Welcome To Studio B Sessions

Vipul Bindra 0:04

Welcome to another episode of Studio B Sessions with me, Bindra, owner of Bindra Productions here in Orlando, Florida. And this is a podcast where we talk to industry professionals in the photo and video industry and have raw, unfiltered, unedited conversations with them. And just like this whole season, we've had Mario is on the producer desk helping us make this happen. Hey guys, how are you today? And our guest today is uh an amazing drone pilot, FPV pilot. I mean, uh, you're a videographer, you're a filmmaker, you're also a teacher. I mean, what all do you do? I feel like there's so much you do, Calvin. Yeah. Tell people. Yeah, of course. Well, tell people what do you do?

From Freelance To Color Grading

Calvin Schellbach 0:43

Uh so I started out kind of doing freelance uh videography on my own. My dream initially was to be full-on in the FPV sphere. Um, but that was a lot harder than I anticipated it being. It's really hard to sell people on that. And I also very quickly realized that my video initially wasn't as good as a lot of the pros that I was seeing. I was like, my video looks like garbage. Why does theirs look so good? And so that's when it hit me like, if I want to be good up there, I've got to be good down here first. And so that's when I really started diving into camera gear and editing software, and I kind of went down the rabbit hole and discovered color grading, and that kind of changed my world. That's one of my favorite aspects of the whole thing. Yeah.

Vipul Bindra 1:27

There's so much to it just by itself, yeah. Yeah. You can go node after node after node and resolve, and then 20 nodes in, you're like, wow.

The First Drone And First Crash

Calvin Schellbach 1:35

Yeah, and there's there's so many different ways to do it. And I'm I'm definitely not a pro colorist. I'd probably say I'm kind of intermediate to advanced at this point, but it's something that I try to put into every single one of my projects, even if it's only just a few nodes for I like to call it advanced color correction, where it's still it still looks better than what the camera spit out. It's not a kind of you know that stylistic look or anything, but it definitely is an improvement over what any camera shot initially. So at what point did you fall in love with FPV and why FPV in general? So drones are I know I said color grading is my favorite part. It's really my favorite part of editing. My favorite part of shooting is anything with drones. I I really love flight. It's a different aspect. Um, the first drone that I ever owned was from a company that I don't know if they're around anymore. They're called 3D Robotics. Okay. And it was the Iris Plus, and it was this really big monstrosity. It had this giant controller, and but you could hard mount a GoPro to it and you could get a feed from it, and that that blew my mind. And I it was like $850. I invested in it, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and I I very much was, you know, the guy who first got a drone, like, oh, I gonna go, how fast can I go? Like, this is so cool. And I crashed that drone at a playa lake here in Winter Park. Um, it's just what happened. I I was flying around with a friend of mine. Uh, I was working at West 2 News at the time. We had got off work. I told him, hey, I have this drone, we're gonna go fly it. I flew it around this playa lake and the battery was starting to get low. And as I hit the switch to initiate landing, it's coming back to me. And all of a sudden I just happened to look up on this light pole and there's an osprey nest. I was like, oh, how cool would it be to get video of the ospreys? So I canceled that and I pushed it back out. This drone had a flaw in it where once you hit return to home, it will just start going down. I pushed it back out over the water and I was like, I'm giving it throttle. Why is it not going up? It's going down, it's not and it just went into the water. And my friend at the time told me all in one mo this was a blur to me, but all in one motion. I pulled everything out of my pockets and I dove into that water and I got my drone back. I'm commitment. I I should not have gotten to that water. It was I could have gotten a brain eating amoeba.

Vipul Bindra 4:05

Yeah, that or gators. I mean, this is Florida. I was I was about to lose my investment.

The Video That Sold FPV

Calvin Schellbach 4:10

I got it back, I let it dry off for 24 hours, I plugged in the battery, and all four motors just smoked came out and it was done. But I didn't let it deter me. After that, I invested in the original Mavic Pro that DJI came out with. And then I got introduced to FPV, and the video that sold me on it, there's this um YouTube group called Flight Test. Uh, I believe they're in Ohio. They had this video a while ago. They made um, did you ever see the movie The Avengers? You remember the helicarian? I've heard about that movie. So they made a remote control version of the helicarrier and they were flying FPV airplanes on it as it was flying, and they would land and take off. And I was like, I want to do that. Yeah. Because for all the phantoms and the Mavics, when they give you that really cinematic view, FPV drones like this really that's where you get that sense of like I am flying, I'm swooping down in between these buildings and these trees and coming down, I'm doing these loops. Like that that to me really sells the sense of like if I had the ability to fly, what would that look like for me? What would I do? That's what these give you and a lot more.

Vipul Bindra 5:28

Exactly. No, and and I I completely get you. It's it's a uh different experience. Again, I haven't had a chance to, and that's why I'm so glad you're here. Yeah because you know, I I've done so many episodes, never had a chance to talk about drones in general. Like my just my love started when I was a kid, you know, like you said, it's just a thing about like you know, and and again, I I I I don't know how serious I was, but I was a kid. The first thing I told was like I want to be an Air Force pilot, you know, to drive uh planes or whatever, and then you know, obviously I got glasses that were like, oh, you'll never drive, reapply it or whichever. Which I don't even know how serious I was about that. But point is I still remember as a kid going to the toy store, and you know, for whatever my birthday was, and your parents would like pick a toy, and then obviously I run straight towards the you know, the RC airplanes or whatever they had it. Yeah, and then um, and you know, those were obviously expensive. So first having to convince, no, I really want it. Even the store guy was like, Oh, you know, these are not the easiest thing. Why don't you take the helicopter or whatever? And you know, me as a kid, I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. I'll just take anything, right? Yeah, because that's that's the closest thing I could. And then it's so funny, I came home like not even third flight. Yep, pieces, you know, and because those things were not easy to control, they're not the work, nothing like what these do. But point is, my my um I still remember my my dad was so mad at me because you know, I'm not talking even 30 minutes, like first flight, you know, then you charge them. Yeah, they only had so much battery, so I think you charge a five minute, it goes for three minutes or whatever.

Calvin Schellbach 6:52

Yep.

Vipul Bindra 6:52

Uh, not even third, fourth flight. And I was trying to figure out how to control it, but there was not really much control. I mean, there was a little bit, uh, but it wasn't like nothing like obviously what we do. But anyway, it started then. And then as soon as you know drones became real, thanks to DJI. I think the first drone I ever purchased was Phantom 4. I don't know if you remember.

Calvin Schellbach 7:11

Yeah, it had a mechanical shutter.

Simulator Hours And Real Differences

Vipul Bindra 7:12

Yeah, and it had a first one I ever had that was like a camera that was integrated, right? That was the whole thing, and I was like, oh, this makes sense. So I bought it and it was the coolest thing ever, but then obviously it has this flaw. I don't know if you ever remember, you have to tilt it, you have to turn with it, you have to do the whole magic. Oh yeah, the compass dance. Yeah, the compass dance. And you it it made you do it like almost every time I turned it on. I was like, I can be doing this. Yeah, but you know, at that time it was still the coolest thing, and then obviously talk about later. I I don't think we need to go through every drone, but then you know, the Mavic series, the Airs, the pros, I think. The latest one I have is the Mavic 2 Pro. And I would love to get the Mavic 4 Pro as long as as soon as I can find one, quite literally in stock. I'm ready to buy the the, you know, I love the we were talking about it. I love the idea of being able to just open the screen and the thumbsticks kind of and then just the quadcopter turn. And if you want to shoot vertical, you just tilt that screen vertical and somehow just does it. Yeah, it's it looks amazing, and the HDR mode or whatever is doing something like close to. I was watching a video from a channel called Make Art now. I don't know if you've seen it, where he was talking about how it has a mode where kind of like very close to I would say the DGO sensor that's from Canon, where it takes a high exposure, a low exposure, and merges it together to create like a HDR-ish SDR image, if that makes sense. So that would be the coolest thing ever. And I think that drone can do that, so I can't wait to get it, test it out, and uh, but again, it's just finding in stock. Maybe by the time people are watching this, it's it's available, but yeah, I probably have it by then. But that's what I'm excited about. Yeah, exactly. Oh absolutely, I'm excited. That would be like my next drone because my Mavic 2 Pro finally, you know, I never thought I would keep a drone this long. I never thought about it needed to upgrade because what I do, obviously, nothing uh you know intense is what you're doing, but it was just enough. Well, yeah, and the Mavic 2 Pro was the first one that gave us 10-bit color. Yeah, and and it's good for a push-in, a pull out. Yep. But like you said, finally the gimbal's starting to give up, and I'm just like, I don't know if I want to send it for bear. It's old enough anyway. I never upgrade it to three, so I'm like four is the time. I see enough upgrades where I'm like, this this may be worth it. Yeah, but I would love to get into FPV. Uh, I mean, it seems exciting, but I don't know if I have the time to put in the hours. How many hours do you think you have in there in the simulator?

Calvin Schellbach 9:27

Um in the simulator, oh gosh, I have hundreds of hours in the simulator. I I can't recommend a simulator enough if you're trying to get into this. It's gonna save you a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak in the beginning because these while drones like this achieve flight.

Vipul Bindra 9:43

He brought, if you're listening, he brought real drones, cool drones to yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 9:48

The they achieve flight the same way as a DJI drone does, but they behave very differently. Yeah. You know, like with any DJI drone you've ever had, if you take your hands off the sticks, it just goes into a hover and it won't move until Exactly, it's very safe, and then they also have sensors everywhere, you know. Right. This obstacle it doesn't have obstacle avoidance. If you take your hands off the sticks, if you were going straight, it's just gonna keep going straight until you take control. And also not all these drones have the same distance controlling that DJI has, so you can't fly as far with them. But what you what do I want to say here? What you lose from giving up DJI, you gain in performance here because these drones are a lot faster, they're a lot more nimble. There are people who race these things for a living that hit just crazy speed. They're taking corners at like 90, probably even faster.

Vipul Bindra 10:42

Yeah, I don't know if you've seen the video. They did somebody did a video, Red Bull, I think, like Farl's fastest uh drone versus uh Max Verstappen. Yeah, that was such a cool video. I can't imagine the pilot, like you know, that's really fast, especially it's one thing to be fast in a car. I'm saying, like, I can't imagine the brain processing power you need with those goggles when you're going at that speed. Yeah, that's crazy.

Calvin Schellbach 11:05

Yeah, there are several pilots like that that I really look up to um for this. There's um one guy uh he goes by J Bird on Instagram, he flies this exact drone. I think he has a few other specialized ones, um, but his channel is full of nothing but like flying through crazy areas. He's flying through sports stadiums. The first video he ever posted was using this drone to fly through a bowling alley. And I mean like he flew through the front doors, he flies over like the alley when the ball goes down, but then he flies back behind where all the like pins get picked up, and then he flies, it's all one shot, it's incredible. He flies back out, he flies through like the bar area, and every single person in that video like knows what to do and when to do it, and it's wild how it all came together, and all his videos are like that. And I was like, dude, I I wish I was that talented.

The Factory Tour Reshoot Lesson

FPV On A Prototype Car Shoot

Vipul Bindra 11:53

Hey, I mean you are very talented, don't discount yourself. So having worked with you, so uh funny enough, how we met essentially to give a quick summary. Uh, I'm all I'm like I said, I love drones, but most of what we uh get to do or I get to do is you know, we're we're doing corporate commercial videography, right? It's some shots, like usually push-in, push-outs, or maybe uh, you know, like a parallax or whatever of something key, like a building of an you know, of a business or whatever. Right. That's the limit of you know, I wish I could get to do cool stuff. So, but I have cool clients. Sometimes we'll get to do car stuff, but it's rare. Uh, and so I have a client that, you know, uh builds cars or whatever, and they wanted us to do a series of videos. Actually, let me take that back. Before that was when you got involved, before then. So uh they pitched me an idea to do an FPV tour of their factory. And I was like, That's yes, absolutely. You said, which they didn't use that word FPV, they didn't even know that. She sent me a video that was FPV, and I was like, Yeah, I'm I'm all into FPV. Uh, we got it. And she's like, What's FPV? I was like, Don't worry, it's the don't shoot. That's what the video is, right? Because uh, so anyway, so recharge to Andrew, who I know through David Moorefield, who's uh who's an FPV pilot, and it was so cool. He came out, he had two drones, he had the Avada 2, I think, and then a custom drone that he brought. Uh, and it was just incredible, it was so fun. Uh, we had um you know, going through the the facility, and that's when we discovered apparently. Uh so what I really liked is the Avada 2 was obviously nice. Yeah, but his nimble drone looked even cooler because yeah, the it could because it could turn, but the issue that we had, so we we got footage, we go to the my truck, we're like, this is been incredible. The footage we got. We started pour uh you know, transfer data, and I have everything obviously from the Avada. But then the other drone, there's only two files in there, and we go, What's going on? And then I know for a fact he was recording because this is why you have a director's monitor. He had he gave me an iPad, right, to see what he was recording or whatever. And it I know for a fact, because I trust me, I've been doing this long enough. I know that's the key thing. So I'm I'm I'm 100% checking, so I know it's not Andrew. I know we were recording, so we figure out that apparently it has some kind of glitch, you have to activate it before it'll uh or arm it before you uh hit record, otherwise it only records in the goggles, not in the drone. Yep. Hard way to learn it, and it's been a long time, at least five years till or six years till I've had to tell a client that we need to come reshoot. The good thing was we were just right there, right? So we weren't we hadn't left, thank goodness. So we were we just walked in, and like I said, it's not a new client, so I was like, hey, we just we some of the footage is not in here, so we need to come reshoot. And they were like, absolutely come in. So we went in. Obviously, it's not like the same thing as the first time. We recreated the the shots that were missing, and the footage was just incredible. Yeah, and I sent it to them and they they obviously loved it. It's obviously it's such a cool factor. Yeah, and going through you know, cars and doors and through workers and and paint booths, you know what I mean. Yeah, it was just incredible. So that was uh that was like a good way to show them what we can do, and then they came back and they were like, hey, uh let's do a series of videos about the launch of a new car or whatever, and I was like awesome. And they were like, We have to do drone footage, and I was like, absolutely, and before they even say, I'm like, I know I have PV, you know, not just regular drone. So uh so and that's where I reached out to Andrew, I was like, hey, uh, because we were pitching this to them while we were sitting, you know, uh charging or whatever. And uh he was like, Yeah, I would love to, but I'm not I'm traveling or whatever. And I was like, Oh, that sucks, but because you know if we have a fixed date, and I was like, Well, uh, you know, I I I asked around, but then I was like, This is FPV, and we're dealing with a very, very expensive car. I don't want to just bring anyone. I was like, Andrew, you know, I know you can't come, but I don't want to because I had a few recommendations. I was like, you tell me who I should bring, because I trust you, I know what you're capable of. And then he's like, okay, yeah, you gotta bring Calvin. Everything I know about FPV is from Calvin, and that was enough for me. You know, the way I work business is that, you know, that was enough. I never looked up your website, and then look anything about you. I was just like, okay, not talking to any of these other people. I reached out to you and I was like, Oh, hopefully the schedule works out. That's the key. I was like, hey, can you please come this day, this day? And then you were like, I I yes, I can. And I was like, It was actually perfect timing, and I and that's what I'm saying. Sometimes it's just meant to be, and I was like, thank goodness. And and what's crazy is I have no idea what to expect. I told you obviously what I needed, and you were like, Yeah, this this seems fairly easy to get. And I was like, awesome. And then, but when you came, dude, I mean, we can go from there from your perspective, but yeah, the footage came out incredible. So talk about that. I mean, I guess from your side of it.

Calvin Schellbach 16:27

Yeah, I mean, I was stoked to even have this opportunity. I've always like when I started my company, I was like, this is the type of stuff that I want to do, and this is finally like one of the most perfect opportunities for me to be able to do this and showcase my skills. Like, this is everything I've been building towards. And to see that car even roll out, I was like, oh, this is gonna be an incredible shoot.

Vipul Bindra 16:49

Yeah, and I can't wait till the finished car. That was just a mule car.

Calvin Schellbach 16:52

Oh, yeah, no. I was I was even just scrolling through the footage that we got, and I was like, dude, we walked away with some amazing stuff.

Vipul Bindra 16:59

We should be able to use that really well, yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 17:01

Yeah, no, even if you only use a bit of it for the final product and the rest is social media fodder, like you've got cool stuff to show off. You really do.

Vipul Bindra 17:09

Exactly. I think that I think most of that goes into the testing video. So you know it's like series of videos. So I think that and obviously it doesn't mean we can't use it everywhere, so it may get used in other series, but mostly uh there's a there's a whole video about like testing the car. Yeah, I think that's where that'll go. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I'm really excited to see it. Yeah, but no, and and the car looks so cool. So I I had no idea what to expect. So remember, uh, this company's developing a car from scratch, so I don't know what the process looks like. I I I've worked with them enough, but I don't I haven't seen like a mule car before because when I go there, the cars look amazing in the factory, right? Right. So so they basically told me, like, yeah, it's gonna be a mule car, which we don't even know if it's most likely not even painted. Like they told me at one point, yeah, this cannot get any drop of water because this is not painted at all. So, anyway, it's like a test bed test car, I guess we can call it. Even the interior is like 3D printed. Yeah, I was surprised that it had air conditioning, you know. Oh, I didn't know, I didn't set it up. Apparently, Mario, right? It was air conditioned. You told me that.

Mario Rangel 18:07

Yeah. Oh well, yeah, for the shooter was mostly inside the car. Yeah. And uh and he had an air conditioner, it was yeah.

Vipul Bindra 18:14

That's good. That's good to know. Like, I'm I'm so amazed. It didn't have interior, exterior paint, yeah, but it had an air working air conditioner. I guess it's Florida. Wow, but anyway, so yeah, when the car rolled, I was like, this thing A looks epic. Yeah for being a test car. I can't imagine what the final product would look like when it's all figured out or whatever. And then on top of that, um, like I said, what we were there to do sounded so cool. And what's other crazy is that we had limited time. So they rolled us at most we have an hour, hour and a half over at each track, and we had two tracks. So I was like, the only way we can do this, because yes, I would love to mount my Hydra Alien on it, put FX3s or whatever, FX6s, right? But then I was like, we don't have time for that. Hour and a half is not enough to get enough content. Yeah, so we were also experimenting, uh, because Justin, the guy from last season, had put me, you know, just introduced me to Pocket 3. And I was kind of intrigued by it. I'm like, that's what we can use. Because they make mini arms for it and we can track. And I was like, this is a testing version, anyway. Yeah, and we can get incredible footage, especially with drones, you know, you're using similar type of sensors anyway. I'm like, it'll match. Yeah, so anyway, that was the plan, right? We were like, we're gonna use to get rollers and any other B-roll, we're gonna use pocket threes, we'll have FX3s for A-roll, and then we'll have you for the drone footage. And then, like I said, when we showed up, the car looked beautiful, everything went great. But when you started flying that thing, you got really close. I mean, that was really cool to me.

Calvin Schellbach 19:37

Yeah, I like to fly in close proximity. I mean, for there's lots of different uses for FPV, again, like races, you've heard freestyle where people just do a lot of crazy tricks and flying through really tight gaps, and then there's just the filming part, and that's the part that I love. Like, I want to chase stuff, I want to do the really get those really cool visuals. I want to feel like I'm the fight in the fighter jet flying next to this fast moving thing, trying to get those swing around in front of them and get those cool angles or just get down kind of low on the road, like things that a normal drone would not give you or not give you as easily as these do. That's what I want to do.

Vipul Bindra 20:14

No, that was really cool because I don't know, impromptu, they added the skid part to the test or whatever. That was that was some of the best. And it's so cool, yeah. I know. So he goes uh and you know, he's doing uh you know, donuts, I guess is the way to say, well, we're testing. Yeah, but I'm like, oh my goodness, we need drone. And you were you were like at one point, I I remember you like even tapped it, and and I'm so amazed you didn't crash that one. You you quite literally went, and I was like, This is so cool. I know you say that to me, it looks really cool because we go quite literally right to it and back up. I don't know. It was I thought it was cool.

Calvin Schellbach 20:46

Yeah, no, it looking back, like that was I used this drone for that, and that footage is like when I got up really close and you see him do that burnout, and there's that other part where the car's going this way, and I'm like tracking them perfectly.

GoPro Versus DJI Action Color

Vipul Bindra 21:00

Dude, that's so cool. What camera were you using?

Calvin Schellbach 21:03

So tell people uh so this is the GoPro Hero 11 Mini. Um, this was the, if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time since the GoPro Hero 6 that GoPro gave us a new sensor. Okay. And I don't remember the actual specifications. I this is a sensor that's all in its own class. There's not another camera, I believe, that has a sensor that's like this one. They custom designed it for this. And I know they're on the 13 right now, but it's the 13 is still running the same internally. I think it's the exact same camera, they just have different software that drives them. Because the before that, the last time we got a new sensor was in the GoPro Hero 6. Wow, so they don't change them that often. Yeah, with GoPro, a lot of the updates, sometimes it's a really big update, and sometimes it's kind of like the new iPhone where it's kind of like a half step up, but it's not really anything, you know, dramatically.

Vipul Bindra 21:53

Yeah. No, and I'm surprised to be honest. Like I said, I don't film with GoPros that much. We'll use them here and there. Yeah. But it's rare. And uh I was very happy with the footage. And obviously people have to understand this is not FX6 or some kind of cinema camera. Right. Yeah, we're not flying Cine lifter, and it'd be really hard to do what we were doing with the Cine lifter, especially with how expensive this car is. The thing is we don't want to take huge risks either. Because we don't want to obviously it's a mule car, but still we don't want to damage it or whatever. Uh so but no, the footage was incredible. At no point was I like, oh, this is footage is not usable. I'm rather amazed, especially after you processed it through what is it?

Calvin Schellbach 22:30

Um uh it's it used to be called Real Steady. I think now so RealSteady was its own platform, and then people started the FPV community started really using it a lot, and GoPro bought it, and now I believe it's now just called GoPro Player, but it's all the same software. Okay. Uh DJI's Osmo action series has something called Rocksteady, which is built into the camera that's similar, and that's what I flew on this one the first time, and that morning footage looked really good too.

Vipul Bindra 22:59

I was very impressed. So I always thought, to be honest, that the GoPro had it better, and again, remember, I don't shoot with these cameras every day. I always thought GoPro footage was has is is better than Osmo, but I've after I looked at it, I was like, this action file looks so good. We need to get uh I need to get one of those uh just for yeah, like you know, an interior shot they were redoing or something like that. And I was like, this would be a really good ad, especially when I looked at the price. It was only like $350. Yeah. So for the price, it's basically comparable to a GoPro. Uh, I thought, and again, this may be subjective. I'm sort of there sure there's videos online that they can watch comparison when you have 13 or whatever, and and and the action pro five or whatever. But to me, the that looked better, and I also like D log. Uh right, because we can work with it a lot better.

Calvin Schellbach 23:44

Yeah, and DJI gives you a true, a true log profile where GoPros they call it GoPro log, but it's really just a flat color profile. It's meant for color grading, and you still get 10-bit color, and you can I've seen people get incredible results with GoPro. Um, but it's for me and for my workflow inside of DaVinci Resolve, I like having a true log profile because whenever I mess with GoPro, I kind of have to rewire my brain a little bit to figure out what I'm doing because it is a different process to again, you can still achieve a great result if you know what you're doing. It's just a different process of getting there. Yeah. And then um, Insta360 also has an action camera. I think it's five is the latest one I know.

Vipul Bindra 24:26

Yeah, but I think the other one is different. I know the one you're talking about.

Calvin Schellbach 24:29

Yeah, it's uh yeah, it's whatever their answer is to this, but incredible low light performance. I've out of all three, it has the best low light, and I don't know how they did it.

Vipul Bindra 24:38

Yeah, I I don't either. All I know is after that shoot, my bra like I said, I'd already been to put towards these smaller sensors by other people I know. Yeah, because you know, my bread and butter have been these cameras for the last couple of years, and they they they make enough money. I'm good, you know. But I was like genuinely like, hey, I see a use case. Now, is this gonna replace any of them? No, right, but at that shoot, I was like, when we're moving fast pace, we need tight spaces, you know, software with the bigger stuff doesn't work anyway. Right. Uh I I and I was thinking about upgrading my GoPros because I'm still on the eight, uh, because I don't use them that much. And I was like, it's time to upgrade. Now I'm like, I don't know if I want to get a GoPro. I was like, if I can get an action five and a pocket three, that'd be a good addition to the to the lineup that we have here. Same color signs. Yeah, and I and and they look, yeah. Plus, we have the Ronin now, so we already will be you know, grading, I'm saying D-Log footage anyway. So, but um either way, I'm just saying I was very impressed with the footage, but I was also impressed by your skill. I know we vlogged all over. I don't know when this comes out versus when the vlog comes out at some point. Uh hopefully the vlog's already out by the time people are watching this, but if not, it'll be coming out. I can't wait for people to see the whole shoot, you know, from a vlog perspective. Yeah, because we were having literally the time of our life on that shoot, right? Because I was like, yes, have I done FPV? Obviously, have I done video production all the time? Have I done this exact thing like on a track with FPV? And you know, like I don't know. I I it's it felt incredible, right? No, it was one of the best shoots I think I've ever been on. Well, thank you. That's so thrilling. That feels good. I'm so glad I was able to have you part of it. I message Andrew, I was like, Yeah, thank you for recommending Calvin. It was a great ad because uh, like I said, what my expectations for for were for having you know you in the team, you far exceeded them. And rather, I'm I was already like my brain revealing, I was like, ooh, we could be doing this or that or next time or whatever, right? Mario, what was your perspective? You were you you were put in the worst situation of all. You were in the car while all this is happening. How did that feel?

Mario Rangel 26:40

Well, I feel also no for real, it was one of the most fun shoots uh I've been in. The only thing is when the car was doing the drift or the how you say donuts, I guess the other thing. The donuts I was I was also inside trying to throw something and trying not to throw out, but yeah, but it was a little fun for sure.

Finding FPV Clients In Orlando

Vipul Bindra 27:04

That's so funny. But no, uh, I mean to be honest, um you know, and here's the craziest thing like we are all three people now saying this is one of the most fun shoots we've been on. Craziest thing is that was the least equipment-wise my shoots ever. But literally, I showed up on a PG we were talking about the bag too, the PG via tech, I think is the company. Yeah, my Carion style case. I think I had that, and then uh a couple of FX3s, and then uh the Esteban and Alex who helped me, they had two pocket threes, we had two arms, and then your FPB drones. It's literally the lightest shoot I've done, like I don't know, since when. So I was like, for how little equipment we had there, to be honest, the footage that we got, the the how efficient and fast we were, I think was incredible. Yeah, uh, so yeah, that was awesome. If I can always just bring that little equipment, like I said, that's why I was like, you're one of the first few people who are who've actually worked with me and had never seen the van or the camera card or anything. Because usually I show up, you know, I roll with the card, the van, and I'm like, I don't need any of this on the shoot. Yeah, it was would have been unnecessary, you know, add-ons or whatever. Um, so yeah, if I could keep doing shoots where we bring that little equipment and we we kill it, that'd be awesome. That'd be incredible. Yeah, so how do you go about even finding and like you said, uh FPV is awesome, but we're in an Orlando market, not the biggest market, but not the smallest either. Where do you even go about finding clients who want FPV?

Calvin Schellbach 28:32

It is very, very difficult. Um the last before you, the last professional FPV job um I did was for a local company called We Are Winter Garden, um, owned by Imagine Marketing. Mark and John are really great, really fun to work with.

Vipul Bindra 28:48

Love those guys, guys. Yeah. Yeah. And funny enough, yeah, you worked with them and I know them separately. I literally saw them after we were shooting. So we were shooting that morning and the evening at the event. So I was like, what's crazy is that I was telling them about what we were doing that morning. I was like, it's so crazy that you knew them and you shot for them. And you know, like we didn't like so I knew them separately, and I knew separately. I didn't have know that there was a connection. I don't know there was a connection with the small world, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I literally saw them that evening because I had a a business event and he was there too. And uh I was like telling him I'm like exhausted because I was out with Calvin. And they're like, Oh, really? We did the FPV thing with him and we bring them on a lot of shoes. I was like, Yep, I I finally met him and he was awesome. So yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 29:28

Yeah, no, I I love helping those guys out. They're really fun to work with. They normally have really fun gugs for me too. Um, a few years ago, I want to say two years ago now, maybe. Mark had this vision for uh he I mean, he knew and John knew, and everyone knew that my love and passion for drones and aerial videography. And he had this vision for. Are you familiar with um the ride at Epcot called Soren?

Vipul Bindra 29:53

Yes, I'm familiar with Soren.

Calvin Schellbach 29:54

Yeah, so he wanted to do something similar to that, but it was I can't believe you had to ask me that, but yes.

Vipul Bindra 30:01

Some people don't. Really?

Calvin Schellbach 30:03

You know people from Orlando who don't know Soren is there, there are some people here who just don't like theme parks. Oh wow. That's what brought me here.

Vipul Bindra 30:09

Yeah, college program 2010. But go ahead. But yeah, so Mark had this where I worked. Oh, sorry, tangent after ten. I guess where I worked my first job ever in life. Innovations. Oh. So I was so quite literally right next to Soren. Oh wow. Yeah, which is not even a thing there anymore. Yeah, I know.

Calvin Schellbach 30:24

I don't think that's in the Soren is an incredible ride, and that is all aerial videography. And Mark had this vision of soaring through Winter Garden and flying from the top of Winter Garden all the way down, like the vision was kind of flying past like all of their clients type thing in all the areas that they serve, at least in the Winter Garden area. And it took a ton of planning, and we had to get a lot of coordinating and permission from people because a lot of those places we had to get super special permission to fly in. Um, but it turned out to be a really incredible video. It was a again, it was a lot of work. It I had to shoot it over, I think, a series of months because we would shoot some stuff, and then we either we didn't like it or we wanted to add to it. Um, one of the last places we wanted to do, which didn't make it into the video, um, the end was gonna be at Playa Pizza. And we wanted we knew we wanted to end the video with fireworks, and in the parking lot of Playa Pizza, you can see the Disney fireworks. Well, Disney is a no-fly zone. You can't fly anything there, super illegal. So, what I did is I put my camera on my gimbal and I put it into FPV mode, and I was running around the parking lot, yeah, going from side to side, acting like I had it on an FV. And I finally it took several tries, and people were looking at me weird, like, what is this guy doing? But I think I finally got one that was like kind of believable.

Vipul Bindra 31:48

Yeah, but it just you have like on a stick or or a monopod or whatever, yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 31:53

Yeah, but even even on my gimbal, like when I got to the end for the fireworks and I raised up, like you can only go so high, like even when you're on your tiptoes, you're like, this just isn't so what we ended up doing is we waited until the 4th of July, and Andrew actually helped me out on this shoot. We got to fly the fireworks show there at um uh what's it called? I forget the name of the celebration um that Winter Garden puts on. Um, but we got to fly through the fireworks that they were putting off, and that was another really incredible FPV moment. I mean, I felt like a fighter pilot going through there. I mean, just with the goggles on, like seeing the stuff just exploding next to me. And I was it was my first time ever doing that, and I was a little bit nervous. Andrew just gunned it and flew straight through the fireworks, and he got some really incredible shots. And once I saw him do that, I was like, well, no, I just I'm just gonna do it too. So my my last pack, I I flew through, and I got a really nice shot coming up underneath a big red firework, and I just kind of twirled underneath it. It looked really cool. Um, but that video again, after all those months of shooting, all the edits and re-edits like finally coming through. I know it's PIMS to the top of their Instagram page, and I think it's on their website now, but that's one of the biggest aerial productions I've ever been on. And that video is a combination of cinema drones with the I believe I flew my Mavic 2 Pro, um, which I no longer have, and um one of my FPV drones as well. Um like flying through Winter Garden Village was a really cool treat because I got to like circle the fountain and stuff and go through um that kind of walkway area in the middle and fly up around the clock tower. I got to fly through the crooked can area, I got to fly through um home state brewing. That was a like Home State Brewing cleared out the um their patio and allowed me to fly through it. Like that was really, really cool. And I don't know if I'll ever get that opportunity again. I hope I do. Yeah, but that was some of the most fun I've had on a really big project like that.

Vipul Bindra 34:01

Yeah, people should go. Why don't you pull up that video, uh Mario, if you can, look up VR Winter Garden. It's the soaring through winter garden, right?

Calvin Schellbach 34:09

Is the video called uh it's pinned to the top of their Instagram page. Um, I think it's on their YouTube page, and they they told me they were putting it on their website, but I don't know if it's their own.

Vipul Bindra 34:17

YouTube may be a place to look up. But if for somebody who's listening or watching who doesn't know what winter garden is, so we're in Orlando, it's one of the the close by towns, very beautiful, very beautiful downtown. And um, you know, I'm I'm a I'm very active there, a member of the chamber, obviously. That's how I know uh Mark and John there. Uh but anyway, so so yeah, that's why it sounds so incredible because it's a beautiful town. Yeah, so footage of soaring through there would be beautiful. Um, so that's really cool uh that you were able to do that. Any luck, Mario?

Mario Rangel 34:47

What's the name of the video you know?

Calvin Schellbach 34:49

Um it's soaring. I don't know if they changed it. Yeah, soaring through winter garden, but um, if you can pull up their Instagram page, you should be able to find it. Yeah. Or if you go to vrwg.com.

Vipul Bindra 35:02

Yeah. VRWG.com. All right. That might be up there. Yeah, see if you find it. We can we can let us know if you find it. Okay. Uh, but anyway, so uh yeah, sounds like an awesome project, man. Like I said, having worked with both of you, um, like I said, I don't know how how often I can do uh you know FPV, but this is one of those projects that as soon as you know it landed, rather I it's so funny to me that we're doing this, like I said, coming back a little bit. I was so worried because I'd been working with this client for a few years, but we kind of again, I don't want to call screw up, but you know, to them it may look like you know we screwed up. So I was like worried. I was like, oh, they're not gonna call me. And then for them to give us this project, I was like, oh, this is exciting. And uh so for for us having to do FPV, and like I said, most likely we're at least doing one more time, if not multiple times when the final car is done. So I was like, this is an incredible opportunity because like you said, there's not that many car manufacturers, and most car stuff would be like dealership stuff, right? Which is very boring because what I've done is like a you know, like a follow, you know, maybe a roller. You know, it's it's nothing, you know, like what I'm saying is like it's nothing that complicated, and maybe drone shot is like more cinematic, you know. There's no FPV happening for dealership commercials.

Calvin Schellbach 36:14

Yeah, I've seen very few. In fact, I think the only one that I in memory that I've seen, I know Ford did one when they launched the F-150 Lightning.

Vipul Bindra 36:22

Yeah, but that's a big manufacturer. I'm saying like we don't have access to that type of gig. That's what I'm saying. This would be the the only option that at least I know of locally in Central Florida that would be even remotely close to uh a manufacturer. Oh, yeah. Or or or like I said, and dealerships don't usually want to do FPV stuff. Uh unless, like, yeah, Ford has done it. Obviously, like I said, Red Bull has done it. Uh, but those are all much, much higher tier clients. We'll we'll get there. I mean, I mean, after what we did, I mean I don't know why that would be difficult. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, to me, that was just amazing that uh we got the part opportunity and we knocked it out of the park. Like I said, I think they loved having us. Yeah, we got the great footage. Obviously, nobody's seen it. What's crazy is outside of us, just what we saw, technically even they haven't seen the footage, right? And I'm like, I we just they just know we said I was like, hey, I'm not saying this. This is actually good footage. Because you know, Clyde Mythic, like oh, they're just saying I was like, Good job, good footage. So I have uh I can't wait for them to see the first video. I don't know again if any of this is gonna be included in the first video. That's the thing, I don't know. Right. We we're not client wants at the end of the day, exactly. So because it's like I said, 12 videos, so it may not be until the test video.

Mario Rangel 37:33

I found I cannot go into Instagram because I'm not logging, but here's in YouTube, I think. Okay, I found this one.

Vipul Bindra 37:39

Oh yep, yeah, there it is right there. Look at that.

Mario Rangel 37:41

Yeah. Look at that. That looks so incredible. So that's uh Wow.

Calvin Schellbach 37:48

Yeah, this is like a shortened version. Oh, this is uh Yeah, they use they use pieces of that video for this.

Vipul Bindra 37:58

Yeah, but no, that already I'm saying was it looked incredible. So, you know, people will use uh you know video multiple ways, obviously. So I guess they probably made multiple.

Calvin Schellbach 38:06

Yeah, I mean they they hired me for it, they can use that footage however they want to use it.

Safety Limits And Liability

Vipul Bindra 38:10

Yeah, exactly. I and I and I totally get it too. But I'm saying just a little bit what you saw is incredible, and you have like minutes and minutes of that. That oh yeah, no, I believe the video is just that, yeah. So that's that's incredible. And that's what I'm saying. I think FPV is an incredible art form. Uh I personally, and I and and you could chime in, but like to me it's different than traditional drone. Like, I if you say I'm a drone pilot, I'm like, I'm a drone pilot, yeah, but I'm not gonna touch FPV at least for hundreds and hundreds hours unless I feel like I train it. Because I when I take a drone off in the air, I at least don't feel risk, like right. You know, I'm like, yeah, as long as I take enough precautions, things are good. But like FPV is not only you need more skill, but there is an inherent risk, like especially if you're around people or objects.

Calvin Schellbach 38:57

Yeah, you really have to know what you're doing, and there's unfortunately there always is a risk because those a lot of the safety protocols that DJI has don't exist. Some of these do have return to home options on them, but it doesn't like always have a it won't land itself. Sometimes it just kind of comes back and it starts circling. It's like, hope you got me. Yeah, kind of thing. Yeah, and then um no obstacle avoidance. Like it is 100% on you as the pilot to know like how close can you get to this before you really start running a risk.

Vipul Bindra 39:33

Yeah, no, and absolutely, and that's very important because um, again, uh worst cases obviously, not that we don't want you to damage your drone, obviously that's very important, but to me, worst is like liability. Oh, yeah. No, I hurt someone or whatever. That's that's like the yeah. Can you imagine? Like I said, my client's car is like worth 400 over. And I'm I don't even know, by the way, I'm this is not common on the pricing of their car. I don't know the pricing on their car. I'm just saying they're very, very expensive cars, yes, you know, closer to that half a million dollar range, and uh we don't want to damage those. Right.

Calvin Schellbach 40:04

And that's why like for shoots like that, this is normally gonna be my go-to. The props are enclosed, they're deducted. So this is gonna minimize the risk of causing any damage to anyone or anything. If this get I'm okay if this gets damaged, yeah. I can replace the drone. I don't want to try to replace that car.

Vipul Bindra 40:22

Exactly. And then to be honest, uh, like I said, uh it was a mule car, we kind of did a tiny tap on it. Yeah, and I didn't even notice. I went back and I I don't because even though I know they say it's okay, I'm double checking for my safety, and I didn't see even a tiny mark. So that's the advantage because I think it's this the soft plastic, so it just kind of bounced back, and that was even a little tap, it wasn't nothing major.

Calvin Schellbach 40:43

Yeah, I was not flying fast at all, and they were obviously going slow as well. Yeah, exactly. So we're going to be minimized.

FPV In Hollywood And Beyond

Vipul Bindra 40:49

Yeah, you saw what how what speed he could go at when we were doing it. I couldn't even keep up with him at that point. I was like, yeah, this is what he could go. He's just being slow for us. Yeah. Uh, and that's just uh, you know, and and and that'd be something for us to figure out what to do when we do the final car. How do we capture him really gunning for it, but at the same time keeping it safe and also cinematic for us. So so that's we'll we'll figure it out. Yeah. Uh but no, yeah, he that cars can go. And that's their their point. What they do is like you could you could buy an old car, you know, and uh, you know, what do you call mod it or or fix it or whatever, rebuild it or whatever. But it's never gonna be like what they're doing. Their entire point is hey, it's gonna look like that one, but it's gonna perform like something you buy today. So you can actually take it to the track, you can actually rip it. You can't do these older cars, they're gonna not make it. So so that's incredible work, like I said, what we what they do. But then what we can do to showcase what they're doing, I don't know, it's incredible. Uh so yeah, uh, but what suggestions do you have? How can I like I say I'm sold on FPV? We don't need to sell anyone on FPV. I like FPV, I think it's cool, it has its place in what we do, and I'm talking more corp and commercial filmmaking. Obviously, RTC, you can do whatever. Right. Uh, but to be able to help brands and businesses. But where do you see at least do you have any ideas? Obviously, car is the easy one, right? Hey, fits where else could it fit?

Calvin Schellbach 42:11

Um, I mean, there's a lot of different places. I mean, I know um Hollywood has already started using them a lot. Um gosh, what's his name? Trying to think of the name of the director. Michael Bay used it, yeah. Ambulance had a ton of he hi I know some of the pilots he hired to do that. Yeah. Um had a lot of shoots.

Vipul Bindra 42:34

Yeah, uh, they also had uh I think there were cine lifters with like what FX6 or did they have Alexis on them? Yeah, I don't know what cameras they are.

Calvin Schellbach 42:43

Some of them, some of them are using those like really you're risking like 20 to 30k worth of gear in the air to get the shot. Wow. Like I'm I'm not that skilled. Yeah, I don't know if I would I think I'd be like shaking on the sticks if I had to do that.

Vipul Bindra 42:57

I think you could get there. I mean, uh the way I saw you fly, like I said, to be honest, in in the the environment that we were, it's not the the safest environment as in for you, because there's a car literally running fast around you. And like I said, most if I remember one tap, and that's a tap, that's not a crash. Yeah, and then I think one time, and that was just only because you lost the signal, right?

Calvin Schellbach 43:18

Yeah, I should have I should have been up higher.

Vipul Bindra 43:20

But I'm just saying that's not like a fault. I'm saying I don't think I don't remember if anything else happened. Nope. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. And so it you know, I think your skill is very high, high for what we were doing. Appreciate it. And so I'm saying I see a point if you, you know, keep doing this. I I feel like you could probably fly one of the Cine lifters.

Calvin Schellbach 43:40

Uh I I want to get there. There's a there's another guy I follow. Um, he goes by Nico and he chases airplanes and he uses um the free fly wave and the free fly ember, you know, those cameras that can do like 10,000 frames per second. That's so crazy. Yeah, and he's like keeping up with like the sport planes, like the Red Bull super. Extra 300, like doing crazy stunts in there and like helicopters that are flipping upside down, like his footage is nuts.

Vipul Bindra 44:07

And you can only you only have limited frame uh like time limit on those cameras, right? Before the hard drive fills up or SSD, whatever.

Calvin Schellbach 44:13

Yeah, I've I've never used one of them, but I would imagine so I know you everything is specialized.

Vipul Bindra 44:19

Yeah, I from what I understand, you have to be very precise with your you know activations. I'm saying you only have so many. I don't want to speak up on how much, but like it's very limited on how how long can it record. So yeah, that that also is the pressure on top of flying uh N FPV drone, yeah. Uh, but also talking about regular drone. I mean, we did put up uh a regular drone in the air. Which one was it? Um I flew the Mini 4 Pro. Mini 4 Pro, and that was pretty good too. That was for the the non-speed testing, right?

Calvin Schellbach 44:47

Yeah, I mean it did a great job tracking the car and the DJI again, also really good job with their RD and developing small sensors to look as good as they do now. Because I was kind of on the fence with the Mini 4 because it to me it looked just like the Mini 3 with some extra sensors. But when I started researching it, they're like, Oh, they actually completely changed the software that drives this camera, and I saw some pro color graders using it. I was like, You got that out of that camera? How did you do that?

Vipul Bindra 45:18

It's nuts. I mean, everything, I mean, uh, I saw I think one of my buddies has the Air 3S, I think it's a little bit smart. Yeah, that one looked incredible too. I was like, every camera they come out with, and like I said, now the Mavic 4, I'm like, that's more I that will last me another five years, as long as something I don't want Jinx to. Yeah, as long as nothing breaks on it. I'm saying, like the drone itself looks like the quality is not gonna be an issue at all for Ariel. Oh, yeah. Same thing. I'm like, you show me uh showed me the footage from these, and I'm like, yeah, I mean, as long as your drone works fine, like the footage quality is so good of small sensors. Again, like I said, not competing with these, but for what we're using. It's not gonna replace your full frame. Yeah, but what we're using them for, it's they're they're they're really good. Like you said, the the the they have indie filters available, you can make sure you know you know your shutter speeder is correct or whatever. So at that point, you know, you can integrate that really well with your your your A footage or whatever you want to call it.

Calvin Schellbach 46:18

Right. No, it couldn't, if you're skilled enough, you can blend it seamlessly and no one will ever.

Vipul Bindra 46:23

So, what do you do outside of FPV? Obviously, that's the key thing that I know you from, but I know you're you do more than that. You also do regular videography, uh, and you also work at the school. So, what are you what what all what tell us more about yourself? Yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 46:38

Um, so quick background on me. I used to work in TV news for a little while, and that is a very stressful environment, and for me personally, it just wasn't very rewarding. Um, I had a brief stint in PR and I was miserable at that job. Um, but then I got hired um by another company here in town that needed a drone pilot to do some real estate stuff, and I was like, well, this is perfect for me because I'm a drone pilot and I'm also trying to, you know, understand regular cameras and do better just on the ground. So I got hired for that. Um, my first few videos, as probably anyone who first starts in their videography journey, were not great. Um, but the it was a chance for me to learn and get better and better and better each time. And ultimately that company started losing a lot of money and they let me go, but that was my chance to start freelancing. So I shot real estate for a while. I don't really love real estate as much as I love doing a bunch of this other stuff. Um, but Andrew was a big help to me. He was definitely a mentor um for me, just kind of going through and as I was learning different cameras and different camera settings and different methods of editing. And then from there I picked, I got connected with Mark and John with We Are Winter Garden. I got a few gigs from them, and eventually I actually landed up at Lake Island Preparatory School, and I am their full-time video producer. So, what I do there is I work in their communications department and I manage all the video for their website and for social media or for any internal videos that need to be done for board members or just higher-ups in one of the school um school district districts, um, one of the three divisions, because it's um pre-K through 12. So we have lower school, middle school, and upper school. So I'm in all the classrooms all the time. I'm in all of the choir and orchestra and band rooms. I'm out on the athletics field chasing the football players and the lacrosse and the soccer players trying to keep up with the sprinters on the track. So you're essentially responsible pretty much all the video at the whole school, right? I am their kind of a one-man band essentially. I'm doing all the video work there. But I it's been really good to me. It's been really, really challenging. Um, they've given me a lot of really cool gear to get it done. And if I'm able to sell them on it, I've actually been able to fly FPV for them a few times.

Vipul Bindra 49:10

Um yeah, there's uh Do they give you a bonus for flying the FPV?

Calvin Schellbach 49:14

I wish, no, but I I totally was like, I'll do that for free. Okay, look at you. There's a card. I love it so much.

Vipul Bindra 49:19

And uh another thing, you cool you just said uh that surprised me. You said they give you cool gear. Usually I've heard educational institutions, you know, they're limited budgets, so they have the cheapest or older gear. Yeah. So you're telling me they're buying you cool gear too?

Calvin Schellbach 49:32

Yeah, so I have um an annual budget each year that I'm allowed to spend um to buy gear, but when they hired me, they gave me additional funds because they knew I was a professional. And they had a black magic um pocket cinema 6K there, which is a great camera, but for the type of video that work that they needed, it didn't have autofocus. And I was like, I'm yeah, you can't be running with a sprinter, yeah. Yeah, I can't be fiddling with that. Um, so with the budget, I bought the uh Lumix S52 with a Sigma 24 to 70 and the uh DJI Ronan RS3 Pro. Oh, the Lumix shooter, huh? Yeah, I love Lumix. Lumix has come a long way from what they used to be. Their cameras are you get incredible value for what you pay for. They've I mean they were good in the backographers.

Vipul Bindra 50:21

I mean the GH4, GH5, I thought, and GH5S6. Yeah, I thought they were really good for the time for the money that they charged, yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 50:27

Yeah, I had heard a lot of good things about the GH5. I never purchased it, but when I first started freelancing, my first camera I ever bought was the GH6.

Vipul Bindra 50:36

Okay.

Calvin Schellbach 50:36

I never heard that.

Vipul Bindra 50:37

GH5S was my last Lumix before I left Lumix. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I know they're doing incredible things again now, yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 50:44

Yeah, no, they've they've really upped their game. They're definitely competing. Um GH6 like gave me a wave waveform in the camera. They had um something called dynamic range boost, which gave me 13 stops of dynamic range, which was wild for a sensor that size. Um, that was also around the time like I was exploring color grading, getting into it, and they were giving me 10-bit color and 422 with all this, and it could also shoot Pro Res internally. Um just crazy small layless camera. Yeah, its highest bit rate was almost two gigs per second, which is nuts. Yeah, like that's a massive file size. Um, but the fact that it could do that, I was like, okay, this is a camera that can grow with me and that I can learn with. And because I was already like familiar with their operating system and how they do everything, it's like, well, I'll just buy the S52. And the S52 still gave me a lot of those features. Um, my personal full frame camera is the S5. I know they just launched um the S1H2 and the S1H2R, which are the R is their photo-focused camera. The S1H is a or no, the S12, sorry, the S1H is their more video focused camera, but that version hasn't come out yet.

Vipul Bindra 51:58

And they probably will because they're churning on cameras so faster faster. They also sent uh out a new farmware, right, for the other cameras though. Yeah, with all these new frame marker capabilities and you can live record. Yeah, and you can also spit out uh RE log, that's another one. It's a paid upgrade, though, but still, yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 52:16

I bought that for my GX6, I can shoot an RE log C3.

Vipul Bindra 52:19

Yeah, which is kind of crazy to think about. Again, uh it's it's there's limitations, still a Lumix camera, but hey, that's that still means you can use it as a crash cam for you know for a bigger shoot or whatever.

Calvin Schellbach 52:30

That's pretty cool. And another thing I like too, like especially when I was shooting real estate for the company that I worked with, they gave me the Canon R5, which is a great camera, but it kept overheating on me when I was doing video, and the Lumix cameras don't overheat. Yeah, I can keep recording until the battery dies or the memory card hits full. So that was another huge plus for me.

Vipul Bindra 52:50

Yeah, I mean, that's what I like about these cinema line cameras too. I've never had issues with the you know, ever overheating or whatever. One of my least favorite things was that with the because I think I had the ESR or something, I don't remember, it's been a while, but uh yeah, it would overheat and I'd be like, I'd have cinema camera, I think C200, it would continue going and then that would overheat. And like, like you said, I'd never had that issue with my GH5 or 5S and 4s and whatever, and and it worked great. So I was just kind of like uh you know, not happy with that. So I just left that whole ecosystem now behind. Yeah, uh, but no, these can the cameras have come along with it, to be honest, and now nowadays every camera looks so good. Yeah, so whether it's Lumix, Canon, Sony, whatever, so it kind of just comes down to personal preference. Right. Uh but I guess with school, uh with school, you're probably doing open gate. So you can do vertical, horizontal, or you're not doing open gate.

Calvin Schellbach 53:43

Uh I do it just kind of depends on the situation. Sometimes I'll do open gate. Um, I'm also shooting, you know, anywhere because with open gate, it I think the camera has to be in 6k, which those are really big file sizes. And sometimes if I'm doing just something quick for social media, I'll be at either 24 frames per second or 60, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish with. So you'll just turn the camera, I'm guessing. Um, I actually just crop it in to yeah, to be vertical. Or sometimes if there's just like a really compelling like wide shot, I'll be like, hey guys, I know we normally like vertical, but this is some really compelling footage, and we lose it when we cut it vertical like this. It just doesn't look good.

Vipul Bindra 54:25

So where are you then putting that YouTube?

Calvin Schellbach 54:27

I'm guessing where where else would horizontally um it goes onto our um Instagram and Facebook page, and it also goes onto our YouTube page.

Vipul Bindra 54:33

Okay. That's pretty cool. So uh is it just for parents or are they using it for marketing as well, all this footage?

Calvin Schellbach 54:41

Uh definitely for marketing. Um, some of it is for parents um to see, but um, there's a lot of other bigger video projects throughout the year too. Like one big thing that they do every year is called Heart of a Highlander, where there's no school that day, but all the kids and all the divisions go out and they help the community doing something for local homeless shelters or food banks or look cleaning up local parks, and they're all like we all have special shirts that all the kids wear, and it's my job. There's so many places I can't physically get to all of them in one day, but I pick I think like six that I try to get to and try to do that and do a kind of a recap video showcasing what these students went out and did that day.

Vipul Bindra 55:24

Yeah, that's pretty cool. And uh uh is it difficult filming kids? I mean because I know they can be you know the surprise.

Calvin Schellbach 55:33

Yeah, so it's that was definitely a learning experience for me when they hired me. Um students in lower school absolutely love the camera. They can't wait to be in front of the camera. They want to touch the camera. Um yeah, yeah, fingerprints all over here. Yeah, I know. I was like, I gotta clean my lens after this, but I mean it's it's really cute footage, but also you you get in that situation where like they all want to do whatever one kid was doing. You're like, I'm sorry, guys, like I gotta leave. I don't want real time. Uh middle school, you get kind of a mix. There are some kids who still really, really want to help you out, and a few kids that's that's kind of where you start seeing, like, I don't want to be on camera.

Vipul Bindra 56:09

Yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 56:10

And then upper school, the hardly any of those kids want to be on camera. So, like this past year, like I've been trying to like make friends with some of them so they know like who I am and what I'm there for. And I'm I'm starting to have some more success of you know, students who've got to do that.

Vipul Bindra 56:24

Which you would think is so crazy. This is if generation is literally growing up on essentially social media and putting themselves out there on social media, and yet you're right, as soon as you you put a cell phone and they're like ready to go and put it on the this is fine. That's not and it's so weird because it's like not that much difference between a Lumix and you know, I mean I mean they're bigger, I get it thicker, but still, you know, right? It's just a camera, but yeah, yeah, it's it's it's so weird, right?

Calvin Schellbach 56:50

That makes a difference, right? And it's a difference between you know trying to do a professional job versus something quick for social media. Although I know the new iPhones have Apple log for the first time ever. I haven't played with it yet, but I've heard people have had good success. That's incredible footage. Didn't Danny Boyle just shoot the entire 28 years later. Wasn't that shot entirely on iPhone?

Vipul Bindra 57:11

So I don't want to can you confirm 28 years later was shot an iPhone? It's probably, I think, but let's we'll we'll verify. But no, uh people have been using iPhones anyway, and the footage is incredible. At the end of the day, you know, it's the crew, the hundreds of people in the crew that make the the shoot really awesome. Right. I think camera is just another tool. Right.

Calvin Schellbach 57:29

It's the skills behind the camera.

Vipul Bindra 57:31

Exactly. But I do think you're right. For a school, actually, next year the budget, it may make sense to just buy uh what the latest iPhone is as quite literally just a camera, not as a phone. Yeah. So go ahead. Oh, we can't hear you unmute.

Mario Rangel 57:44

Oh, sorry. Uh 28 years later was yeah, film using iPhone 15 Pro Max. Look at that.

Freelance Life And Real Estate Pricing

Vipul Bindra 57:51

Isn't that see that's what I'm saying? Cameras don't and and I know people got excited. Like, what was it last year or the year before where uh uh the the creator was shot entirely on FX3, which is this camera right over here that's filming you. Um and uh people get so um uh like gung-ho, like look, look. I mean, like I see that the changes that yes, they can make a movie uh you know with a small mirrorless camera, I guess. But the thing is they've already done that. Canon 5D Mark IV was used, I believe, as crash cam in a few movies. So uh the thing is these are just tools, and people somehow get a little more attached that it's Hollywood, so it's like such a big deal. But I'm like, at the end of the day, Hollywood's the same thing, they're just using tools. Yeah, if they want to destroy a camera, they will gladly destroy an FX3 or a Canon or whatever over an Ari, right? And but if they have to, they'll even risk an Ari because like you you you talk, but if Michael Bay tells you take a cinema up of the building, you know, in an FPV, you know, whatever. Yeah, then and then that's just what's gonna happen because they have the budget to do that, you know. So uh I mean it's incredible that how far these cameras have come that they can like we can make a movie with our cell phone, which is I think the good part. Not that you know, this doesn't mean these cameras are turning bad, it's just these smaller cameras are starting to look again, what we were talking about, small sensors are starting to look so so good that uh you know it's a good world we're living in as creators, right? Better quality for less price. So how is it hard being a freelancer because now you you're also doing this 95 with the school? How do you manage freelance schedule?

Calvin Schellbach 59:26

Um, it really just kind of depends on what I have. I mean, I also have a family at home that I have to make sure that I'm present and therefore as well. So it just kind of depends. I I can't take on a ton of jobs, otherwise I would just never be home. Yeah. But if the you know the timing is right and the price is right for the work, then normally like I'm okay with doing it, and my wife is okay with me taking a day or sometimes two, depending on you know how much they're throwing at me to get the job done. Um, I'm definitely not making as much with my personal business as I was back when I was freelancing, but for me, it was a lot of feast or famine. Um, I I feel I did kind of trap myself because all anyone in this area knew me for was real estate. And I can do real estate and I'm happy to do it for the people that want me to, but it's just not, you know, one of those things where it's not your passion to do it.

Vipul Bindra 1:00:21

It doesn't even pay that well. That's the issue with real estate, is that real estate is not uh I mean it's gonna be fun. I'm no no doubt, like it's cool, especially with the type of homes that we have around here, some very beautiful homes. Yeah, it's just it's a mass market thing, it's a volume game.

Calvin Schellbach 1:00:37

It's not a there are there are a few realtors who know what it takes and are okay with my prices for especially with the higher end homes, because they want you know the super magazine quality photos and the high-end video, and then they want me to come back and get twilight shots with the home all lit up, like okay, I'm spending all day at your house doing this, and then spending probably the rest of my week editing this stuff to make it look the way you want it to. Like they get it, but a lot of other realtors, as soon as my price was over a hundred dollars, they walked away.

Vipul Bindra 1:01:06

Yeah, and I was like, I and that's nuts to think about. They could shoot and edit, and people do it. See, the problem is that not that your rate was high, it's people are willing to do hundred dollar shoots, right? That's what's crazy to me. And that's anyway.

Calvin Schellbach 1:01:21

And but my other thing too is like, okay, but they're you're not gonna get the quality that I'm giving you, but it's just a price tag to them at the end of the day. And you know what? That that's fine, it's everyone's thing. But again, I'm I want to do more stuff like this, like I want to do more action type stuff. Like, that's that's what gets me excited. Like, even on the ground, like when I'm like chasing lacrosse players or football players with my gimbal, or I've got like a GoPro mounted on them, like this ends up looking really, really cool, you guys. Exactly. Like, that's that gets me excited. That gets me passionate.

Vipul Bindra 1:01:57

No, I I I can tell. I was so excited when we again going back to the shoot that we were doing where you're getting really excited because you knew you were getting incredible footage. And and that's that's the passion that you want to have, you know. That not only makes you create good content, but that actually makes you wanna uh that makes you happy, you know, to be there. Because that's the other part of it. Like you said, you're that's time away from your family, that's time away from things that you you know may enjoy on the outside of work. And last thing you want to do is be at a shoot that you're not happy with, you're not having fun. So it's uh so so like you said, it's good that if you love something and you're doing shoots or you're having a good time, you know, last thing you want to do, like I said, no offense, if somebody's happy doing it, good for them. I have no idea how you'd make a living, but for hundred dollars, you're going out shooting a house, then you're editing those photos. You have to quite literally do five, ten houses a day minimum to like make anything reasonable with that. Like that's that's nuts. Yeah, you you have no personal work-life balance. Right. And then at the end, they I still think that's very low price for photography. I don't care how cheap the houses. Yeah, it's that your your people are worth more than that, you know. Because that's not just it'd be one thing if you showed up, took five photos, you left. There's like you have to select, right? You have to do at least some editing or some some correction.

Calvin Schellbach 1:03:09

Yeah, and like I that's the other thing about real estate. You have to shoot in brackets. Yeah. And I I hate editing in brackets. Photography is not really something I really love anyway, but editing in brackets, I know the photos look incredible when they're done, but oh my god, I've spent like 30 minutes on a photo before like racking my brain. Like, I I don't want to do this, this is not enjoyable to me.

Vipul Bindra 1:03:30

I'm sure if somebody paid you real good money, then you'll be like, sure, whatever. But usually, like you said, also the prices are so low that it doesn't make sense. Um, and you're right, maybe one day, you know, and I know somebody's already doing it with AI. I don't know if the AI does. Uh John Roose, who was here um last podcast, he's built a business around automating, you know, some of that. But he was telling me how recently he's eliminated his entire editing team uh because you know he's been able to use AI to leverage uh editing. I don't know again if that's brackets or whatever, but I'm saying maybe AI gets there where you know you don't even need to do bracketing, you uh expose and it can somehow, you know, just bring it back, you know, through AI magic. Yeah, uh the the detail and shadows and highlights or whatever. But but I know for a fact I'm saying at least somebody who's doing real estate around here who is just eliminated editing completely. I mean, they still have QC, you know, to go check and come back. But yeah, that's like if you were editing photos for real estate, it's like, oh, job eliminating. You know, it's like I'm saying AI is coming in and changing a lot of things. Um, so it is a commodity market. And you're as a as a filmmaker, you're better off not being in a commodity market. At least that's that's what I feel like. You should go out and provide, and that's not to you, anyone listening. People should go out and provide value, right? That's worth something, right? So to me, you bringing your drones, your experience, your hours and hours in a simulator to come, you know, create some some shots for us that we can use in a video for our client. Yeah. To me, is incredible value, right? And that's where you're appreciated. So I feel like you should go do more of that, right? Or at the school, even I mean, it doesn't have to be just FPV, where you know they value you because you're you're creating content for them, their students, and their marketing or whatever, versus they're not saying they can't. Yeah, no, that's just that's why I love it.

Calvin Schellbach 1:05:18

I mean, I get to see the stories of all the divisions in the school like come to life, and I get to see these kids do really, really cool stuff.

What FPV Pilots Can Charge

Vipul Bindra 1:05:26

You may want to bring it closer to and then uh no, that's pretty cool. So now let's get into the real nitty-gritty of it. Sure. For somebody listening, if let's say they're like hype, they're like, yeah, I want to do FPV. Uh what and I know it's varies, market varies, people vary. What can they expect to if they want to be FPV pilot? What can they expect to charge and how to charge if that's even a thing? And the same thing, I'm sure there's freelancers who are like, hey, I want to hire FPV. How what what can how much would it be to add to my shoe? So I guess give it a range because I know projects vary.

Calvin Schellbach 1:05:58

Yeah, it definitely varies. And it also varies by skill. There's always a bigger fish.

Vipul Bindra 1:06:06

I can attest to that.

Calvin Schellbach 1:06:09

So someone like again, like I mentioned earlier, J Bird is probably going to charge you a lot more than I am, but he's bringing not just his skill, but an entire team of people to the table. Here it's just me. My rates will be a couple hundred dollars an hour. If you want me for half a day, it's about five hundred. And then my full day rate for drone. I'm trying to remember off the top of my head because I don't get hired for it very often.

Vipul Bindra 1:06:38

You can give a range.

Calvin Schellbach 1:06:40

I think it's close to a thousand dollars, probably a little under there. Um if especially if you want to add FPV onto that. Yeah. Um, and again, it also just depends on if you need me at nighttime as well, and then how much insurance am I gonna have to bring with me? Like if if we're flying in the middle of an open field, I probably don't really need insurance, so it's gonna be cheaper. Um, but all that all that stuff is factored in.

Vipul Bindra 1:07:04

Exactly. And then what about so I'm guessing that's the same thing, right? So whether you want to be pilot, that's the opportunity, obviously takes hundreds of hours of training and then buying the drones. Yeah. Uh, but then you know, uh you can but that's pretty good. You can make, like I said, a few hours, which most people aren't gonna uh and my thing is just do not get hired by hourly. You should just have half day or full day rates because you know, I yeah. But either way, I'm saying it's good to have one. I mean it's very close to your half day rates. So it's like, hey, if you just need me for 30 minutes, it's the rate. Yeah, but I'm saying five hundred to a thousand bucks is actually pretty, pretty good pro uh, you know, what do you call income? And and uh uh you can always add more to it. You can bring a second pilot with you, like Andrew or whatever, and bigger jobs, so that can also double up. And then on the other side, uh, you know, look at on a production side to me on a on a good shoot, five hundred bucks uh for half a day or a thousand bucks for a day to add something that cool. Yeah, uh may obviously it's maybe like two, three shots we use it, but I think it's totally worth it. Totally worth to take the project to that next level where you know it it just adds that X factor, and I think it's totally worth it. And uh and it's not a lot. If you look on a grand scheme of things, that's what a normal uh you know trained uh, I would say, um, camp with a camera package would charge. Yeah, so you're not that I'm saying different. So it's just like adding another camera package, you know, too.

Calvin Schellbach 1:08:30

It again, like you just said, it makes you stand out. That's one of the reasons why I try to sell Lake Highland on allowing me to use this, especially during like football games or during special science projects. Our whole thing is trying to make the school stand out against the competition. And to my knowledge, at least in Central Florida, there's no other schools that have an either an in-house videographer or I've hired anyone that does anything like this.

Vipul Bindra 1:08:53

No.

Real FPV Gear Costs Explained

Calvin Schellbach 1:08:53

So we have that up on them that I have that capability and that I'm willing to deploy it for us. Look at that. That's so incredible.

Vipul Bindra 1:09:00

So, how much uh would somebody's investment be? I know you obviously have to attach your so let's go back. I think Evada 2 would be like the the most the uh I guess easiest way to get in. Yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 1:09:12

Um you'll hear some people in the community call that say that that's not real FPV. Yeah. Um it it can be. You can turn it in fully manual. Um DJI just has all their um you'll hear some people call it training wheels on there, which is good. If you're a brand new pilot, you definitely want that. That didn't exist when I was getting into it. So I downloaded a simulator. The first simulator I ever got was called um DRL, the drone racing league. And I didn't quite, you know, know what I was getting into or what I wanted to do with it, because that simulator really focuses on like the racing point, which in hindsight, I'm kind of glad I did it because it really helped with my reaction time. I'm not a great racer, but now I know like how to get out of a situation quickly, and I attribute that to my time trying to race for a little bit. Um, but in terms of investments, you gotta think it's not so the drone itself, like this drone right here, is made by a company here in Orlando called Rotoriot. This is the skylight, and if I'm not mistaken, it's about five or six hundred dollars just for the drone. It doesn't come with a GoPro. So if you don't have an action camera, you're looking at another five or six hundred dollars. It also doesn't come with batteries or a charger. So depending on how many the batteries for these are a lot cheaper than the DJI drones. Um they range anywhere from 30 to 60 bucks on average. There are bigger ones that you can buy. Um, but that's what I'm running.

Vipul Bindra 1:10:39

But then don't you need also the goggles? Yeah, that adds up. Yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 1:10:42

You've got to buy the goggles and you've got to buy a transmitter. Um, you're also gonna have to teach yourself um a program called Beta Flight or INAV, which is how you kind of program this drone to respond to the controls, which that's a whole other series. That's why like there are there are companies who have FPV people who that is just their job is only FPV because it's its own self-contained thing. Like you you fly these things, you maintain these things, you even if we're not out on a shoot, like I know that they have them like they call it running laps, and you're out there like just sharpen your skills because the day of the shoot, like we need you to be able to do X, Y, and Z for us. Wow.

Vipul Bindra 1:11:22

I mean it's a skill thing, but uh, I don't want to also scare anyone away. But uh, as you saw, it's it's very attainable. Yes. Yes, there's a higher risk. You know, you buy an FX30 FX less chance of you breaking that. I'm saying the first use. So you gotta be careful. Like you said, put hours in the simulator, get comfortable, at least a little bit to right. Uh, but it's not that huge of an investment, especially if we already have an action cam, which a lot of people who are doing video do. Um the the you know, what what'd you say about a thousand to fifteen hundred dollar investment or something like that without the action cam?

Calvin Schellbach 1:11:56

Yeah, because the goggles themselves are gonna be about six to eight hundred dollars, depending on what you get, and also a a good transmitter, you're probably looking at for a decent one, three hundred dollars, maybe four hundred.

Vipul Bindra 1:12:10

Would be a realistic so there you go. So, like buying another FX 30 basically, yeah. And uh, so I mean, not cheap, but not compared to video production equipment, not the most expensive thing. Yeah, and I feel like um, again, if you're passionate about it, um uh, you know, I think it's a it's a good skill to have, especially if you already have your part 107, you're already flying the regular DJI drones. Right. I think the the only limitation I see is what we've talked about. It's just where do you go sell your skill? Like how many people are gonna hire you on a daily basis to come do FPV for them. It's the I see the only limitation. Yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 1:12:45

Yeah, it's definitely harder. Again, a lot of the people that I know who do it professionally travel a lot. Now they get to fly in some incredible places, like sporting stadiums and natural parks and like flying around cruise ships and stuff like that. It's really, really cool stuff, but to be like the local guy is difficult because even if there are jobs, they're not coming at you frequently. Yeah. And it's something that I I should have put more thought into it, but I'm I'm glad that I have it. It's something that I'm passionate about. And if anyone ever asks to hire me to do it, like I really want to jump on that because I I still do want to be that guy. It is something that I truly enjoy every moment that I get to do it. And I have also just, you know, you live for that wow factor that people get when they see that. Like, wow, that looks really cool. Like, yeah, I did that. Like, that's yeah, it makes me feel good.

Vipul Bindra 1:13:38

Exactly. And it's it's it's it's its own thing, like I said, it's an emotion, especially like uh again. I had Dalton on the podcast. He was talking about how he's the guy for action, you know. Yeah, uh yes, am I showing a hospital? Am I gonna use hosp FPV? No, most likely, you know, I'm saying I'm gonna use the regular drone, show it like nice smooth shot. But when we're doing stuff which is high action, like he was talking about, you know, biking, kayaking, I don't know, BMX, stuff like that, I don't know, surfing. That's where to me this FPV all of a sudden like just clicks because not only we were showing high action stuff, but to to feel that high action, a smooth drone is just not the right thing, I feel like. Yeah, that's where you want FPV because you're all your camera is also enhancing the motion. Right. It's giving you that factor of being in it, you know. I don't know. It just I I don't know. I think it's really cool.

Calvin Schellbach 1:14:27

Yeah, no, that goes back to what I said earlier of giving you that sense of like, oh, I am flying. Like that's giving me like you mentioned surfing. Like I've seen a shot where they they chased the surfer through the wave as it's curling down and the drone's like in it. Like, oh, you could have lost everything right there.

Insurance And Accepting Drone Risk

Vipul Bindra 1:14:42

Exactly. So there's risk, I'm guessing. So do you like you talk about uh I know you mentioned about insurance because there's a high chance when you're doing this, you can lose your drone. So how do you cover it to yourself? Is it expensive to um or do you really risk it?

Calvin Schellbach 1:14:55

You know, it kind of depends on you know how much coverage you think you need. Um, I go through a company called Skywatch, if I'm not mistaken. Um, and you can buy coverage the day of. Okay. Um, and I can be insured, I think, over a million dollars. Um if I need it. Thankfully, I've never had to do it.

Vipul Bindra 1:15:14

Uh I don't think uh again, obviously it's good to be covered, but like you said, there's a high chance less likely you'll damage other people's stuff. It may just be you crash your drone, like on a wave, for example, whatever, and you want to be able to get your drone back, right? Or something like that, or at least some money.

Calvin Schellbach 1:15:27

Yeah, and I but I mean with with these again, like uh on a shoot like that, I would much rather the result be like this got destroyed than the subject got destroyed. Like I will happily pay the four or five hundred dollars to replace this drone.

Vipul Bindra 1:15:41

Yeah, but isn't that a risk? So let's say you're making half a day shoot, you're doing five hundred dollar shoot, and then you lose your five hundred dollar yeah, is then isn't that like just a loss? I mean, technically GoPro too. Hey, we're forgetting. Yeah, no, the GoPro can get damaged too.

Calvin Schellbach 1:15:55

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's an inherent risk, but that's that's part of FPV. I mean, people crash all the time, even the pros crash sometimes, so it just yeah, you you're rolling the dice. But if you if you're confident in your skills and you've got enough practice, not just in the simulator, but in real life, because they are different still. A simulator is only gonna help you so much. Yeah. Plus, I'm sure each drone is slightly different, so you have to know they are this one speed, and yeah. This one has a lot more power under it than this one does. This one flies slower, but again, if I'm gonna fly around people, this is the one to do it. Absolutely. And this would be more for this would be for chasing cars or boats or maybe even airplanes. Yeah, I've never chased it. I would love to chase a plate.

Vipul Bindra 1:16:41

We gotta get uh I know last time you didn't have endy, we gotta get indie for the um Oh the Osmo. Yeah, I need to buy and you have the five, right? Or do you have the four? Yeah, five. The newest one. Yeah, yeah. We need to get um, well, I I said we you need to get it. No, I know. I mean I need to buy some. But that was uh I think that was the only thing. I was like, that'd be so cool. Because I would love to, yeah, like I said, chase that car even faster than we can. Maybe even maybe it's not on turn, maybe it's just straight, straight line or whatever. But no, we could do that. But it was it's really good. I mean, what we're already got, but I was like, next time we gotta you're gonna push it without within reason because that that'll definitely be the production car. Yeah, I get yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 1:17:16

And I and again, like even if I gun this, yeah, depending on if I even can guess how much horsepower that thing had, he can probably outrun me.

Vipul Bindra 1:17:24

Yeah, but most likely. But I guess we can ask them to drive a little slower, or maybe we'll just only get a section. Maybe to me, that's even a cool shot where you know you're chasing and the car just goes. That shows how fast the car is.

Calvin Schellbach 1:17:36

There was one shot when I was reviewing the footage that I got with the Osmo where he was kind of coming down that hill and I was flying at him and he just went under me real fast. Like that looked really cool.

Vipul Bindra 1:17:44

Exactly. That's I hope I guess he was in the edit, man. I do too. But that was that was a really good shot. And if not, we can, like you said, at least throw it on social media. Because once it comes out, I I have no issue, you know, us putting that in, like, hey, look what we captured, or something like that. Uh, because I said incredible footage. Yeah. Um, so but like I said, most likely we will hook it's 12 videos. Right. There's enough opportunity to throw footage in. Yeah, something, yeah, something's gonna make it in. Yeah, exactly. Uh, but no, that's pretty cool, man. So what's next for you? I know obviously it seems like you're you're doing pretty well. You're you know, like you said, managing family life, managing job, managing freelance, trying to do FPV, you know. I mean, that's that's a lot already. Yeah.

Leveling Up Color Grading Skills

Calvin Schellbach 1:18:22

So what's kind of next for you? Um, so for me, I'm always about just trying to expand my skill set. I don't want to, you know, become stagnant. One thing I'm doing right now is I'm still trying to get even better at color grading and make those more accurate and more creative color grades that really kind of give you that wow factor. Um, I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I just did my first like really successful color separation on a project. Uh I got to travel with a group of students up to Crystal River. They were it was a um science class and they got to swim with manatees and I took the um GoPro underneath.

Vipul Bindra 1:19:00

But you know, the Florida thing, yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 1:19:02

Yeah, yeah, right. Um, but um and I was recording like the manatee like swimming up to the kids as they were feeding it and stuff, and like it's cool footage, but I was finally able to um separate the color of like the manatee and the water, and the like kids were all on like pool noodles and stuff, and now it looks like a lot more realistic because originally the manatee was this kind of yellow-green hue underwater, and the water was also this kind of off green from the GoPro, and like I made it, I think I made it look incredible. I was really, really proud of myself. You gotta show me that for the I'm hoping it's gonna make it to the website because I was like, Oh man, I nailed this one.

Vipul Bindra 1:19:38

I know I nailed it. Exactly. And watch the you know, the thing about it, and then they go, ah, it's not necessary.

Calvin Schellbach 1:19:43

I know, and it's it's one of those things like no one knows how much work goes into it, like, oh yeah, it came out of the camera that way. No, it didn't. I spent so much time on it.

Vipul Bindra 1:19:50

And then it gets cut, and that would be the worst one, right?

Calvin Schellbach 1:19:52

Yeah, we spend like whatever it's I'll post it myself. It's fine. Exactly. Then you go, oh, I'm gonna put it on the code. I'll do the thing where they do the color breakdown, like law, put in the cut, yeah, all that anyway. Yeah.

Vipul Bindra 1:20:03

Um, that that's a smart move. That's just that's the stuff people like watching on social media.

Calvin Schellbach 1:20:06

Yeah, so like I I want to do that. Um, I do still um spend some time in the simulator in case people want to ever hire me again for something like that. Um, and I'm also even though I don't freelance as frequently, like I still want to expand, you know, my skill set and my gear set and upgrade to get better equipment. So if someone ever does need me to one man ban for them, I mean Andrew, um, I did a job for him. Um, no, I worked with him on a shoot, it was a full-day shoot with Edge Factory Um at the Orange County Convention Center. And I I had a blast working with him all day long. I was like, I wish I had better gear, and now I do have better gear. Yeah, so what did you acquire?

Vipul Bindra 1:20:46

Another Lumix for yourself?

Calvin Schellbach 1:20:47

Yep. I have uh initially when I did that job with him, I had the um my GH6 with me, which was fine until nighttime. Yeah, and then that's the micro four thirds. Yeah, the micro four thirds was just struggling. Um, and this was not a job that anyone was gonna do any any bit of color grading on, so it just wasn't I I felt like I was a detriment to him. But now I have the S52X, which has a full frame and does a much better job in low light and looks a lot better.

Vipul Bindra 1:21:14

Yeah, the full frame, that's the that's one of the advantages. Like I've talked with people, I'm like, hey, if you're just buying gear, you're doing controlled environment shoots, then it's not much of a difference between APSC or Microforth, even um, to full frame. But the the thing is, uh yeah, once you once you go in uncontrolled environments, but she starts to get dark, the full frame difference you can already see. Yeah. Or they put you in ugly offices, that's when you can take advantage of the full frame, blur out the nasty wall or whatever behind you, because that's typically corporate work for you. Um but the the um negative thing I I think of that is just uh microphone, it's kind of four thirds is kind of dead, I feel like. Because Lumix, I thought, was the or Panasonic basically the brand was be I feel like because Olympus went out of business. I know they were sold, I guess. Yeah. But then uh Panasonic was the last, you know, big holdout, like with the GS but G86. I think they even have a G87 now, right? Right? Yeah, they have the G H7, uh which is really just a slightly upgraded G H6. Yeah, so but I feel like with them pushing so hard on these full-frame cameras and so many models with so many features, I kind of feel like microfort thirds may maybe kind of be dead at this point. Yeah. Or may not be a platform that you want to invest in. Doesn't that be the future?

Calvin Schellbach 1:22:29

People say that a lot. Um, again, like for me, especially because I was so into like color grading, I was able to pull a lot more out of that camera than a normal person would. The only reason I can't remember if I told you this, the reason I'm never getting rid of that camera and I will always keep it, is it can do 300 frames per second in body.

Vipul Bindra 1:22:49

Yeah, you told me about that.

Calvin Schellbach 1:22:51

I was like, oh, I know I use it a lot when I'm recording um sports for the school and stuff. Like I'll get the kids like hitting the baseball or hitting the soccer ball like right into the net, and you get that really cool slow-mo, and I have full control to speed up or slow down however I want. And everybody loves the way it looks. Is it like high quality? Can you like is it actually good? Yeah. Wow. No, it's I'm trying to think of a recent example that I could show you off the top of my head. I don't think I have anything ready that you could easily access. Um, maybe if you go to their website and find the sports, the athletics page, you might find some of it.

Vipul Bindra 1:23:28

So if you go to the school and there, see Mari, if you find it. If not, I mean not a big deal. But yeah, that's pretty cool though. I didn't know G86 could do that, like where uh it could actually um you know record that high frame rate.

Calvin Schellbach 1:23:42

And it's continuous too. It will just you hit record and it will just keep shooting that whole time, which is awesome.

Vipul Bindra 1:23:49

See, that's the advantage of microfort. It doesn't overheat as much, I guess, so they don't they can they can push it to the limit, you know.

Calvin Schellbach 1:23:55

Right, and that's why well the rumor mill about the S1H2 is swirling. I don't know, this is not confirmed, this is all hearsay, but the S1H2, one of the rumors I saw is I can do 600 frames per second, and that's a full frame camera.

Vipul Bindra 1:24:09

Yeah, we'll see about it. I know. I I mean that'd be incredible though. I hope yeah, that'd be really cool. That may be just an ad for everyone, then it's like, hey, just get that just right because I know camera.

Calvin Schellbach 1:24:20

Right now the standard is like 120. Yeah, that's what I use.

Vipul Bindra 1:24:23

Yeah, all my cameras can be 120.

Calvin Schellbach 1:24:24

Which is still respectable.

Vipul Bindra 1:24:25

Yeah, and most of the time, to be honest, we're doing B-roll. I actually we just don't even go to 120, we just go 4K 60. Yeah, because the the idea I like about that is, and again, this is for B-roll, obviously, no A-roll typically. But the advantage I have is not only can we um, you know, slow it down if needed, as needed, but we can if if we don't need to, we just conform it to the 24 and we move on. Right. So we have that freedom in post because you don't know what's gonna happen with corporate video, right? Right. Uh so if somebody's, you know, I don't know, taking a teeth out for the dentist. If it's cool, then you can slow it down. If not, you can just leave it, you know, real time because you don't want to see I don't know, the big old whatever. I you see my point. Like, so it makes it just easy. So I've always kept that formula, like hey, 24 A roll, usually which is the two FX6s, and then the two FX3, like hey, put it on B roll, which is 4K 60, and then we'll slow it down or we'll conform it, unless for some reason, you know, we're using it as a third camera or whatever, then we can go back to you know 298 or something like that. But it's it's um it's not that like I would say um common for me to want to go to 120. But you know, when you do, it's good to have that option. The only thing I don't like is then you have to go to SNQ mode. You know, there's more steps to it than with just 4K 60. But that yeah, 300 frames would already be nice, but 600 just yeah, would be nuts. But it's good to have that as an option in your back pocket, you know, for shoots where you need it.

Calvin Schellbach 1:25:50

Yeah, no, I've I've loved it, and everyone who sees it thinks it looks great and like, yep, I'm keeping this camera.

Where To Find Calvin

Vipul Bindra 1:25:56

That's pretty cool, man. So awesome. Well, can't wait to have you back. Yeah, I think it's gonna be incredible to have you back and like say I don't know, budgets here too soon. But I would love to have both you and Andrew on the shoot if possible. That would be even more that'd be a dream. Yeah, that'd be like so cool uh to have both of you on the on on the shoot, and I don't know how we would take advantage of it. Well, we'll figure it out. I think it'd be it'd be cool, but we definitely have to run this again at least once. And uh I I highly recommend again if this shoot this talk has ignited somebody's passion. There's two ways you can take advantage. Look, a spent you know, go spend hours in the simulator, spend some money investing in it, which is really cool if you're interested in it, or like I said, hire Calvin, you know, or Andrew, and then there's a lot of great FPV pilots. I'm sure if you're not local in your area, and I I h highly recommend, I get it, it's not for every shoot, but the shoot where it works, I think FPV has so much potential, and I think it makes such an impact at the with the right shoots that, like I said, and the footage that I've seen so good. Can't wait to share it to people. Like I said, wait, wait for that vlog because you'll be able to see everything that we did, and uh, we can also throw in some clips in there too, so they can see what actually we were capturing. Yeah, uh, I wish we had uh, and I didn't think about that. We should have had you capturing on your goggles if it has that option. Uh yeah, I can't record and like show your FPV. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Yeah, I didn't either until now. I was I was I was more concerned about the main camera recording. Yeah, no, and I totally that's more important. Uh but no, that would be cool for a vlog. Maybe not for the actual shoot shoot, but uh maybe next time we'll do that for the next vlog. And I think we'll bring you back. Tell people where they can find you and uh yeah.

Calvin Schellbach 1:27:41

Yeah. Um so you can find me on Instagram at 400 feetproductions. And that's about it. I don't really want to share my website because I need to update it. Okay. Well, hopefully by the time you're watching, he's updated it. Yeah, I need to I need to get to work on that. That's not representative of who I am at this point in my career.

Vipul Bindra 1:28:00

Yeah. All right. Well well we'll keep an eye out and we'll make sure we keep pressing you to update your website then. Yeah. So it can showcase. Yeah, we'll put the pressure on you. So make sure it's ready to go. Let me know once this video is done so I can add some of this footage to my website too. You you got it. I think uh, like I said, incredible pilot. He does incredible work, especially, and that's not just edit. I don't want to limit you to only FPV, you do regular videos too. But definitely he's an FPV pilot. I think you're very talented. And I can't believe he came here and told everyone about FPV, and we can get more people excited to make their productions better, and then uh to make uh you know more FPV pilots uh interested in it. And then thank you, Mario. Yeah, thanks for being our producer.

Mario Rangel 1:28:45

Thank you guys for killing it again until next week.

Vipul Bindra 1:28:48

Yeah, until next week, and we'll see you next Thursday. All right. Don't forget to tune in. This has been uh Studio B sessions with me, Bendra.