On Friday Jan. 21, We spoke to Alex Peterson better known on Instagram as @ap.mov and shared with us the story behind three of his favorite shots.
“It was just about a month ago. I wanted to get shots of the fireworks at midnight. I have the DJI Mavic Air, so the battery lasts ten minutes, maybe. So I was trying to be super strategic of when I was going to put it up to not miss the fireworks. I was sitting around waiting for the right moment to put it up. I took the drone flew it around for about six minutes and then I grabbed a couple of more shots. Probably eight minutes into it I had like two minutes of battery I started flying it back and I lost transmission on the drone.
My screen went black and so I lost reception of the drone and I started running towards the direction I thought the drone was. The battery was about to die so it started landing on its own and I didn’t want it to go down by where the crowd was. I looked at my screen it was still black and I’m like holding the stick to pull it back towards me. Next thing you know I look at the screen and it seems to be stuck on a tree. I can see the branches on the camera I was like, ‘shit there’s no way I’m gonna get this footage.’ So I was in this panic trying to find the drone.
I can see the camera kinda tweaking out and I see this guard standing by a fence. It’s in China so nobody is really speaking any English. Theres military guys pretty much everywhere at this festival. So I go over to this fence and I point at the controller trying to get this guy to understand what I was trying to do. So I was like, ‘can I hop this fence?’ While pointing at the fence, he’s like, ‘no no no.’ Finally I convinced him to let me hop this fence. So I was pacing back and forth alongside the trees and I see the screen and the drone like falls from a tree onto the ground.
Then I see the camera started moving again so I thought someone picked it up. So I walked down another 20 feet and I asked people by pointing at the camera if they had seen the drone. This kid found me and saw I was freaking out and pointed the other direction so I ran back and there’s a group of about six military guys huddled in a circle. I went up to them and I was pointing at the thing and they all look at me. One of the guys turns around he was holding my drone. I was so relived but freaked out at the same time. I’m either gonna get arrested right now and end up in a Chinese jail. I got it back and its like the sickest story ever.”
“This was a drone shot in Bali I think it was May 2018. I went on this workshop with Jeremiah Davis and Jacob Riglin. So I went out there for two weeks. We went to Nusa Penida its like this huge cliff which overlooks the ocean. It's the craziest spot ever, it has these stairs that go all the way down the cliff about 500 steps. Super sketchy, just like pic axed steps that go to the beach. So Jeremiah the dude that was leading the video part of the workshop was like, ‘Yo run down this cliff and ima get a drone shot of you.’ So he was like, ‘ok on three just sprint down the cliff.’ I did it four or five times and the last time I did it I was sprinting full speed. Right at the end I tripped up on this rock and slid. I was so close to just sliding through the dirt and off the edge of the cliff. You can barely see it on the drone shot. Till this day it's one of the sickest drone shots ever.”
“This was at Rolling Loud New York 2019 it was for MGK’s set. This was the first time I saw him live. I was a bit skeptical because I was never super into MGK’s music but once I saw him live I totally gained a new respect for him. He’s a rockstar honestly, he plays the guitar, plays the drums, he just kills it on stage. At the end if his set he climbed up the scaffolding of the stage which was like 70 feet up. He looped his legs through the scaffold and hung from up there. He also stood up there, had he fallen he would died for sure it was so high up. I was on stage when it happened so I kinda got a shot of him climbing up the thing and then I was like, ‘I need to get a super wide shot of this to show how crazy high up there he was.’ Probably one of the craziest shots I’ve gotten at Rolling Loud.”
Alex Peterson is a Wisconsin native who moved to Chicago three years ago. He attends Loyola University where he studies creative advertising. He got his start into photography and videography by shooting nightlife at clubs such as Prysm. Today, he is currently part of the Rolling Loud media team. He earned his spot on the team by creating recap edits with a fast turnaround time. Alex is now responsible for editing all of the Rolling Loud Aftermovies.