Case Study - Frankenstein / Magnificent Productions

Frankenstein / Magnificent Productions

It began as a personal project. One cold April morning in 2023, I took my new drone to Seacliff Beach in East Lothian — a private stretch of coastline I’d been given permission to use. The beach was deserted, the light was perfect, and I wanted to test the limits of what the drone could do.

I spent hours experimenting, high frame rates, slow pans, top-down shots, and anything else that came to mind. Back home, I edited the footage into a short video and quietly uploaded it to Vimeo. It had a modest response, but I liked it.

A few months later, I got an email that stopped me in my tracks. A CGI studio in Canada, called Herne Hill, had been scouting locations for Guillermo del Toro’s new film Frankenstein. They’d found my video — and the location. They wanted me to shoot aerial sequences for the production.

Knowing the scale of what was needed, I called in Hazel Palmer, a veteran TV videographer, and together we hired the DJI Inspire 3 — a £30,000 drone built for cinematic work. I flew; Hazel operated the camera. Between us, we captured a series of shots that would go on to form part of the film’s visual world.

Now, more than twenty months later, with Frankenstein finally released, I can share the story. What started as a personal experiment on a quiet beach ended up on the big screen. Proof, perhaps, that you never know who’s watching — or where a creative experiment might lead.