Drone Operator in Salt Lake City, Utah

You are not hiring a drone. You are hiring the person flying it, the person pulling focus off it, and the paperwork that lets it leave the ground.

The single most valuable thing an operator can tell you in Utah is where you cannot fly. Drones are prohibited from operating within National Park Service units, which rules out most of what productions arrive expecting to shoot. Knowing what is legal just outside those boundaries is the entire job here.

A CineDrones operator arrives as a unit, not a hobbyist with a case. FAA Part 107 certificated pilot, dedicated camera operator on the gimbal where the shot calls for it, visual observer, and the authorizations filed before the call sheet locks. We have worked on sets since 2013, which mostly means we know when not to fly — when the AD is behind, when the light is about to go, when the shot is better served by staying out of the way.

Permits and authorizations in Salt Lake City

The Utah Film Commission coordinates statewide. The critical thing here is federal land: drones are prohibited from launching, landing or operating within National Park Service units, which rules out the parks most productions arrive expecting to shoot. Knowing where the boundary sits, and what is legal just outside it, is the whole job.

Crewing in Salt Lake City

Utah's crew base concentrates around Park City and the valley, and Sundance creates an annual crunch where everything books at once. Outside that window, availability here is better than most markets.

We shoot the Wasatch range, the salt flats, the canyons, and the valley — and we travel. CineDrones works nationwide, so if your production is basing in Salt Lake City and shooting somewhere else entirely, that is a normal week for us.

What a Salt Lake City booking includes

FAA Part 107 certificated pilot
Dedicated camera operator on the gimbal where the shot needs one
Visual observer and on-set safety brief
Airspace authorization filed before the shoot date
Certificate of insurance issued to the production
Media handed off on the day in the format post wants

Cinema-payload multirotors, FPV airframes, and the smaller aircraft that fit where the big ones cannot.

Selected credits

Our aerial units have worked on Ozark, Jack Ryan, Bosch, Mayans M.C., SEAL Team, NCIS: New Orleans, Fear the Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Modern Family, 9-1-1, Goliath, The Resident, Raising Dion, Castle Rock, Doctor Sleep and Chef's Table, for Netflix, Amazon, Apple, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Sony, CBS, AMC, MTV and Bravo. See the work →

Drone Operator in Salt Lake City — questions we get

How far ahead should we book a drone operator in Salt Lake City?

For a straightforward day, a week is usually enough. For anything inside controlled airspace or needing a waiver, give us two to three weeks — the authorization is the long pole, not the crew. Short-notice calls are worth making anyway; we hold availability for exactly that.

Do you handle the FAA authorization and the film permit?

Yes, both. We file the airspace authorization and we work with your locations department on the permit side. What we will not do is show up and hope, which is the failure mode that costs productions a day.

What if the weather turns on the shoot day?

We give you a straight go or no-go rather than an optimistic maybe. Wind limits and visibility minimums are aircraft specifications, not preferences, and a unit that flies outside them is risking your production, not just our aircraft.