Our Drone Sank! But to Innovate you must risk Failure

By Tom Radford, Director of Innovation

Drone…but not forgotten!

Yesterday we lost ‘Pinky’ our beloved drone, to the sea. Pinky had been with us for a year or so and helped us take some lovely footage but now she has been consigned to ocean floor where, as the boss pointed out, she may well provide a habitat for some small fish who are trying to avoid being eaten.

Whilst we were all sad to hear about her loss, there’s an important point to be made here. The accident happened whilst the team were undertaking one of their most daring filming projects to date and, if you’re going to bake a cake…you’ve got to crash a few eggs!

Losing a piece of kit is both annoying and expensive and sometimes it’s avoidable but, you know what, s*it happens.

My mother is an artist and the most useful piece of advice she ever gave me was ‘Don’t ever be afraid to waste paper!’ Okay, perhaps not the most environmentally sound idea in retrospect but if you read between the lines, what she was actually saying was ‘Don’t be afraid of failure, don’t be afraid to experiment and learn from your mistakes’. These are the very tenets by which I live my life. Some would say I pretty much go out of my way to make mistakes in order to learn, an exaggeration perhaps but I’ll tell you this much; When it comes to learning, losing is a far more powerful tool than winning. Losing leaves a deep emotional footprint and that pain drives you forward.

Enough philosophy, lets’ get back to Pinky. We’ve learned a few lessons from this incident and one will be, perhaps, to practice more I suppose. But the most important thing is that we will not stop taking these kinds of risks to produce films and content because otherwise, well, what did we get into the creative sphere for in the first place? Pinky will be replaced by a new and better drone (one which can float preferably) and we will move onto bigger and better things.

Sadly I was not on deck to give her my last sombre salute as she was consigned to ‘Davey Drone’s Locker’ and so, in tribute to her efforts, here’s a selection of some of her best work.

P.I.P. (Paddle in Peace) Pinky!
https://youtu.be/Z6BJRq1h2pM