Droning on

Local Watch

Getting up close and personal with the community is an advantage of local news, but sometimes it’s useful to look at the bigger picture.

Here's a bird’s eye view of Warkworth at Kowhai Festival last year

And a Santa sleigh view of the Orewa Santa Parade

Both were filmed via quadcopter by Craig Powell, who combined his talents as a pilot and videographer to safely bring us the footage.
 

What’s trending

As drones become frighteningly common, real and imagined stories of flying robots with cameras invading our privacy are inspiring comparisons to Hitchcock’s The Birds and parody horror films The Drone.

Safety is driving new Civil Aviation Authority rules to regulate drones in our airspace, with accidents jumping from one four years ago to more than 50 so far this year. UAV users now require safety plans and property owner permission, or an operating certificate.

Meanwhile, upcoming Flying Robot International Film Festival is celebrating aerial cinema and highlighting what drones do for good, such as fighting fires and finding missing people.  
 

What the #

UAV are unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as ‘drones’, not to be confused with UFOs or WMDs. See what others are saying about this issue on Twitter.com/search via this hashtag #UAVNZ
 

What we love

We love the use of new technology to tell stories, including aerial coverage of breaking stories and hard to reach places. Media are even reporting on media drone reporting, with journalists arrested in Paris for using an unauthorised drone to report on a spate of mystery unmanned drone sightings.

As the drone ‘cool factor’ wears off, journalist Matt Waite at dronejournalismlab.org says it’s time to focus on ethics and advocates informing communities by 'shining a light on dark places, without leaving scars behind.’