Capabilities
Capabilities
AGL Aerials flies aerial camera and aerial lighting for feature film, episodic television, commercials, and live events.
Two capabilities, both flown, both crewed. The company comes out of nearly thirty years of specialty camera movement work, so an aerial unit here is a camera department that happens to be airborne rather than a vendor arriving with a drone.
01Capability
Aerial cinematography
Three platforms, chosen by what the shot needs rather than by what is in the case.
The camera package and the geography decide which aircraft goes up. Each platform has its own page with the figures on it, so they are not restated here.
Heavy lift
A cinema body and the lens the DP already chose, on a full size gimbal. The aircraft for when the camera package is the constraint.
Inspire 3
An integrated camera and no external build, flown by a pilot and a camera operator at once. The aircraft for when the schedule is the constraint.
FPV
Close range dynamic work through tight spaces, holding a move a larger aircraft would have to break into shots.
The work is scripted, commercial, and live. AGL does not do real estate, inspection, mapping, or survey, and gimbals are flown as aerial payloads rather than offered as ground rental.
02Capability
Aerial lighting
A lighting fixture flown as a payload, so the source goes where rigging cannot reach and moves while the camera runs.
This is a capability in its own right, not an accessory to the camera work. A 2x2 Stratus array, owned outright, putting out roughly the output of a large HMI from a position no lift can be built in.
It flies two ways. The full array goes under the heavy lift aircraft on a gimbal. A single emitter goes on FPV, for when the light has to move at a speed the larger aircraft cannot.
Why it is listed alongside the camera work
Because it changes what a night exterior costs to plan. A source that repositions in real time is a different scheduling problem from one that is built once and held, and that is a production decision rather than a camera one.
03On the day
How the aerial unit works with the camera department
It works as part of the camera department rather than as a separate unit running alongside it.
That distinction is the one worth testing when deciding whether to treat this as a department or a vendor. The answers below are what is settled. Where something is not settled, it says so rather than describing an arrangement that has not been agreed.
Frame language
Notes come back in the same language as any other camera.
A video feed comes down to the ground, so the frame is watched live rather than reviewed after landing. Focus, iris, and zoom are pulled from the ground over FIZ. Wider, softer, hold there: the aerial unit takes the same note the operator would.
Crew
Heavy lift flies as a three person team working inside the camera department.
Not a separate unit running alongside it. The Inspire 3 splits pilot and camera operator across two sets of controls for the same reason, so the frame is somebody who is holding it rather than a consequence of the flight path.
Comms
Operators are on comms.
The unit is raised over comms the same as any other position on the floor, so a note reaches it while the aircraft is up rather than after it lands.
04Before the day
What prep looks like
Prep settles the package, the shot, the location, and the plan, in that order.
01The package
Prep starts with the camera and lens list.
Lens choice drives payload, and payload decides which aircraft the day needs. On heavy lift it also decides how the gimbal is balanced, which is why a lens list arriving on the morning is a plan built twice.
02The shot
The shot description decides the aircraft before any spec does.
Whether the move has to stay unbroken, what it has to get through, and whether the camera has to match the ground units are the three questions that separate the platforms.
03The location
Geography rules platforms in and out.
Span and room to work decide whether heavy lift is possible at all. Tight geography moves the answer toward FPV, and the location is also what a night exterior is lit from.
04The plan
The move is walked with the camera department and the AD.
Height, path, and speed are set against the frame rather than the other way round, and flights are planned around battery cycles rather than run to the limit.
05Booking
Start with the shot
Send the shot, the camera package, and the dates.
Those three settle which capability the day needs, and most of what follows from it. If the package is not locked, send what is known and the rest can be worked out.