Wescam captures aerials on ‘Stars of the Bicentennial’

Van Nuys, California - Pictorvision announces that their Wescam system recently supported cinematographer David Torres for Mexico’s Stars of the Bicentennial production. Shot over 11 months time, the series of 3-minute promos produced by The Mates for the largest Spanish Television station in the world, celebrates the 200th anniversary of the founding of the country of Mexico.

“Our dream and challenge was to transmit through images not only the natural beauty and biodiversity of Mexico, but the soul, spirit, feelings and pride of our people and country,” explained Torres. “To do this we chose to shoot with both the Phantom and Red One cameras. When considering aerial shots, we found that Pictorvision’s Wescam was the best support system for the job.

“Wescam’s configuration and stability allowed us to install the Red camera with a variety of Optimo zooms, including extremely wide-angle lenses in our various air support vehicles,” Torres continued. “It was also necessary to have a proven, extremely stable, system that would work in a variety of adverse weather conditions.”

Add to that, Torres’ needed to have a known entity that could go anywhere in the world without being bogged down for weeks waiting for an export license to clear. With the unrestricted version of the Wescam, Torres was able to move back and forth between countries and between borders within Mexico without restriction. “We shot in all seven states, from beach to city and beyond over the long schedule,” Torres explained. “The Wescam system was constantly being shuffled across borders and from one type of helicopter to another. We would go from hot to cold, dry to wet, sometimes in the same day. We needed equipment that was strong, stable, and able to get up and running quickly.

“And, we needed company support that would be there for us,” he added. “Pictorvision was great. They were willing to reach a long term agreement with us, provide and coordinate technicians that could travel from the United States to Mexico and rig the system at least 20 different times in 12 different helicopters.” After flying the Wescam for 380 hours and travelling across 38,200 nautical miles Torres was pleased, “The beautiful images we captured to celebrate this 200th anniversary are due in a great part to Pictorvision’s Wescam equipment and the technical expertise and incredible support of Tom Hallman and his crew at Pictorvision.”