Photos by Kaelyn Sheedy

Can you believe there was a time before drones existed? Wait, you didn’t know that. Yes, there actually was that era. We’re really dating ourselves here, but I promise we’re not just a boomer site for your parents like Facebook. We actually adopted drones and use them frequently now, so we got with the times, but I’d be lying if I told you we still didn’t talk about VHS, Nintendo64, MySpace, and 16mm film all the time. Wait, you don’t know what any of those are either? Ugh, never mind, let’s just continue to story time.

So yeah, there was a time, many many years ago, like a decade basically, that drones weren’t even a concept yet. To acquire aerial footage, you had to contact some local airports and helicopter companies and see if anyone would be willing to come fly around dirtbikes tracks WITH a camera dude hanging out one of the doors. I think most times these people thought we were idiots, but they were always willing to take our money. If I remember correctly, it was roughly $300-400 an hour for a R22 or Schweitzer 300, and usually up to $750 an hour for a little bigger bird like an R44. That usually meant you’d need the heli for 2-3 hours, depending on how far they were from the shoot location, so in order to capture a moto or two worth of video and stills we’d easily be in around $1,000. Where in the hell did we get the money to pay for that? I still don’t even know. But we always managed to find a way for things we considered our bigger shoots.

Thinking back, I can’t recall all the details of how we actually landed at Stewart’s for this, but I reckon it had something to do with Randy Yoho (owner of Dade City and the one who lined up his helicopter friend to fly for us) and our good friend Justin Starling. We’d done quite a few shoots with Justin by this point and given his relationship with the Stews he probably pulled the strings to make it happen.

It was early 2009 and a pivotal year for film production across all action sports. Curt Morgan’s snowboard movie “That’s It, That’s All” had come out about four months earlier and changed the paradigm for what was possible with a camera in our realm. Granted we didn’t have the money to achieve near the production value, but that didn’t stop us from dreaming. Thus, the idea for EPIC came to life and I do believe this was the second shoot we clicked off for the movie. A couple of kids with HVX200 cameras, a helicopter, insane riding, and a dope song gave us just enough amazing ingredients to give the people what they wanted. I’ll have to dig up the clip and get it on YouTube for the next go at this, but for now enjoy the pictures and reminisce on the days it was badass to fly around dirtbike tracks in full-size helicopters.

P.S. This shoot is ultimately what inspired James to call us a few months later and request his own version. That particular shoot opened quite a few doors for me. Shoutout to Yoho, Starling and Malcom for changing my life.