Shoot for the Sky - Sabah, East Malaysia

 

The documentary, "Shoot For The Sky", was a project that stemmed from long discussions between Air Venture and GS Productions after collaborating on several documentary projects throughout SE Asia. James Gibbs, Director of Air Venture Sdn Bhd had previously participated in a project on an island in far east Indonesia called Lamalera. Here, the project involved filming blue whales far out in the Timor Sea using paramotors. During this project in 2009, many ideas were thrown around as to how to develop the use of paramotors for film and photography further.

This documentary project, supported by Bio Channel, is a perfect proof of concept that paramotors are a wonderful way to capture images from the sky, both still and video. Julian Shori, Valerie Lew and the team from GS Products all put a monumental amount of affort into the production, filming and editing. It is due to Julian's firm belief in the value of this lightweight aircraft in its ability to capture spectacular imagery from the sky that this projec tbecame a reality.

"Shoot for the Sky" follows the journey of photographers Jonathan Tan and Cede Prudente on their journey to photograph one of the world’s oldest tropical rainforest from the air. The documentary will be aired over Bio Channel (Astro 731), the show will take viewers to breathtaking locations including mangroves on Sandakan coastline, Semporna Islands, the reefs and home of the sea gypsies and Mount Kinabalu, the highest peak in South East Asia

Prudente, 47, who was born in Lahad Datu, Sabah, is an award-winning professional photographer, conservationist and author of six books. Based in Sandakan, on Sabah’s east coast, he lives in one of the world’s most diverse and exciting environments. With Borneo as his home, he is ideally situated to document every aspect of this remarkable natural world and to introduce it to others.

Tan, 27, also won acclaim for his landscape photography. “Capturing the image is my passion, a lifelong dream. I hope to capture images of Borneo, before the Borneo I know disappears forever."

The objective here was to photograph Sabah from a paramotor thereby proving the paramotor to be an excellent and low cost means of capturing aerial images. Their primary mission here is to photograph stunning, never before documented visuals from the air and at the same time.

Their photographs ware stunning though, to do this, they first had to learn how to fly.  They needed first to master the skills of flying the paramotor then learn how to take pictures from this high altitude platform.With limited flying experience, their journey was full of challenges. Up against constantly changing weather patterns and tricky terrain.

All of this is combined with as much excitement you would expect from an adventurer flying off into the unknown.

The two photographers were taught to fly and accompanied on the trip to Sabah by instructors from  Air Venture. The equipment used was also provided by Air Venture. They flew in all three locations on Nirvana Rodeo Paramotors and Ozone Rush Power wings.  Also provided were Agama water rescue systems for the over water flights.

It training Jonathan and Cede, there was a great deal of pressure to adequetly prepare them in a very short period of time for the significant challenges that lay ahead. Normally pilots would have some time to build up their flight hours before being asked to fly up 4000m mountains and over tropical seas. Here, failure was not an option and through and accelerated training course, the two were able to learn the necessary skills to safely tackle the challenges ahead.

Despite the challenges, Jonathan and Cede put a huge amount of physical and emotional effort that comes through clearly when watching the show. They both should be commended for their performance and moreover, for the photographic results!