Hollywood, CA —I have to blame my dear friend Pablo Lewin for my obsession with camera drones.  Lewin is a film director who discovered this marvelous and incredibly creative filmmaking tool and got me hooked and empowered with the latest high tech toy. I’ve done a number of drone stories but today I was going to film a scene for Lewin’s latest film offering. I thought I'd let you in on the experience. I can still remember that horrible accident in the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, actor Vic Morrow along with two children, My-Ca Dinh Le (age 7), and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6), died in a nasty helicopter crash during the filming of the Twilight Zone  movie.   We've taken any safety risk out of our production!  Helicopters can be deadly and they are too expensive for some filmmakers. Not to worry, the camera armed drones are here!  Today it was me and my drone that eliminated any dangers along with the impossible expense for a helic...

Phoenix, AZ —This geographical area is considered a medium size TV market.   Not every TV station here can afford a helicopter at $1,500.00 plus per hour.    Still they need plenty of quality video and of course that means aerial coverage of newsworthy events.   Smaller TV markets have smaller budgets and no choice but to use drones if they want aerial video.   As a former cop, long time licensed private investigator and investigative TV news producer I have advice to offer about drone journalism. The video-capturing drone is still a relatively new but very exciting technology.   It’s perfectly suited for use in Phoenix, AZ.   Now there is suddenly a new job to fill in the news industry, the drone, multimedia journalist.  To do this job you need four skills, operating the drone, photography, video editing and writing news stories.  Nobody said it was easy!      Police officials initially may be hostile over the fac...

Chicago, IL —I have a lot of friends that consider themselves political moderates or even Liberal.   When they saw the wide smile of America’s first Black presidential candidate they somehow fell in love. After suffering eight years with a horrible president, George Bush many of my friends gambled on this unknown African-American, Barack Obama who they figured could never be worse than Bush.   They all simply wanted change particularly with respect to Bush’s ill-advised wars.   Bush wore the Republican label and his detractors called him a Right Wing Conservative.   Bush was mislabeled as a Conservative when he was nothing of the kind.   His rhetoric seemed Conservative but that was always just talk.   His actions were Liberal and Leftist.   He was also not very smart. Bush got us needlessly into two wars that really served no purpose for America.   Attacking Iraq was really dumb.    Had Bush stayed clear...

The FAA is trying to regulate little camera drones like mine out of existence.   They have already been shot down for their over-reaching by a federal judge and the FAA has since appealed to a higher court. Now the FAA is back at it, making a new rule and it’s really no better than what was struck down in court. They apparently want to prohibit professional photographers and journalists from capturing aerial images.   The law requires government rules to be subjected to public a comment period that will run out later this month.   The rules carry heavy civil penalties but are not laws per say.    They are of course always subject to court challenge.   My published Comment:      “The FAA wants jurisdiction over a rock thrown into the sky. Criminals can use all sorts of implements to endanger our aircraft and public safety. This is a local police responsibility already. Speaking as a small, multi-rotor and unmanned Phantom 2 came...

Los Angeles, CA —Technology has brought us unmanned, remote controlled aircraft.   These things have been around for decades. Expectedly they have been engineered for surveillance and combat by military contractors. More recently GPS advances and really great and diminutive cameras such as the GoPro has brought us an affordable civilian drone that has been thrilling photographers such as me. The vast majority of the civilian camera drones are weighing in at between one and three pounds and can be safely operated from as much as a mile away.   They can capture stunning images at much lower altitudes than helicopters without the risk of death and destruction.   There are larger and more sophisticated drones that handle the bigger cameras used by the film industry and require very solid piloting skills.   One thing for sure civilian drone operators don’t want their devices endangered or the subject of adverse police scrutiny.   I have two...