Parks Tacoma · 2017-2024
Where Procedure Meets Creativity
Aerial Director / FAA Part 107 Pilot
Scope of Work
FAA Part 107 pilot in command for a drone shoot in controlled airspace near an airport. I secured the airspace authorization, built the flight plan around the airport's operations, ran the on-site safety protocol, and made the creative direction calls on the aerial footage. Compliance and camera work were the same job.
The Challenge
Metro Parks Tacoma needed striking aerial footage of a site that happened to sit in tightly controlled airspace, near an airport. That made it a different kind of shoot. Before a single creative decision, the flight had to clear a wall of procedure: FAA authorization, airspace coordination, and a safety plan rigorous enough for a municipal client in a regulated environment. The work had to be both fully compliant and genuinely cinematic, with no room to trade one for the other.
My Approach
I treated the regulatory side as the foundation, not an obstacle. As the Part 107 pilot in command, I secured the airspace authorization, built a flight plan that respected the airport's operations, and ran the shoot to a professional safety standard a municipality could trust. With that framework locked in, I had the freedom to be creative inside it: planning shots that used every foot of the airspace I was cleared for, and capturing aerial footage that felt cinematic rather than constrained. The result proved a point I care about. Procedure and creativity are not opposites. Done right, the discipline is exactly what makes the ambitious shot possible.
Scale
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