Behind the scenes on the aerial filming for The Little Mermaid

The latest addition to Disney’s slate of live-action remakes, The Little Mermaid, retells the beloved story of Ariel, who wants to leave behind life as a mermaid to become a human. Halle Bailey stars as Ariel in this new production, directed by Rob Marshall and shot by Dion Beebe ASC ACS.

Aerial cinematographer Jeremy Braben Assoc. BSC and his team at Helicopter Film Services looked after the aerial filming on The Little Mermaid. Here, Helicopter Film Services take us behind the scenes on the shoot, which took place between London’s Leavesden Studios and Sicily…

What was the brief?

Filming took place in June 2021. We were asked to film a lot of visual effects plates to capture background plates for the build of Ariel’s castle, water plates, landscapes, cliffs – which were all filmed in Sicily using both drone and helicopter. We filmed plates to be able to show Ariel’s ship running aground. We also filmed the ship which was mounted in a hydraulic gimbal to show it wrestling with the water’s movements, for which we used only the drone (no helicopter).

A lot of sequences were captured at dawn or dusk. These included a sequence which we needed to film so as to match certain musical cues, which were played through our headsets whilst filming using both drone and helicopter.

Live action sequences involved using both helicopter and drone, such as for crowd sequences. The Alexa Mini LF was the camera used on both the heli and the drone. The lenses used were Leitz Thalia 70mm on the drone and the Fujinon Premista 28-100 on the AS350 Squirrel helicopter.

Were there any challenges to overcome?

There were only a few challenges which were handled beautifully by collaborating with our Italian colleagues. That said, COVID was a big one – i.e. working around the restrictions, people catching it, thus delaying productions, and so on. There were also some location challenges for our team on the ground, who needed to hike up steep rocky outcrops to set up.

On the various locations, Giles Dumper was our film pilot, along with Francesco Comensoli, flying the AS350 Squirrel helicopter with our aerial cinematographer, Jeremy Braben, who was operating the Shotover F1 gimbal rigged with the ARRI Alexa Mini LF camera and Fujinon 28-100 Premista lens. A helicopter was also used for capturing photogrammetry.

Our drone work captured both live action and VFX plates in the daytime and nighttime, whereby we used our Aerigon heavy lift drone rigged with the ARRI Alexa Mini LF camera, and the Leitz Thalia series primes.

The team involved:

● Director: Rob Marshall
● DoP: Dion Beebe ASC ACS
● 2nd Unit DP: John Sorapure
● Aerial DP: Jeremy Braben Assoc. BSC
● Aerial Technicians:
○ Oliver Ward
○ Sam Thurston
● Drone Pilot: Henry Bridges
● Helicopter Pilot: Giles Dumper
● Italian Heli Provider: Elifly

The Little Mermaid is in cinemas now. Watch the trailer below…