, eight,
and then from the front and theback.
They're called cardinal.
The cardinal photos, like acompass, are the eight photos,
usually at 100 feet to show thesurrounding property.

(46:56):
The listing photos are usuallydone about roof level.
That's it, you're done.
You just made 150 bucks.
I can shoot a house in 10minutes and I try to show
students how to do that now thefirst time you do it.
I mean your corners have to beequal distance.
You got to fly around the house, but I got it down.
Now I'm just boom, boom, boom,boom, boom, boom, boom and be
done.
Um, and then your videographyis five basic shots.

(47:18):
It's front, it's left, right,front, front it's, it's a
flyover, it's the back of thehouse.
So it's these five basic shots.
Um, and then, and that's realestate, and you could do that
all day long and you could getjobs doing that.
There's like Uber for dronecompanies that will hire you to
do real estate gig jobs.
Hey, we need this shot, we needthat shot, we need this shot.

(47:38):
And so that's how I got startedand I was doing gosh, there was
nobody.
See, I was fortunate when I wasdoing it, nobody else was doing
it.
I was doing 10 houses a day.
I was doing 10 houses a day inPalm Springs, 10 houses a day in
Rancho Cucamonga, where mysister lived.
Anywhere there's newconstruction, the construction
company would hire me.
It was crazy.
So think about it 10 houses aday, $150 a house, five days a

(48:00):
week.
The time and days that I pickedit was crazy nuts.
I made $25,000 off this onecompany in a couple of months
just shooting houses.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
You know the ROI on the equipment is insane.
Yeah, yeah, you can spend.
I'm sure, like any hobby or anyindustry, you can spend as much
money as you want on drones.
I'm sure they can get really,really expensive.
But six $700 on a drone thatcan actually do this work, where
you can pay for it in one day'sworth of work, that's pretty

(48:31):
Well the technology's helped, sonow you can get that drone for
$600.

Speaker 3 (48:36):
But if you go back four years ago, that same
technology would have cost you$1,800.
So it's just like thetechnology's gotten better.
The price has come down.
So now I'm flying a.
I have a Mavic 3 Pro, which isa full-blown cinema drone.
That's a DJI, dji, four-thirdssensor, three lenses, three

(48:57):
individual sensors for zoom.
It's got a 4.3 for the big one.
It's a camera that's got.
It's as good as a red.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
How big is this machine?
It's big.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
It's not as big as a table, but it's big.
And it costs.
Batteries are $300 a pop.
They last for about 45 minutes,so you need at least six to go
on a job.
You have the drone, you needthe filters.
So the packet, the drone's,$4,000.
So the whole packet I'm intofor about six grand.
That similar drone, pretty muchgoing back about six years ago,

(49:32):
would have cost 10, 12, 15.
Yeah, I have one of those two.
So wow, the, the prices havegone down, the technology's
gotten better.
Dji is just about ready to comeout and the reason I keep
mentioning dji is and they'renot.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
They're not sponsoring this, but they're the
number one they're pretty muchthe only one at this point.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
So at the beginning there was a half a dozen
american-made dronemanufacturers.
Gopro had one called the karma.
There's a company called 3dr.
There's a bunch ofmiscellaneous companies.
They're all junk.
Basically they were junk.
I owned almost every single oneof them.
They didn't fly, the motorsfailed, the cameras didn't work.
Um dgi started at the same time.
They didn't make it a betterproduct.

(50:09):
There's a company called hotelpaul has one swears by it.
He loves it.
Those are the two main companiesright now there's an american,
they're made in china, in chinayeah, there's an american
company uh, they're jones crapand they stopped selling
consumers and now just sell inthe military.
I don't know how safe that isfor the military, but whatever,
so um the only reason foranother podcast yeah exactly,

(50:31):
and the only reason I meant andthat's what we teach on we it's
the most popular drone.
You have 90 of the us market orthe worldwide market.
Um, they're a camera company.
They bought a camera company,so their cameras are outstanding
cameras, um, and they also makecameras, so they understand
cinematography, which is mybackground.
And um.
Which is unique is we have alot of students that come to

(50:53):
grossmont because they want tobe cinema students and because I
still work with all thesedifferent companies doing cinema
, I'm able to intern them on allthese different sets what an
amazing way to to get into thehollywood scene um holly unquote
, just into cinematographyproducing video content that is

(51:15):
outstanding and making goodmoney doing it and having a lot
of fun.
People ask well, how did I getinto it?
I didn't.
It's a disclaimer.
I didn't get into Hollywoodwith the drone.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
No, you've been doing it.
I was already with it.
We had 25 years.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Yeah.
So I knew Robert Aravella, he'sa stunt coordinator director
and I'd shoot for him.
And then I'd say, hey, dude, Igot this drone thing.
Oh yeah, let's do it.
So we did this big thing withone of his movies and thing with
one of his movies.
And then, you know, I had thislike esther esther and I were
going to do her music video.
So I already was doingproduction with these people,
including, you know, universaland paramount and the

(51:55):
advertising agencies that I'vebeen working with for 25 years.
So now I just say, hey, drones.
Now we started.
I started with robert, uh,arabella, and he's uh, he's, he
teaches, uh, keanu reeves has astunt school in hollywood called
8711, so he teaches and he alsodoes a bunch of movies.
And so he was doing a sci-fimovie in the los angeles forest

(52:17):
and it was low budget, becausesci-fi, low budget.
And that was when I had thefirst like dji drone and I mean
like the first one where you hadto duct tape a gopro camera to
the bottom so we did it.
And there's.
It was a thing where, likethese zombies were fighting
alien and he was the stuntcoordinator director on it and
this big fights going on and Ididn't know what I was doing at
the time, the drones flying intothe camera and it's almost

(52:38):
taken out the stunt, people'sheads and everybody's going
crazy and he got cut, cut, cutand it does the end.
You, you know like you'll neverwork in this town again.
It was one of those I thought,oh my God, I'm never going to
work in this.
Everybody will have a giant,but they'll never have any
drones.
But I guess there was aproducer or somebody there that
says, oh my God, it's thecoolest thing I've ever seen.
Well, the technology wasn'tthere yet, but then it rapidly

(53:00):
advanced to where the DJIPhantom 4 came out with a
one-inch sensor.
You're a videographer producerhere.
Once it came out with the oneinch sensor, it gave you the
depth of field and theresolution you needed to work
with ground-based cameras.
So at the time the dji one inchsensor came out, um, the
mirrorless cameras with one insensors, the sony's lumex and

(53:20):
all that, were very, verypopular with independent
filmmakers.
The two cameras together andyou basically had a big time
video production company for thecost of a mini mirrorless sony
or panasonic or canon.
And then and then the, uh, thedrone, and then the technology
it's so good right now I havefpv is the big deal and fpv is

(53:43):
first person where you lookthrough the goggles.

Speaker 1 (53:46):
So initially, you're actually feel like you're flying
.
You're in the drone itself.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Yeah, when I first started doing it, I had to sit
down because I get vertigo andstand up, you as you're turning,
you're like feeling like you'regonna fall over because your
whole visual, you're, you know,180, 190 degrees in your visual
and you're also turning, you'renot getting any of the input, uh
, the gravity input.
So how many?

Speaker 1 (54:06):
people get sick or nauseous well.

Speaker 3 (54:08):
So I started flying when I was sitting down because
you could feel yourself gettinglike dizzy vert getting vertigo.
Now I can do it standing up,but I'm used to it.
So those drones initially weremanual, everything and the guys
that flew them had a reallyunique sked of this flying skill
set.
But they really weren't thatgood with cinema.
So of course dji again comesout with an fpv drone that you
can create.
You can, you can make it allmanual or you can set it up to

(54:32):
fly in um, in in like a cinemamode, and the cinema mode allows
you to do fly fpv style, to gofast, to go low, to go through
small face spaces with thegoggles.
So you have that view of likeright at the drone, um, but it's
it's more designed to whereyour turns are flowing um, which

(54:54):
is what, which is what the, theagencies or the producers or
who's ever doing the film wants.
They don't want the jerkinessof, they don't want fpv racing.
They want you to be able tolike I did.
They want you to be able toslide down the street and
transition inside a building,come out, or in the case of, or
in the case of car I've done alot of car commercials.
It's really great to be able to, you know, to come up behind

(55:16):
the car, nice and smooth, andand then angle in front of it.
Um, I've watched to create, tocreate the style.
I watched a lot of these um andtop gun, a lot of these world
war ii, um, old style um movieswhere they there's, they had the
cameras mounted in theairplanes and you would, you
could watch a plane bank andkeep the horizon on the nose

(55:39):
right when you're doing a turn,and that's what they don't.
Fpv guys don't understandanything about that.
So when you're turning one ofthese fpv drones for cinema, you
really want to make sure, likewhen you're flying an airplane,
you're keeping that nose righton the horizon, so it's a nice
even turn, and then, and thenyou, you, I bank in for the shot
, kind of like, um, when you,when you take off with your

(56:04):
airplane and I learned thisbecause I got to take off three
times you take off for your,your airplane, and you'll, you
do the left, the left turn,right, your, your, your
crosswind turn, and then what Ido is I find, if I bank into
that, and then, before I do,what would be a downwind is when
I just coming blasting downback on the field.
I use it when I'm chasing a car.
So, so, cars like this.

(56:24):
I'm coming up on a car, I'malready in the air so I'm not
taking off, but the flightpattern is the same.
So I'm like this, I'm like this, and then what I do is the car
is starting to get, I start toget a little bit ahead of the
car and I bank that turn andthen what I'm able to do is I'm
able to bank it and come aroundand fly right over them.
So it's what you guys inairplanes do all the time when

(56:46):
you're doing stop and goes.
So I just wanted to do it witha drone and then have a target.
So I learned that from flyingin a plane and then I watched
some movies when they were divebombing onto when they drop,
drop an aileron, this airplanetalk.
So when they when they drop anairline and they bank in to do a

(57:06):
strafe.
So that's what I tried to doand create it.
And now I don't want to sayit's a signature move, but it's
a thing that I do, that everysingle client wants me to do
that, especially with the cars,because it needs to be behind
the car and then go up in theair, lose it and then come right
back down and just right overthe head.
So because I was getting somuch request for that over the

(57:31):
winter, I've added that to theclass.
So now I'm teaching our FPVstudents how to do that, that
move, so we're able to do thatstuff that quickly.
And we'll have those.
We'll have those breakoutsessions and those seminars,
hands-on seminars at the droneshow, at the drone fest, so
they're going to be able to flythese.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
FPV drones, so people will actually be able to get
out there and do this.

Speaker 3 (57:48):
Fly the FPV drones under instruction.
Fly the drone soccer dronesunder instruction.
We want people, we want it tobe hands-on, we want people to
be interactive with all thestuff that we have to offer.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Got to go to PSDroneFestcom.

Speaker 3 (58:02):
PSDroneFestcom.
This just sounds like afantastic weekend.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
It's going to be a lot of fun.
March 21st, palm Springs, firstday of spring, yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
Oh, the weather.
It's going to be amazing 55degrees at night, 75 degrees
during the day, clear blue skies.
We're downtown, so all therestaurants are there, all the
nightclubs are there, all thebars are there.
I mean it's going to haveeverything for everybody.
I mean for kids, right?

Speaker 1 (58:28):
We've got Star Wars going to have everything for for
everybody, I mean for for kids,right, we got star wars.
Well, you got people startingat first grade, they're going to
have everything.
People can fly these thingsfrom as early as first grade,
from as early as a career youknow, and that's you know I'm.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
I'm from hollywood, I'm not from palm springs.
I moved out there during thepandemic to live with my sister,
which initially was supposed tobe for three weeks because I
couldn't get any food.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Is sister sister mad.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
So you live in the city I lived at sunset and vine,
okay, right there in Hollywood,and I worked at the live nation
building when I was thereworking for Apple and I was
there for I don't know almost 10years and and so you live in a
studio apartment, you pay $3,000a month and and you go
downstairs to eat.
There's sushi bar, the burgerbar, the other bar.

(59:08):
You go downstairs, myrefrigerator was like full of
red bull and right and beer, forwhen I had I don't drink beer,
but I had beer from when myfriends came over and and maybe
some ice cream or something.
That was it.
There was no food I didn't cook.
So then the pandemic comes along.
There's a trader joe's rightacross the street, it's in set,
and by the pandemic comes alongand all the restaurants close,

(59:28):
right.
So I'm like, oh, my god, Ican't eat.
So my sister, oh, I'll goacross the street to trader
joe's.
Walk across street, traderjoe's, figure I get some frozen
food.
So it was funny.
Everybody was like oh, there'sno toilet paper, there was no
food, there was no frozen food,there was no meat food.
The kid I walked into the store, it looked, they gave it away.
There was no food, like holycrap.

(59:49):
So down the street is a ralph'sno food.
So my sister's like, well, youcan come here and stay for a few
weeks, because it's thebeginning of the pandemic.
It was when it was when, uh,tom hanks got it in australia
and everybody freaked out andthen the mavericks game closes,
the end of the world, right.
So it's like, oh well, just so,three or four days later
there's no food, no toiletpapers, no, nothing.
Stay with me for three weeks.
So like it was like four yearsago, I guess five yeah, but I'm

(01:00:11):
fine now so, yeah, she's likeyou gotta get out of the house,
man.
I just wasn't supposed to belong term.
I always thought I was going tomove back to the city and I
probably would have if, if, Iwould have stayed with just
general production.
But the drone, my droneprograms, my training, all
grossmont college, the stuff I Iwas doing in Phoenix, the drone
, part of what I was doingexploded and took over anything

(01:00:32):
else that I was doing incinematography or the other kind
of work.
And, weird or not, palm Springsis centrally located.
Phoenix, three and a half hours.
Vegas, three and a half hours.
San Diego two hours.
I still teach in LA, la Tech onoccasion.
That's two hours, like right inthe middle.
And for pilot, most of theCoachella Valley is g golf
airspace, just a small areaaround the airport and the whole

(01:00:54):
rest of the valley 400 feet.
For a drone pilot, fly anywhere, you know, just do what you
want.
So it really became beneficialfor me because I do a lot of
private training.
Uh, in the winter time,obviously, in the summer it's
130 degrees, so you know,whatever, go to the beach.
But in the winter times, I,obviously in the summer it's 130
degrees, so you know whatever,go to the beach, but in the
winter times I do a lot ofprivate stuff and Coachella
Valley is a great place to dothat.
So for anybody that, and that'swhy we're there and that's why

(01:01:17):
we're holding the drone programthere, and then all the exciting
things that you can do in thespring, and for anybody that
wants to come, if they're notfrom the area, again on the
website psdronefestcom.
Maybe you'll, probably you'relike you'll do a graphic thing,
right, I will, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
As a matter of fact.
I'll put a link as well, righton the YouTube channel.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
I knew that because when I walked in here the place
looked so badass professional Iknew that there'd be links and
graphics and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Yeah, we'll definitely put a link that they
can tap on a tag and take themover to that.
We'll put in the notes as well.
So it'll be there and I'llthrow out the website as well.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
And then you guys are going to be there too, right,
yeah, so that's important for me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
Real people, real life.
We're going to be here.
Paul Knabe is going to do a lotof interviewing for us.
He was a guest, very popularguest on the show.
We're also going to hopefullyinterview some of the performing
artists, etc.
the speakers and the performers.
It's just going to be a blast,a lot of fun and hope everybody

(01:02:29):
that has ever thought about itor hasn't even thought about it,
knowing that there's a careerinvolved.
As we finish up, I'd like toask you you said there's about
18 industries and growing thathire drone pilots.
You've worked in quite a few.
You've mentioned a handful inthe podcast.
What's your favorite If you hadto say this is the only
industry that I would want tocontinue working in?

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Well, that's a loaded question because obviously I
would say cinema it's the.
For me, it's the it's cinema.
I like doing cinema a lot,although I, I and I maybe this
is also part of cinema I do like.
I do like shooting architecture.
I like being hired by Albury is.
They're based in San Diego,they're developers and and uh

(01:03:08):
architects and some of theirthey.
They take um historicalbuildings and they remodel them.
So what they do is they give methe opportunity to go in there
as a, as a pilot, as a creative,and tell a story with the
building.
Oh, that sounds fun.
So it it is.
And what's interesting about itis I won, I did one of their
buildings and I told the storyusing drones different kinds of

(01:03:31):
drones, fpv drones and cinemadrones of this particular
building, the Trinity building,and I entered in the I Hollywood
Film Festival, which is a bigfilm festival in the drone
category in a oneCongratulations, thank you.
And what was interesting aboutit was there was a lot of
different kind of dronecategories, like you'd see drone
, fpv guys.
You know down at the beachesand drone you know where there

(01:03:52):
was characters or people orsomething animated within their
storytelling.
But the director of the filmfestival said to me anybody that
can take a building and make itentertaining certainly deserves
to win this award.
She said because your buildingisn't talking, it's not moving,
it's not doing anything.

Speaker 1 (01:04:13):
No actors.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):
No, nothing.
So it was the dynamiccinematography of what the
drones were was able to createthat.
So I thought that was kind ofcool.
So I like doing that part of it.
But there's so that and that'sa good point you brought up I
wanted to the in the CoachellaValley we have a college,
college of the Desert.
The other colleges and they makea big deal about they have Gosh

(01:04:37):
.
They'll probably never hire menow because they've been talking
to me about setting up a dronecourse, but the idea is they
have courses there for studentsin hospitality and that's great.
The Coachella Valley is a bigtourist destination Lots of bars
, the casinos and all that stuff.
But you know what?
Maybe it would be better ifthey had a drone program at this
college that could teach kidshow to do windmill inspection

(01:04:59):
there's 10,000 windmills thereTeach them how to do solar
inspection there's miles, squaremiles of solar panels there.
Or maybe instead of having them, you know, pick strawberries in
the field, fly over the fieldsand spray them with pesticides
and fertilizers and instead ofgetting paid for bartending and
being a hotel service person andall the others they could get

(01:05:24):
paid.
They could learn a technologythat we could teach them like in
their first year, a two-yearcollege or right out of high
school, and put them to work.
So as much as I'm not like abunny hugger or field goal
person or all that althoughmaybe I come across that way I
really found it.
I've been offered since withthe success of the Grossmont
program and I've been offeredsome really really big jobs

(01:05:47):
lately in the last year.
But in a weird kind of way Ireally enjoy changing people's
lives.
So you can go back and look atthose 40 people that have jobs
and some of them were homeless,veterans living in their cars,
kids with zero future working atMcDonald's and I can go back

(01:06:08):
and say, man, I changed thiskid's life and this kid's life
and this person's life and thatperson's life.
So in a way there's that feelgood thing and of course, you
know, maybe, maybe you know,based on the universe, me doing
all these nice things, I getmore nice things.
Sure, I mean I'm not trying tobe transactional with the
universe, but hey, you know wetrying to be transactional with
the universe, but hey, you knowwe talk about fulfillment in

(01:06:29):
life.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
Winning, be inspired to win in life is our little
tagline.
The idea that always circlesback to when you are doing
something that provides aservice and betters other
people's lives.
That's fulfillment.
That's what living is about.
Helping other people go whenthey have no direction, giving

(01:06:51):
them some direction, giving thema career it's unbelievable.
And you know what the greatthing is?
This is community collegecourses, correct?
Yeah, I mean, this isn't$100,000 in student loan debt
with a degree that isn't paying,and we've talked about that on
the podcast.
This is something where thesepeople are coming out with
high-paying jobs.
Perhaps maybe they weren't gooddoing math or history and

(01:07:15):
science, but they can fly thesedrones and it triggers something
in their brain and they justbecome professionals at it, and
then they have a career thatthey can enjoy their whole lives
.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Even Paul.
So, Paul, he has the job thathe has now.
And then you know what wasinteresting to see with him as
he developed into a pilot.
He really developed into acreative, a cinematographer.
I mean we even named a shot.
He came up with this idea inone of the buildings.
He worked on the buildingprojects.

(01:07:47):
He did a lot of them where heflew the drone kind of sideways
but in a straight line with thecamera off to an angle, and it
was this great shot and westarted teaching it and it's
like his signature shot.
So here was a guy that was likeI don't say, you know, I didn't
realize, I didn't know, andmaybe he didn't even know he was
creative, but certainly maybehe didn't even know he was
creative, but certainly when hestarted filming and flying,

(01:08:07):
extremely creative.
And so it's kind of neat to seepeople, because you can't teach
creative.
You can teach the skill, youcan teach the basic.
You can't teach a person to becreative.
You can't.
It has to be in their brain.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:20):
Imagination born with that.
You might not know you have ituntil you're put into position
to use it.
But a creative, if I could, ifI could teach creative, then I
probably would be makinghundreds of millions of years
because you can't really teachit.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
I don't know how to teach that.
You got to pull it out ofpeople.
They got to find it inthemselves.
And anybody who wants to knowmore about Paul and hasn't
watched the podcast with Paul,take a look.
It's one of our earlierpodcasts I think it came out in
January.
But his whole story it includeshis drone story as well.

(01:08:55):
One other question.
I know we were going to finishup, but I'm curious what your
opinion is.
How AI has it infiltrated thedrone industry?
Are we seeing it in the droneindustry?
How do you see how it willimpact and change the drone
industry?
Are we seeing it in the droneindustry?
How do you see how it willimpact and change the drone
industry?

Speaker 3 (01:09:13):
Freaking Skynet.
We're all going to die.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
Terminators coming.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
AI is right.
Well, first of all, it'sinteresting because a lot of
these drones had AI built intothem before anybody even talked
about it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Ai has been around since the 70s.
They started working on AI butit's just gotten really advanced
.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Yes, the idea is, a lot of these drones have already
had visual recognition systemsbuilt into them.
They know the differencebetween a man and a car.
They have sensors in them sothey won't run into objects.
They have the ability toautomatically adjust their
altitudes.
Return to home.
Those are all AI programsindividually, and I think DJI

(01:09:53):
was some of the first ones toput these sensors on Some of the
sensors that are in electriccars, like Tesla's and all the
rest of them.
They're using sensors that weredeveloped by DJI's technology
part.
But now AI has sort of becomesanctioned or sentient or
whatever, where it's become itsown thing now, where it's
helping to write its ownprograms and flight patterns.

(01:10:15):
So, without a doubt, when itcomes to this drone light show
we're doing, it's all computercontrolled.
So you have a programmer, itruns a program, it can adjust as
needed to wind and any kind ofenvironment, and so if you have
a program, a software programthat's adjusting to real-time

(01:10:37):
environment, that's AI program.
So it's going to be there.
I'm not going to lie as aneditor, somebody who's really
familiar with Premiere Pro andAfter Effects and animation I've
been messing around with itforever.
I'm using AI to cheat some ofmy animation, so I don't have to
spend five hours on somethingthat AI will help me do in five
minutes.
But I'm using it to help me.

(01:10:57):
I'm not using it to replace mefor now.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
The creative side.
Yeah, you know how.
Is AI going to be creative?
That's a big argument out therein Hollywood, you know you.
Is AI going to be creative?
That's a big argument out therein Hollywood, you know you.
Can you have to tell it what todo?
Yes, you have to get out what'sin your brain onto whatever
platform that you're doing.
So it is a tool.
Do you see it as a positive forthe drone industry?

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
I think so when it comes to I think so when it
comes to, you know, mayberepetitive skills.
It's kind of like I mean, youknow these commercial airlines.
If it's being flown roboticallywould I be comfortable.
Maybe not as much if there's aguy sitting in the seat, at
least when things go wrong andtake over um, but I, I think
right now it's a positive umbecause it's certainly at least

(01:11:56):
in my case.
I know it can't replace me now,um, it can't replace um, it
can't replace some of the peoplethat are doing the more finite
inspections, um, but if you'redoing mapping is already almost
automated.
Drone mapping, um, well, Iguess it is automated.
But if there's an ai programthat can adjust on the fly and

(01:12:16):
compensate and think about whatit's doing, yes, and, and you're
correct, currently a using aiis like knowing how to program a
computer.
If you do not know what to putin that that, what do you want
to do?
Box and spell it out.
Like you're talking to one ofthe robots in star trek.
You know one of those, uh,where where if you say the wrong
thing, it vaporizes you becauseyou say the wrong thing.

(01:12:38):
Um, um, because I've beenmessing around with it a lot and
trying to create certaingraphics or images and, oh my
gosh, if you don't spell it outright, the things that you get
are like a nightmare really.
It's got to come out of thecreative mind, I think.
But I think in in the shortterm, there's an advantage.
Um, I'm a tech guy anyway, soI'm always, you know, for the

(01:12:59):
technology.
Uh, as long as it's not spyingon us, if we don't have
microchips inside of us that aretelling us what to do, I guess
we're okay.
Okay, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
Well, listen, skip.
Thank you, pleasure man this is.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):
This is the most fun.
I've had an interview likeevery.
You need to.
You need to hook up with nbc.
I should.
Let's do it.
I have a brilliant idea.
That page they're building forme.
We should put your podcast onthat page.
Let's do it.
I think we should.
I'm gonna.
I have a big meeting with themnext tuesday.
I'll tell them all about thestuff you're doing for the drone
industry I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Thank you, skip, and you know your your time.
You've given us an hour and ahalf of your time and you're
extremely busy that means fromhere.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
But the traffic's going to be so much worse now if
, if you get out of, if you getan alcohol, if you know what
gross, where gross money is like11, 30 you're in that window of
oh, there's no traffic buttraffic.
But the minute you get to likewell, where we're at right now 1
o'clock.
But that's okay, because maybeI'll just go over the mountain,
stop off at Julian and get a piethere.
You go.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Sounds like a fantastic.
All right, one more timePSDroneFestcom.
It's coming across the screen.
It's in the notes.
There'll be tags.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Be.
It's in the notes.
There'll be tags.
Be there, it's going to be ablast.
You've been listening to RealPeople, real Life.
Our passion is to have realconversations with real people
who've made it.
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