Hiring a drone operator for film and TV in New Zealand: a producer’s checklist

Echo Valley · 10 November 2026 · 7 min read

A drone shot can be the most expensive-looking frame in your edit, or the one that holds up a whole unit while everyone waits. Most of the difference is decided before the shoot day. This is the checklist we’d run through if we were booking an aerial team ourselves.

1. Start with the shot, not the drone

Describe what the shot needs to do: how fast the subject moves, how close the camera gets, which lens it should feel like, the time of day and what’s underneath the flight path. References help more than adjectives. We keep a constantly updated bank of inspiration and mood reels, and for bigger jobs we cut a reference reel just for that job, so everyone agrees on the look before anyone flies.

A little previs goes a long way, too. Sun-path and shadow tools show where the light will be at your call time, and satellite imagery can confirm things like snow cover before a crew travels.

2. Check what the operator is certified to do

In New Zealand everyone flies under CAA Part 101 unless they hold a Part 102 certificate. Part 101 keeps the drone within 120 m of the ground and in the pilot’s line of sight, and it needs the consent of the people and property owners you fly over, plus an air traffic control clearance in controlled airspace. Night flying and flying near aerodromes come with extra conditions.

If your scene breaks any of those – talent and crew underneath the drone, a night exterior, a city location near an airport, private property you can’t get consent for – you need a Part 102 operator whose approvals cover it. Here’s what our Part 102 certificate covers.

3. Single operator or dual operator?

A single operator flies the drone and frames the shot at the same time. A dual-operator team splits the job: the pilot flies, and a camera operator with their own controls and monitor runs the gimbal and camera. Working together, two people achieve far more than double what one can – the moves can be more complex, the framing is more deliberate, and it’s more reliable, because the pilot’s attention stays on the aircraft and the airspace.

On bigger sets a third person pulls focus wirelessly, which matters once you put longer lenses on the drone. If your shot needs speed or flies through gaps, add FPV; one pilot can often fly both a cinema drone and an FPV drone across the day, which saves on crew.

4. Ask about the camera, lenses and monitoring

• Camera. Will the aerial footage cut with your main unit? Our Inspire 3 carries the full-frame X9, shooting up to 8K ProRes RAW with 14+ stops of dynamic range.
• Lenses. A range of primes lets the aerials match the film’s visual language instead of defaulting to wide. We carry 24mm to 75mm primes, a 90mm and a vintage Minolta 250mm. (More on long-lens aerials.)
• Filters. NDs and polarisers for exposure and reflections, and creative filters if the look calls for them.
• Monitoring. Can the director and DOP see the shot live? We bring a 19-inch monitor with SDI and HDMI for video village.
• A backup drone. Ask whether one comes to set. Ours always does.

5. Sort permissions early

The aviation approvals are your operator’s job. The land side usually involves your location manager: landowner consent, council permits for parks, reserves and maunga, Auckland Transport permission to fly over roads in Auckland, and a DOC permit if the drone takes off, lands or hovers on conservation land. Some of these take days or weeks. Our guide to drone filming permits walks through each one.

6. Plan for weather

Drones don’t fly in rain, and wind sets hard limits: we won’t fly above 35 km/h, and the drone performs best in still air and well up to about 20 km/h. Long lenses want calmer air still. Agree in advance when the weather call will be made, and how standby and rebooking work – under our terms, a shoot cancelled for weather before it starts can be rebooked at no charge.

7. Insurance and paperwork

Ask for public liability and aviation liability cover, and for a job-specific risk assessment you can add to your production’s health and safety plan. Your production has its own health and safety duties, so the drone plan should fit into yours rather than sit beside it. Here’s how we run a safe drone shoot.

8. Talk about how you’ll communicate on the day

On larger sets, the hardest part of the job is often communication rather than flying: understanding exactly what the director or DOP is after, then delivering it take after take. Agree who calls action for the drone, how the drone team is on comms, and where the take-off and landing zone will be kept clear.

The quick checklist

• Shot list and references shared
• Part 101 or Part 102 – which does the shot need?
• Single or dual operator, and do you need focus control or FPV?
• Camera, lenses and codec matched to your main unit
• Live feed to video village
• Backup drone on set
• Airspace, landowner, council and DOC permissions underway
• Weather call time and rebooking terms agreed
• Insurance certificates and risk assessment in the H&S file
• Comms and take-off zone agreed with the AD