We caught up with the brilliant and insightful JJ Trinidad a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

JJ, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

In the aerial film industry to become a drone cinematographer will need to pass the FAA part 107 examination to qualify to be a professional drone operator which has very little knowledge of actually operating a drone in a professional and safe environment. The part 107 license does not teach not govern how to actually fly a drone which is a very important factor of flying safe. The part 107 license mainly focuses on the airspace, aeronautical charts, weather conditions and manned aircraft operations. Most of the part 107 license pilots don’t have the skills to operate a drone and shouldn’t be flying professionally.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

When I was younger I got into the hobby of flying RC planes and gliders. I would build all kinds of rc airplanes which was a passion of mine for many years. Soon after around 2007 I started mounting small cameras to the fuselage on the nose of these rc airplanes and started making aerial videos and posting them on Youtube. Viewers were amazed that I could capture stunning aerial videos with an RC plane. I did this for many years before the drone technology evolved. 2010 I built my 1st drone, called the Tri-copter which was the early stages of drone technology using a KK Board, one of the 1st flight controllers from china from HobbyKing.. Back then (2010) analog video tranmitters were available and purchased my first googles from FatShark. It was my first ever FPV system available in 2010. Soon after the drone technology started to evolve and camera gimbals were evolving as well for small GoPro cameras. At the end of 2011 I stared one of the 1st drone companies in Los Angele “SKYECAM” to provide drone cinematography to the film industry and production studios. We pitched this technology to a few film studios at the time and started getting some business with this new technology. At the time the film studios were still using manned helicopters to capture aerial footage and they didn’t know anything about drones yet nor did they trust them. The early stages of Skyecam we built our own drone systems and the flight controllers were not reliable and we had many failures on set and crashed many drones and expensive cameras. We had to prove to the films studios that these drones were up and coming and they will take over manned helicopters for aerial filming. One of our 1st gigs was working for National Geographic, Animal Planet and Discovery Channel, It was my dream to work with these production companies because I used to watched all the aerial footage from the show “Planet Earth” they used helicopters and hot-air balloons to get aerial shots. I used to think “what if they used drones and get better shots” and here we are now working for them proving this technology. Working with them at these early stages is what I’m most proud of because of what we had to prove and show for this technology and the film industry. It was a new beginning of Drones in the film industry.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Most of the equipment I had for Skyecam I was already using from my RC hobby of remote controlled airplanes but the majority of funding came from all the new film shoots we were getting and I would always put funding back into the business for it to grow. Building my business investments. Also started building my business entity for resources and business credit. We also worked with the US military doing projects that they help fund for our research and development.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The beginning stages of Skyecam back from 2012 thru 2015 we had several failures, drones crashing and drones flying away for no reason and destroying expensive gear like gimbals and cameras because this technology was so new and it wasn’t robust like it is today. The film studios here in Hollywood didn’t trust drones and to make things worst a lot of consumers were buying them and flying them near airports of over peoples private property. Drone were all over the news and everybody was talking about these new drones were giving drones a bad reputation in the film industry. I was feeling that this drone technology wasn’t sustainable for the business at the time. I was losing money and losing business but I always knew the technology would improve and this was the future of aerial film making. We just kept positive for many years and kept doing what we loved and now these drones are used for all aerial filming and they no longer have the need for manned helicopters to capture aerial shots.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.skyecam.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skyecam_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkyecamLA/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skyecam-llc-875038aa/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/trinitized
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@skyecam