Doin' Work on Big Island

Quick shout out to George’s Aviation for the use of the Cessnas for this trip. Certainly was better than dealing with the crowds and hassle of HNL airport.

Once In a Lifetime Opportunity

Something happened recently that I never thought would. I have been working a full time job at a local audio visual company and have not put much effort into Redstream in a long while. Mostly because I was at a loss for how to make it work. One day, a friend of Don’s contacted him to see if he would be interested in doing some photos with him for a project he would potentially be hired for on the Big Island. Without knowing what he would be getting himself into, he said yes that he would help him out. This friend has a drone business (Drone Services Hawaii). There were some unfortunate things that happened that caused him to not be able to continue with the client/project, so he referred them to us. We had no idea he had done this nor who the client actually was.

One day, out of the blue, we received an email inquiry requesting photo and video services from the Smithsonian Institute for some website updating they are in the process of working on. They wanted someone local to be able to fly over to Big Island to shoot on Mauna Kea where they have an array that they operate from their office inn Hilo, HI. In the email, they explained that we had been recommended to them from our friend and I have to admit, I was in shock. The SMITHSONIAN??? We have had Redstream on the back burner for so long and suddenly, thanks to our friend, we had an opportunity of a lifetime in front of us! Of course, after several phone calls, emails, conference calls, and lots of work with getting the proper permit and permissions, we found ourselves ready to make the trip over the Big Island. Needless to say, thank you Mike for the recommendation!!!!

Above The Clouds

After some debate, we decided to have one of Don’s friends fly us to and back from Big Island. This in itself was an adventure because we were not taking a jet, we actually flew in a Cessna both ways. The day before we left Oahu, we actually sent all of our camera gear ahead of us; which we planned to collect upon arriving in Hilo. That plan worked out wonderfully thanks to Andrew, Kama, and Kama’s mom. Our on island transportation was a rental Jeep that is nothing compared to ours (Don’s CJ7 nor my lifted JKU). Haha! Just a little biased there! I am going to skip details about the trip after we hit the ground until the next blog post since I have photos and video to share of the actual project we worked on. Also, in case you were wondering, we took 4 cameras, 6 lenses, 2 tripods, the Ronin, audio recorder, the time lapse slider with motor, laptop bag with computer accessories, and a ton of cold weather gear; which all fit in the back of the Cessna on the way home to Oahu. Overall, we had 5 bags, the Ronin case, the time lapse slider case, and 2 tripods to carry around every time we went somewhere and nothing could be left unattended. Haha! Below are some cell phone pictures from the flights.

Coming Up…

There are a ton of cool things to share and stories to tell from this trip, so there will be a follow-up blog post with all of those. We can’t wait to share more of this adventure with you all, so stay tuned!