Cinematic Sky celebrated a major win at the SME Enterprise NI Awards when they walked away with the title of Best NI Drone Business 2023.
Tony Carlin, Creative Director of Cinematic Sky, collected the award and had this to say, “This was a brilliant surprise,” said Tony, “I recently celebrated 10 years of flying drones commercially so this award is a great way to mark the occassion. Im very passionate about what I do, I love capturing the beauty of the world from above so it was really exciting to hear i’d won the award for best NI drone business. I hope we can push on even further in 2024.
Tony’s aerial work has been a regular fixture on NI televisions including one of the country’s most beloved and most watched Tv shows, UTV’s Mahon’s Way for which Tony is the principle drone pilot. Last year his drone work also featured on BBC, RTE, TG4, as well as international streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky.
A former media student at the North West Regional College, Tony went on to obtain a 1st Class Honours Degree in Media Production at the University of Sunderland and later started his own company, Cinematic Sky. Based in Derry but working across Ireland and the wider UK, Tony and his team have been busier than most this last year with his flight logs showing he flew more than 98.6% of all drone pilots worldwide.
“My drone automatically logs the amount of hours i fly and I have to admit I was pretty shocked when it sent me the stats at the end of the year and told me I was in the top 1.4% of all DJI drone pilots worldwide for flight time! Especially considering the weather here in the North West where you’re lucky if you can fly most weeks between the rain and wind! Weather aside, I love this part of the world, it’s a droners’ dream, between the lush countryside, rugged mountains and epic coastlines, we have it all.”
The SME, Northern Irish Enterprise Awards 2023 celebrates the success of some of Northern Ireland’s best businesses. Awards Coordinator Melissa Bramall commented on the success of this year’s programme and its winners:
“It’s always a pleasure to take part in hosting our awards programmes. It’s a chance to see how people find their niche, enrich their industries, and, of course, help others to thrive. With their dedication, expertise, and dynamic teamwork, our winners have proven themselves as major players in their sectors. I wish them all the best as they continue to alter the corporate landscape across Northern Ireland – and afar.”
To keep up to date with what Cinematic Sky are working on and to see short videos of their aerial filming work click you can follow them on Instagram by clicking here.