Richmond videographer Gary Milbanke made the video over four months last year after being approached by Nelson Cycle Lift Society chairman Jo Rainey, and it has been posted online.
The society is behind the gondola project it says will be a boost for tourism.
In its draft long-term plan released this month, the Nelson City Council has supported the gondola project in principle. The plan will be open for public consultation next month.
Milbanke said making the video, which was done mostly because he wanted to “help out”, took a good chunk of the four months and lot of resources to complete.
“We wanted to tell a story of a day out, there were specific things we wanted to shoot to put it together. It took a long time, obviously. Some of the shots we had snow on the tops of the hills then by the end of it we were down to short sleeves and were quite warm.”
He said Rainey’s brief was to tell a story about what a day trip up the gondola would look like. That included showcasing how close it was to town so “you can hit the bars and restaurants pretty quickly”.
“We wanted to tell a story of getting up, going out on this sort of adventure, and what you might find up there. Plus install the idea of maybe having a cafeteria up the top so there’s a shot that looks a bit out of place of people drinking cups of coffee up there.”
The video was filmed using Milbanke’s quadcopter, a little drone that uses stabilisers and GPS and has a camera attached to its underside. The quadcopter weighs less than seven kilograms and would fit in a shoebox. Milbanke controls its direction, and the angle and shots of the camera, through a remote control, which is the same size as an iPad.
“You can identify shots, whether you want to shoot flying over the tops of trees or whether you want to look down, there’s a shot of a nice little snaking track with riders riding down it so we just hovered over there.”
He said filming with the drone was a two-person job because the rules state the drone always has to be in eyesight and the other person has to keep an eye on the video feed. During Milbanke and his partner’s trips up and down the hill, he saw a number of riders pushing their bikes who looked like they would appreciate a lift, he said.
“If some of those guys could get a season pass or something I could definitely see there would be enough users.
“I think most people in Nelson would do it at least once.”
He said the project was not a commercial one and “as long as I can help out, I’ve done my part”.
Retrieved from ( http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/news/66482719/Backing-for-gondola-soars-with-video ) – 23/02/2014
Save The Brook 
Various comments on the Nelson Mail link are of interest, most are supportive, some more realistic – I’ve pilfered this one (in part) mostly because I agree with the sentiment :p
“Wow! 10 views a day! Now, if that isn’t viral, I don’t know what is….
I don’t see a lot of justification in the article for the headline “Backing for gondola soars with video”, though. Someone looking at a video clip makes them a “backer”?”
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