When Channel 5 needed Cyprus from the air

Backlight Media works as a local production partner and fixer for international crews filming in Cyprus. When Channel 5 brought its series Jewels of the Med to the island, the Cyprus episode narrated by Joanna Lumley, we flew the aerial unit: the licensed drone operation that gave the programme its view of the mountains from above.

The Cyprus most visitors never reach is up in the Troodos. We took the drone into Kalopanagiotis and the Marathasa valley, the terraced mountain villages, the hotel, and the winery whose owner the programme had come to meet. A visiting broadcaster brings the story, the presenter and the schedule. What they cannot bring is the airspace, or the local knowledge of where and when you can legally put an aircraft over a mountain village. That is the fixer's job, and it was ours.

The best shots are the ones you cannot plan. A traditional Cypriot wedding was taking place in the valley that day, the kind with a dowry dance the whole village turns out for, and it became part of the film. Capturing it from the air, cleanly and without intruding, is exactly the kind of thing a local crew who knows the ground can do and a visiting one cannot.

Every flight was fully licensed and insured, flown to Cyprus law and to our own health and safety risk assessments. Aerial work over people and private property leaves no room for improvisation, and a broadcast client should never have to carry the risk of someone else's shortcut.

If you are bringing an international production to Cyprus and need a licensed drone operator, or a fixer who can clear the airspace and get the aircraft exactly where the shot needs it, that is exactly the work we take on.