Within hours of capturing a pair of gray whales recently in an early morning swim, Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching had the video posted on YouTube and emailed to subscribers of its digital newsletter.
The footage was shot by captain Frank Brennan aboard the Dana Pride using a DJI Phantom Vision CopterCam, a toaster-sized, four-propeller drone that goes for about $1,000.
It’s one of the more popular models of the small, unmanned aircraft that are changing operations and strategy for numerous local businesses.
Dana Wharf has been using drones to capture images of sea life for more than a year, using the unique photos and footage it collects as part of its advertising.
“We use them if we see anything that is out of the ordinary, or for anything we think looks really cool,” said General Manager Donna Kalez, whose father, Don Hansen, pioneered whale watching 44 years ago.
Fuscoe Engineering in Irvine is among the new batch of pioneers using drones to develop new revenue streams. The firm spent about $7,000 to outfit its DJI Phantom with 3-D mapping software that can scan entire city blocks and real estate developments in seconds, generating millions of data points used for pinpoint measurements and assessing real and potential obstacles.
Pat Fuscoe, who founded the firm in 1981, likened the importance of drones in his industry to the introduction of the calculator to replace slide rules in the early 1970s, or the debut of computer-aided design programs a decade later.
Drones are “like a wave going through the industry,” Fuscoe said. “This is going to be the biggest thing in my career.”
Hotels
Hotels ranging from beachfront properties such as the Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara to the Anabella Hotel near Disneyland in Anaheim have hired the engineering firm to collect view simulations from rooms that haven’t been built yet.
The better the view, the higher the price for planners to propose as they pencil out projects.
Fuscoe also has landed projects using the drone to simulate views if new floors were added to the Avenue of the Arts Wyndham Hotel at South Coast Plaza. And it did some mapping for the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, which is considering a possible redesign of its outdoor pool and lounge area.
It takes Fuscoe Engineering’s drone a few minutes to gather data that took several specialized professionals weeks to handle, bringing down the project cost to a few thousand dollars in most cases.
Providing the same service without a drone would have incorporated a team of engineers, a small plane, pilot, surveyors, and a photogrammetrist—essentially a surveyor who works from photographs. The whole effort could cost as much as $40,000.
“That’s how it was done,” Fuscoe said, “until now.”
Not everyone’s a drone operator—and some businesses outsource jobs to specialists with higher-end machines. The trend can be seen at local production houses, such as Santa Ana startup Regality Media and Lyon Studios in Newport Beach, as they incorporate more drone footage into marketing materials and commercials for clients.
Regality recently hired DP Media Group LLC in Kentucky to shoot aerial footage with drones for a commercial for one of the Asia-based auto manufacturers with U.S. operations based here. DP Media operates higher-end drones that require a two-man crew to produce footage on par with a big-budget spot that deployed an aircraft, pilot and plenty of fuel, according to Creative Director Sean Malone.
“Prior to the car spot, I had no experience with drones but had seen footage others had done and realized the potential was enormous,” he said. “In the past, if you wanted an aerial shot of a car driving down a highway or someplace scenic, that would have cost thousands of dollars. With the new technology, you can do something like that a lot more affordably.”
The higher-end drones can bring a significant boost to the production value of a commercial, according to Lyon Studio’s founder, Curt Lyon, who’s been in business since 1975.
The company recently shot a commercial at the Tustin Auto Center with a $100,000 Octodrone operated by Corona-based Vortex Aerial, which Lyon has hired on projects for McKenna European Auto, Orange Coast Plaza, and Toyota of Orange, as well as Fletcher Jones car dealerships.
The service doesn’t come cheap—$4,000 to $10,000 a day—but it provides a sense of security since Vortex is one of the few aerial service companies sanctioned by the Federal Aviation Administration.
“These guys have been doing it for a couple of years, and they’re really competent,” Lyon said.
The FAA last month issued its latest guidelines for small commercial drones less than 55 pounds. Among the major tenets are mandates that drones must fly within an operator’s line of vision and can’t climb above 500 feet. Drone operators would also have to acquire what’s called a “UAS operator certificate.”
Tourism, Marketing
The Island Hotel and The Resort at Pelican Hill have used drones to capture still photography and video footage for marketing the Newport Beach properties, both owned by the Irvine Company. Drones, which fly much lower to the ground than helicopters and move and pan simultaneously, have captured the natural beauty and expanse of the idyllic locations, architecture and open space surrounding the properties, according to Ralph Grippo, president of the Irvine Co.’s Resort Properties division.
The unit has used a variety of drone models in the past year, including GPS-programmed drones, GoPro drones, SteadyDrone8 and DJI Inspire 1. It plans to use drones in upcoming shoots for the newly renovated Hotel Irvine, as well as Oak Creek Golf Club and the Marinas in Newport Beach.
“Drones help us create the best available marketing visuals through more expansive angles and new perspectives,” Grippo said in an email.
Mark Rudyk pilots his personal Phantom drone to capture scenes of Newport Beach Pier, Inspiration Point, and other landmarks along the coastline for tourism promoter Newport Beach & Co.
“We’ve used them to give a unique perspective of the destination,” said Rudyk, director of online marketing. “They’ve been highly popular.”
Limitations
The devices have some limitations besides the recent regulatory restrictions. Fuscoe doesn’t employ drones for large-scale projects such as agricultural and solar farms due to time constraints of mapping vast areas—a battery typically lasts for about 20 minutes of flight time.
Wind gusts and other unexpected weather changes on the open seas have led to three drone crashes into the ocean for operators at Dana Wharf, who have benefited from having OC’s roster of contract drone operators available. A chase to capture a rare sighting of mating sperm whales led to a crash of a Dana Wharf drone last October, and the company quickly turned to Aliso Viejo-based Air Reel Productions. The crew shot video in 4K with a GoPro HERO 4, capturing the first known drone footage of such an event.
“The people love it—it’s a different way to watch the whales,” Kalez said of the footage captured by drones. “One little problem—they don’t float.”
