In all the time I’ve known David Baillie, I’ve believed him to be an open, honest man and a cracking documentary-maker and helicopter cameraman to boot.  But now I’m not so sure — after his presentation to the North East & The Border Centre at the Northern Counties Club in Newcastle on October 18th, I’m disillusioned to find that he’s based most of his career on a tissue of lies.

Not deliberately, I’ll make it clear, but somehow he seems to have had a charmed life where people believe what they want to believe, and that what he’s offering is more than he’s actually claiming.

Like, for instance, coming up with a stonking documentary idea concerning the USA’s Biological Weapons Defense Research Department.  Approaching the Pentagon, he mentioned as part of his credentials that he was working for the BBC.  The next thing he knew he was in Washington, sitting at a conference table surrounded by 12-star generals, and with his own name plaque reading “Mr David Baillie, British Broadcasting Corporation”.  Fortunately the Pentagon’s enthusiasm for making the doc was eagerly reciprocated by the BBC, and it became a prime time programme fronted by the BBC’s then Defence Correspondent, David Shukman.  So the lies weren’t really lies… afterwards.

The point that David was making to his audience, which included a large number of industry newcomers, was that sometimes you have to make your luck, and if people are believing more than you’re actually saying, well… perhaps keep schtumm, and go with the flow.  But it is essentially possible, by being flexible, positive, and confident (at least externally) to go from being a Tyneside school teacher with a social conscience to becoming one of the UK’s ‘go-to’ specialist DoPs.

But the full title of his presentation was ‘DRONES or HELICOPTERS; TRUTH or LIES?’, and the first part of it showed an equal insight into the modern phenomenon of mini flying cameras.  As you might expect from somebody who has won awards for his stunning helicopter footage of Antarctica for David Attenborough’s ‘Frozen Planet’, David isn’t always convinced about the modern trend for using drones and GoPros in every programme imaginable.  He cited an experience when an enthusiastic producer on an Antarctic shoot eagerly unpacked his drone when the icebreaker ship reached the location point.  David was quietly thrilled to bits when on its first flight it disappeared out of range, and crashed into a crevasse.

He was not quite so happy when he proved to be one of the only two people in the crew with enough ice experience to go out and retrieve it.  To make his point, and knowing he was being watched from the ship through binoculars, he made a big show of pretending to destroy it with his ice axe.

He also demonstrated how the use of the drone on that shoot to track along the length of the research base was not as effective as his own static version taken from high above — mind you, you can only achieve that sort of shot if the research base has a winterised hydraulic tower for you to borrow!

But David isn’t entirely anti-drones, and has often made use of them himself.  In the right place, and at the right time, a drone can achieve something which would be quite impossible with a helicopter, where noise and excessive down-draft would make the shot impossible.  However, a helicopter can fly for 3 hours without having to re-fuel, whereas you have to ground a drone every 10 minutes to recharge its batteries.  You also can’t put the presenter and crew onto a drone to fly to the next location — 5 minutes away by air, but an hour by road.

So, Drones or Helicopters?... horses for courses.  At least, that’s what I think he was trying to say.  Of course, it all could have been a monstrous lie.

I’ll never trust David Baillie again.

GRAEME ALDOUS.