Podz-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast. Stories from the cosmos of paragliding. Today with Yves Jontschek and Lucian Haas at the mic. Yves Jontschek was 12 when his father first handed him a video camera, back when it was still in VHS format. He used it to film funny stop-motion movies, and his love for filmmaking was sparked. Yves is 40 today and still films with enthusiasm. And since he also does paragliding, it's not hard to guess what is at the center of his films. Yves became known in the scene primarily as a cameraman who regularly accompanies the German national paragliding team to major competitions like the World and European Championships. His professionally made cinematic daily reports now adorn not only the DHV website.
The footage is also being picked up by television more and more, and even worldwide. As a result, he has become an important ambassador for the sport of paragliding. In this seventh episode of Podz-Glidz, Yves talks among other things about what it's like to film paragliding competitions. He explains why 43 seconds in the ZDF Heute news mean so much to him, gives tips on what to look for in a good paragliding video, and reveals how one of his film projects led to a UFO alarm.
Yves, do you actually believe in UFOs?
I don't really believe in UFOs. But I think it's a great idea. There are many people who believe in them and who sometimes claim to see such objects in the sky.
Yeah, you once triggered a kind of UFO alarm over Munich with a project. How did that happen?
That's right. That was a project that actually came out of a fun story. There were these two kite pilots who flew from outside Munich into the city center or the edge of the city center with TARC. And they landed in the English Garden. And by chance, I had met the Austrian kite pilot Wolfgang Sears. And he has a light kite. You have to imagine it like this: he tinkered with that thing for so long until it flew around as a green light kite. And he built in neon tubes or something? Well, I think he built in those light strips or something similar. So, something light too, with LEDs. And then he put some LiPo batteries from model building on it, and that's how he flies it around.
Exactly. And that's how we came together, and he said, "Hey Yves, I thought that flight into Munich was pretty cool. Don't you want to do something like that sometime?" And I said, "In principle, yes. I have a lot of film equipment and I'm always eager to try that out." And this twilight situation—where it slowly transitions from day to dusk, because we're only allowed to fly until civil twilight. We stuck to that strictly as well.
That's something where you really push your equipment to its limits. Because in darker situations, many cameras get overwhelmed pretty quickly. I was glad that wasn't the case in this instance. So the test paid off, and for Wolfgang, it obviously paid off because he simply
made an insane flight there. He went along with the test. And
then he is
...the kite into Munich, all the way into the Englischer Garten, and the kite was glowing in the sky. That's right, exactly.
And it was towed outside of Munich and then, at a certain height, it glided towards
flown over Munich. So I imagine that's not that easy at all, maybe even from a legal permit standpoint, being allowed to fly into the Englischer Garten. Did you do that secretly, or was it actually permitted, including all the aerial footage you took there?
Mhm. So, regarding the aerial footage, it's less of a problem because I have the corresponding flight permit for the state of Bavaria. As long as I stick to the legal regulations, I can do it—of course, I'm not allowed to fly after dark. I'm also only allowed to fly up to a certain altitude within the city. Not over crowds of people, not over streets, etc. As long as you stick to that, it's not a problem. And what Wolfgang did, that was basically a flight of opportunity. So, the planned thermals flight—he just ran out of thermals on the edge of Munich and then he just had to land in the Englischer Garten. You say, I
I flew too. What are you flying with? I flew too. Yeah, you said I have the flight permit over Munich. Oh, that's...
was exactly, that's the drone issue. So, I flew the drone, or rather, in that case, I entrusted the drone to an acquaintance I know very, very well, who also has the necessary ability to fly drones—so, a drone license, insurance, and everything else you need these days. Because I was standing on the Olympiaturm to capture, with an 800 millimeter, so with a zoom lens, how Wolfgang came down and flew in front of the Hela. And that's also a scene in the film.
At the same time, this project actually led to a sort of UFO alarm. How are you supposed to imagine that? Yes,
the next day. Yes,
the next day. We had
called and talked a bit more about the project. And then Wolfgang said he'd already seen it, that some people had written something in the UFO forum and someone had even uploaded a cell phone picture. It was actually like, right in the middle of a street scene, one of those you know from the city center, with a streetlamp hanging across the road. It was already lit, and behind it, you could see this shadowy green triangle in the sky. And honestly, I mean, we both know what a dragon is. And we can maybe imagine on TV that it might be something in that direction. But if you don't know that, then of course you ask yourself, what is this strange, oddly shaped aircraft doing in that green sky at that time of night? And I guess that's how it was.
So, a few people noticed it and immediately posted it in their UFO community, asking, "Hey, did you guys see that too? Could it have been something we don't know about?"
The film is called Nightrider and it has gotten quite a few clicks on the internet, on YouTube and so on. And it even made it into the short film program of the Coup IK. Now, today you're known in the scene as the guy who always accompanies the German national team to European Championships, to World Championships. And you always deliver daily videos for pretty much every task, where you say, "daily reporting, what happened?" How did that actually happen? How did this contact with the national team come about? It all started...
back in 2018. 2009 at the World Championships in Mexico, in Valle de Bravo, where I happened to be and filmed Corinna Schwiegershausen a bit, who was there at the time. She obviously had contact with the national paragliding team. Sure, I mean the kite scene and the paragliding scene in the DHV, they obviously know each other. And then we interviewed this one or another pilot, Olli Rössel, Thorsten Siegel. So you really have to take a look at that. I watch it again every now and then. Just for fun. I mean, first of all, how crappy the video quality was back then and how young everyone still was. That was ten years
here. That
was ten years ago, yeah, yeah. And also the equipment they were flying back then. Thorsten was still flying for Swing. Eva Wischniewska was still flying back then. And you have gliders today, probably D-class and above, Triple C. Where you're like, well, you get that performance today with modern B-gliders. It's also crazy, just looking at what's happening in our paragliding scene.
just did. How should I imagine that? Did the DHV basically come to you afterwards and say, "Hey, next time there's an EM, we'll be there and there. You're definitely coming with us"? Or how should I imagine that? Yeah, well, I think they
Regarding paragliding, that was a bit of a free-for-all at the time. Charlie Joest makes excellent contributions in the kiting field and has specialized in that. He still does that today. But paragliding was a bit of an area where they didn't have anyone.
And that lasted from 2009 until 2012, until we actually went out on our first joint mission to St. André. But yeah, of course, they recognized the potential. And we first agreed on a mutually agreeable basis. Like, okay, you're not an intern anymore. You'll get your travel expenses covered or something in that direction. But give it a try. And if it lands well and can become a regular format, then we can certainly do it again. So it took a few years of trial and error before it actually transitioned into that format.
is where we are today. And do you drive there and then, in the end, are you basically paid by the DHV? Do they tell you that you get a daily rate of X for being here? Or how does that work? In
Basically, it works like a commission, like you have in the film scene. So there's a description of what needs to be done. And by now, I think the contacts I've been able to build over time with the TV station are very helpful. Because in the end, it's also my responsibility to manage making sure the material that's created ends up with the TV station—that it's prepared in a way that's suitable for television. They have a certain way they like to have material delivered. And I also keep in touch with the editorial team. That sometimes happens months in advance. You already get in touch with possible editors who might be on duty at that time and say, "Hey, look, we have our big sports event again."
In that case, it usually goes through the BR—I don't know, five Bavarian pilots. They're always a bit more sharp on them. We have them with us, what's the situation, can we do something together again? And that has settled in by now. The BR online editorial team is also very interested now. We can probably get them excited for the upcoming World Championships in North Macedonia. And it just deepens over the years. But when I think about it, 2012 was the first time, now we're at 2019. So it takes a few competition cycles until it really works well, yeah.
And the DRV actually thinks very professionally about this, saying that in this case, we're actually producing really professional video material that we can then offer to the media accordingly. Do other national teams or other countries actually do it this way too?
No, I think there's a lot of media envy there.
Well, it varies. Sometimes I get approached by our Eastern European paragliding pilots. They're like, "First of all, it's unfair that the Germans have movies and we don't. And we'll pay you in beer. Wouldn't you rather do it with us?" So far, I've always turned them down.
So you'd probably have to drink a lot of beer if you were to do that. Accordingly, you'd also be allowed to get something in. It has
...at the last European Championship, however, it turned out that the FAI noticed this. And now we also supply the FAI. And thus, we also achieve a partial return, so it's not quite as cost-intensive for the DRV alone anymore. Of course, that means more work, but it's a very nice shared format. And that way, we also have the opportunity for certain material of ours to be carried further into the European, and probably even the global, media space. This is because the FAI has a media agency in Europe. They serve Munich and work with them, and they have a really exorbitantly good media distributor.
And they put it out through them. So it's not just that they take the material dispassionately with a timecode and pass it on. There's also an editor at this agency who prepares the text chunks in a way that's digestible for the media. And a short briefing and so on. What's it about? Here you have the 3-minute one, here you have the 5-minute one, here you have the 11-minute one, and everything else you might need. So it's really, very professionally arranged by the FAI as well. And we're now allowed to send material to Ballen, and the FAI then compensates the DRV for that as well.
Is there actually anything like a profit-sharing model or something? If you say, wow, I was shown on five or ten TV stations, do you get some kind of additional return for that? No, not at all.
There's also still that basic idealism from the first time I did it. I mean, it was never the intention to make money from it. And I think unfortunately, that's still the case today. If I ever add up what I've invested alone in cameras and drones, I think I'm covered for the next five to ten years. And I haven't even factored in the working hours yet, and I still haven't earned anything. So it's more about the love of the sport. And simply the opportunity to be allowed to share it further. I think that's phenomenally good, yeah.
That means, if you want to understand it correctly, you have a completely different job that you actually make money from. Filmmaking is your hobby. And when you go to a World Cup or a European Championship like that, your vacation is gone. Yeah,
Fortunately, I was able to make an arrangement with my main employer that allows for this. So, you probably have to get permission for something like that everywhere else in Germany too—the fact that you're allowed to run a second activity for income alongside your main job. And it's funny how you just put it. Because if you talk to people in the film industry today and bring up exactly this topic, they'll say, "Finally, someone who gets it." And you're in a good position because you also have a real profession. The challenge in the media industry is very clear. I think many people realize that too. The prices are kept very low. The equipment. The level we're operating at. Because otherwise, you couldn't deliver material to television and the FAI. That's just below cinema level.
And the equipment I use to shoot is definitely cinema-grade—what you'd use for any other film production. But from a price point, it's so enormous that if I were to calculate it for the association or the FAI based on the equipment and the working hours, they certainly wouldn't take it. Because that's the price point we're talking about. Hardly anyone could afford that. Or you'd have to do it much, much more often as a main job. But I don't think that would work very well. I think the model as it is now is certainly the better one.
And major competitions like World Championships and European Championships aren't just a quick weekend; you're actually out there for about two weeks, I believe. And you invest your two weeks of vacation into that. Now, tell me a bit about being on-site once you're there. How does a typical day go when you say, okay, the competition has started. We're now on the second competition day. Tell me, what do you have to do? Do you get up at seven in the morning or already at five because you still have to edit the last night? Or how does that work? On the second day,
First of all, there's a bit of nervousness in the air because for some, this might be a new flying area. In any case, they're very, very preoccupied with themselves at first. Collecting live trackers and making sure everyone has their lunch pack. And what else is there? And of course, it's about the fact that the first day—or the first competition run—counts just as much as any other. You're already fully in it. You have to be fully present and have to score points for yourself and for the team. And for me, that means I have to be sensitive. I think part of why it works at all is that I'm a pilot myself and know the procedures a bit. When do I want to be approached during the preparation phase?
And when is it rather difficult for me? And over the years, certainly getting to know the pilots better. Because not everyone heads out immediately when it's said "the window is open" and throws themselves into the starting cylinder just to look around for an hour. There are also very relaxed pilots who wait for over half an hour and say, well, you know, based on today's conditions, those are the experienced pilots, like a Pepo or an Ulli or something, or even a Thorsten. They say, hey, why should I do a three-quarter time? I have to spend an extra fifteen minutes in the air. So, I've probably flown enough in my life. For me, it's more about the competition here. You can interview those quite well. Our youngsters, or whoever might be new to this, they absolutely want to, I don't know, maybe do everything right or just get a feel for the day.
Or of course, it's just that when it starts, you want to be at the top of the start cylinder. That's obviously an advantage. And they're then gone faster. So I have to chase them if I'm still doing an interview with them. If I want to get an interview. But you can exchange that quite well over time. So you can start with the experienced guys first and then do the interviews during the rest of the competition. Yeah, and then they're all gone. Ideally, I have a camera mounted on one or two pilots and they've agreed to fly with the camera. On the first day or during the first run, it's always a bit of a thing. They like to take a camera along for the training task and for the flight check. In the competition, you then have to see. Who is cool enough to take a camera along, first of all. And who is cool enough to take a camera along and maybe also comment on things a bit.
Because, unfortunately, television is totally on top of it, which I can understand. But I think it's also an extraordinary feat for a pilot to fly in the competition. And then to have the capacity to commentate on a run during the competition as well.
I think that's great. That means, as a camera-conscious person—or someone who thinks in terms of images—you say to yourself, okay, now I'll take Ferdinand Vogel as the pilot or something. You say, he can definitely do that. I'll explain it to him here: I'll mount the camera there and over there. This is how you turn it on. I'll cable you up to put on a mic or something. And then, tell me something while you're in the air. Or do you give him a script for him to talk about a little bit? Or how does that work?
First of all, I'm very grateful to GoPro for finally inventing cameras where you only have to press a button once. And that does several things. It turns the camera on. It starts the recording. And when he's finished, he just has to press the same button once more. That ends the recording and turns the camera off again. That also helps me a lot with saving battery. And now you've got Ferdi on board. Ferdi is a super likeable guy. I think he's a huge asset to the national team. With him, we've got a likeable pilot who also enjoys commenting during the flight. And that's exactly how it works. We figure out beforehand what the filming time is, the direction of the turn. The camera is positioned accordingly. Because it's stupid if you have the camera on the left side, for example, and it turns to the right.
Then you can't film into the pack very well. So we think about that beforehand. And then he takes off. He doesn't get a script. Instead, I just give him a heads-up. Hey Ferdi, today is the first day. Please remember, today is the first run. Please comment along that way.
And then, depending on who the client is—whether it's more FAI-oriented or more BR-oriented—you might think about whether he says, "Best regards from the Bavarian pilots," or "Greetings from the national team." And then he comments on it a bit. And he's actually quite good at commenting while flying. That's what he does.
he's very composed. Now, on a day like this, you say, okay, these are the start preparations. Before that, you might do some interviews. Then you give someone a camera. They go fly with it. What else do you do on the ground? What do you pay attention to? What kind of shots are you still looking for?
So for me, the takeoff is naturally one of the most hectic moments. Because I'd love to operate three or four cameras at the same time. But that's not possible. The most you can do is set up a camera somewhere and maybe do a timelapse of the takeoff. That always looks really good. Before the takeoff, we like to do interviews. To review how the run from the previous day might have been. What the weather forecast is like. What task has been set. How they assess the task. What good lines they've thought of. Maybe also one or two comments on the quality of the day. And then they're off. So then my cameras are flying. The most you could do then would be to fly with a tandem. And there you have to make one of the first decisions: do I want to fly myself and film them in the air?
Then you usually land after half an hour or three-quarters of an hour. You've arranged to meet up with Harry Bunz, who drives behind the field, and of course, you watch where they're heading. So, if I want shots of them on the move, I have to manage it somehow so that after I've flown, I've maybe filmed a bit at the starting gate. Then I go land and ride along with them. And for me, that was already a great day, because I got into the air and was allowed to film. You can try to fly behind them with a tandem, of course. But that usually doesn't work out very well. Because, let's be honest, the guys are fast. They are damn fast. You can't keep up with them in a tandem.
The third option is the start, as far as that has been agreed upon with the competition management. And as long as the regional regulations allow you to film something like that with a drone. Which usually results in very beautiful shots. And by now, I have a drone with a 105mm lens on it. That means, at times, I already have to fly away from them so that they are back in the frame. And that always goes over very well. Because there, we have as much distance as possible and little stress with collisions. Or someone being out there. And it naturally helps you too, being the pilot yourself. Because I usually position the drone in the lee, where nobody wants to go anyway. And then that is
completely stress-free. Now you're saying, okay, a camera for the pilot who might go flying. You're flying, you have a camera on the ground filming something. Or maybe two different ones. You let one run as a timelapse, and something else as something else. Then you have your drone with you. What are you actually hauling away? Then you have your gear with you. How much does that even weigh? Is it a whole suitcase full?
I don't want to
know what that
weighs. I'm not going to comment on that. Maybe there's someone here who works for an airline and doesn't even see it. No, I mean, that's definitely a lot. I'm assuming it's at least six, seven, eight cameras. Plus lenses. And then in different versions. Then you also have the audio equipment with you because you have to record the voice-overs. Because you might put a microphone on the pilots once in a while when they're flying to get better audio. And then you have all the drone gear. So yeah, that's definitely a lot of stuff. And sometimes it's really heavy too. Unfortunately, yes. So I'd say a 15-kilo backpack or something adds up very quickly.
Well, that's probably a pretty significant value behind it all. You said the DRV might not even be able to afford the equipment himself—that he wouldn't be able to cover it with the fees he can pay you. Now, you're traveling to countries like Mexico, Macedonia, Colombia, Brazil, where this kind of thing happens. That's also the kind of place where you think, hmm, there might be people who'd like to get their hands on some of that stuff. Has anything ever been stolen from you or have you had any stupid experiences there?
Yeah, definitely. So, on the opening day in Colombia, my main camera was stolen. Luckily, I had travel insurance, so I got it back through that. But it was a really stupid situation. And looking back, I'm surprised at how professionally it all continued to go. I only had a mirrorless DSLR with a microphone input left. So, first of all, you lose a lot. You can't zoom anymore. The quality wasn't quite as great as the main camera either. But then I was lucky that another filmmaker from the Swiss team was in the US and then came over to Colombia as well.
And I told them, buy one of those cheap 230 Euro or something cameras from B&H Photo that has a zoom and bring it to me. And I was totally happy that after 4 or 5 days I could finally zoom again. But of course, that happens and you worry about it a lot too. Do I insure my equipment? If you insure it, it costs a fortune, then you have to add that back onto the project value because someone has to pay for it. Or do you not insure it? And which cameras do you take to which countries? I already make a big difference as to whether I take my main equipment. A, in terms of weight, because unfortunately the best cameras also weigh the most.
And B, of course, there's also the aspect of whether something gets stolen or not. Actually, everything is calculated so tightly that nothing is allowed to go missing. If something does get stolen, then you're in trouble. You've got a real problem. But I think everyone feels that way. If a camera gets stolen from you, then
you're not happy either. Now, technically, you're putting in an immense amount of effort there. Is it actually worth it? I mean, specifically these day-by-day task videos, do they actually get watched that much?
I think we get a distribution of about 1,500 to 2,000 clicks. And it's freely accessible to everyone. And that's a service to the members. Now, we have about 35,000 or 40,000 in the DHV, I believe. So, of course, when I weigh 35,000 against 2,000, you'd naturally wish... sure, you're ambitious and think, "Hey, it would be cool if more people were watching." On the other hand, we're distributing this on other channels where a very, very large amount of access happens as well. I was just in Valle de Bravo. And I thought it was a huge success that BER online reported on the Monaco Open.
That was also a 40 to 50-second clip on their BR-Sport Facebook page. In the meantime, 12,000 people have accessed it. And it's being seen. And then there's the unmeasurable part, namely everyone we reach via television during a World Championship or European Championship. I can't imagine that—it's very hard to measure. But I think we're doing the right thing by reaching out more to that BR-Sport Facebook editorial team. Because I believe these kinds of online stories are the future and the target audience we want to reach. We're not talking about the 50 or 60-year-olds who watch TV in the evening. I think they find that interesting, or think, "Oh my god, the youth."
But basically, from our sports editorial work, we want to inspire an audience that certainly doesn't know about it yet and says, "Man, that's a cool sport, I'd like to get involved, and I'm interested in it now."
You actually managed to get it into the ZDF Heute news with a short, actually quite short clip, if I remember correctly, it was like 43 seconds or something. Does that still make you proud, even if it's just such a short thing?
Yes, that
is, well,
I think that's already a bit of a peak. You do this for several years and then suddenly you're on the main news program in Germany. That, I mean, I think that's a success, where you also just pause for a moment and you have to grasp that for yourself first. That
That means it would also be an opportunity for paragliding if you say that you actually just have to provide professional equipment, then it can really be communicated to the masses. So you really have to take the initiative, as you said earlier. But then you could also really get paragliders more onto television.
I wish it were that predictable, but unfortunately, it's not. So, the year before, there was already the desire to bring something from the Monarca under the aspect of preparing German pilots for the major competitions, the Wintercamp. And that didn't work out either. Sometimes it's just like that, and this year it was the case that we made it into the online edition. But we didn't make it onto television. That was actually the idea beforehand. But then first came the cross-country skier who had his outing with his doping stories. That was on Thursday. That was actually our first broadcast slot. And we lost it because there was something to that doping story, and they just had to report on that first.
Then you fly out. The second slot would have been on Saturday. And then Lindsay Wondern decided to end her career. That was unfortunately also very important. And I understand that, because they have broadcast slots. They are there on-site. They are in Garmisch, and that's Bavarian. And they have to report on it. If an event like that comes up in between, you're out. You never have a guarantee. It's a bit like, yeah, I see a parallel to paragliding. You also go to the launch site in the morning and don't know, is it going to be a flyable day? Usually, we have a good idea. But is it going to be really good? Can I fly a real cross-country now? Or will I be back on the ground after half an hour? You don't know. But you try.
And that's how it is there. When you're on those trips accompanying the national team, do you actually have your own glider with you? Or do you say, forget it, I'm not going to get any flying in anyway. I'll just leave the gear at home entirely. I'm already carrying 15 kilos of equipment alone. I have enough excess baggage as it is.
No, well, I do try to combine them. Especially since camera technology has become so good now that you can fly in the pack, next to the pack, with 360-degree cameras. But that also leads to personal changes. If I think back to Veltre, where we had a World Championship. I was still flying around with a Makalu, so with a multi-glider. And my goodness, sometimes I really feel like they're like locusts. They take off and you can't keep up. And that was actually a situation where they arrived from the ridge on the air side. And I was stuck there with my gear in the lee. And then I flew out of there very quietly and had to go land.
Then you can never keep up. Now I know why you need the zoom on the camera. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because it's faster than my glider.
By now, I do have a Summit, so a High-B glider. And that makes it go significantly better. And yeah, I like to take it along. Because sometimes it's just fun when we have a mandatory rest day. So, a day where there's a day off. To take advantage of that yourself and see if you don't have fun in that flight area. Although there are also areas where I'd say it's incredibly difficult if you're out there alone on a day like that. Compared to the pack that's flying around in pulks. They just have the advantage of swarm intelligence. And as an individual, it can happen very quickly that you end up on the ground very fast. Especially in Macedonia.
You take off from a mountain and then head into the flatlands. I fly more in the mountains, though. The flatlands don't tell me much. And if I don't have someone who has great ideas for the flatlands or knows where the landing spots are and can fly them out, then I'm pretty much at a loss. And that's usually how it ends.
Besides all the documentaries of these competitions for the national team or for the DHV, you also make films of your own flying. So, for example, you made a film where you flew a 100-kilometer FAI triangle around the Karwendel. And you said, I'm going to document this and tell this whole story in ten minutes. You did that very casually. A very beautiful video. What is important for you to convey with films like that? And what actually makes a good flying video for you? Now, aside from this classic national team reporting style, what is a classic, normal flying video made by you? What is it about for you? So, a good...
For me, a flight video is about having a certain structure. Maybe give an overview at the beginning. What do I want to fly here? So that you as a viewer are on board. Aha, that's his plan. Does he want to cruise somewhere one-way now? Or does he want to fly a triangle? Maybe also describe a bit what the situation was like that day. Especially when you're flying a triangle or an FAI triangle, you're already thinking about it. What was the wind like that day? When do I have my headwind component? Why did he start then and there? The other thing that plays a role for me is capturing it visually. I'm a very visual person. I think a lot and very much in images.
And for me, the image simply says an incredible amount. I can imagine much more from that than if you presented me with a text and said, "Eve, this is how you fly it," and it has everything written down. I don't think I'd take away as much information from that as I would if I saw it as a video. I could remember individual ridges and things like that much better. And say, "Alright, that's the mountain station there. I've already seen that on the video." So, transporting that. You should also think beforehand about how you want to distribute it. How do you want to voice it over? And when do you want to provide information? I find it much more relaxed to do the voiceover afterwards when I'm at home, rather than during the flight. That's just not always possible. If you're delivering material to television, for example, they want it to be discussed during the flight.
Because they just say, "I'm right there in the middle of it." They want the commentary. For a normal recreational pilot who's just making a cross-country video for themselves or for a smaller community, I think it's better to do that afterwards. To think it through.
When you say "voiceover," do you mean really using speech as well as music? A lot of paraglider videos are just some images with nice music layered underneath. Like, someone turned on a helmet cam, let it run for ten minutes, and that's the paraglider video. Some people enjoy that because it might show beautiful landscapes, but the learning effect isn't really there. Does that mean we need many more paraglider videos where people actually talk about what they're doing?
Yeah, I think it goes in that direction. I'm seeing more and more on the DHV Facebook page now where really important topics are being addressed and are now very well visualized for us with the help of these 3D cameras. The other day I watched a video there about the topic of flow separation because you're braking too much when entering the thermals, for example. They did that great. And I think it's reached a level and a price point now where I'd wish we saw much more of it. But you also asked what it's about or what one should pay attention to? From a filmmaking perspective, I can maybe give you the tip: leave out the ascent and descent. Nobody cares about that.
Focus on the flight, maybe also on the launch, but mainly on the flight. I read that somewhere in a clever filmmaking book. Leave that stuff out.
The takeoff and landing are still included in many paraglider videos. Since we're on the subject of negative examples, what are the biggest sins of the classic paraglider videos you find on YouTube channels?
Well, I think we have to start with the first big sin, which is something you don't even see, namely the cameraman and the pilot themselves. It's the issue of safety—what risk am I actually taking when I film, or am I willing to take when I film? Because everything we hang onto the equipment isn't certified in the first place. I mean, it wasn't intended that with all the glider certifications and short-gear checks and certifications and so on, that you'd fly with a camera. And I know some examples of pilots who were lucky, but it has of course already happened to them that a stabilizer or something got caught in the camera during a back launch because it was simply mounted on the helmet.
Do you fly
Not with a helmet cam at all? I
I don't fly with a helmet cam.
At some point, there was also a request from the DHV not to do that. They mean it very seriously because, unfortunately, accidents have happened. But I had already stopped doing it before that. I also find other camera positions more interesting. You can fly with a helmet cam if you're a chicken. Because there are those nice videos that are trying to show how a gimbal works,
...that stabilizes the image for you especially well, even during movement. And a chicken or even a pigeon, if you pay attention when they walk, they have to move their heads so strangely so that the image is stabilized in their brains. A paraglider is not stabilized like that. And you get terribly shaky videos, and no GoPro with software stabilization or optical stabilization can compensate for that. So, a camera on the head is nonsense to me, because you produce footage that simply isn't nice. That means,
where do you prefer to mount your camera?
That varies. I'm also currently trying out different positions. So one option, I think, is to use a clamp to mount the camera facing forward onto the apron—meaning on a closed harness—and then use a separate one with a...
WiFi remote, which you have in the cockpit, to remote control the whole thing again. Because otherwise, it's difficult again. I have my hands on the brakes and I have to somehow reach the release of this camera. Maybe I also have some kind of setup where I have the remote, so the GoPro remote, in my hand. Then I don't even have to reach from the brake to the cockpit. Another option, but it's a bit harder to get to now, are external arms that were actually intended as instrument mounts. There's something like that from the company Varis, which is a Swiss company. And this Varis mount has the advantage that it's a bit like a Gorillapod.
Some of you might know this. These are elements nested into each other that I can flexibly move as an arm and rotate to any angle. And there's a cable running inside. That means if the thing somehow breaks off during takeoff or something and these elements come apart, the camera still won't be lost. I think that's really cool. But you have to be a bit careful during assembly because it's mounted to the carabiner. And that's where our speed bar also runs. And you have to pay a bit of attention to that, depending on the harness design. With my harness, it's not a problem, but with competition harnesses, it can sometimes become an issue. With an X-Rated or something, for instance, the speed bar runs much more parallel to the carabiner than it does on mine. That's the case with the D-Light 2 harness.
And you have to be careful there, because there's a small gap so that your Brummel hooks don't get caught on the speed bar at the camera mount. And that's exactly the point. I still find it difficult to coordinate flying and filming. I think it's become easier just because of this 360-degree camera thing from GoPro or Nikon—there are various providers, of course—because I don't have to worry about where I'm actually filming anymore, but can do that afterwards and can do a lot of great things. That takes the pressure off me and gives me more capacity and concentration when
Flying. Is that the way of the future for action cameras? Would you recommend it if someone said, "As a pilot, I'd like to film what I experience up there," and you'd say, "Maybe it's best to just buy a 360-degree camera right away; then you'll have the least amount of stress and can choose exactly what you want afterwards."
Yes, that is definitely my recommendation.
360-degree cameras are so mature by now—there are different versions, so you can have a lot of fun with them. It starts with an Insta360 X, I think that's the name of this new version, where you're at an entry price of around 450 euros; that's how it was in that range, right, up to the GoPro Fusion, which was at 700 euros at launch, but that should be on sale again now.
...cheaper to get. Let's jump from the very basic setup, or say we take a GoPro for your average pilot, to a much more advanced setup that you also own. You fly drones too. From a paraglider perspective, are drones a curse or a blessing?
So from a cinematic point of view, it's obviously a blessing. That I can finally get the perspective, that I can fly in front of the launch site and finally capture pilots from the front as they take off. Because if you have a ground-based camera, in the past you could only ever get the perspective of them flying away. I thought that was totally lame. And the drone finally allowed me to fly around the launch site a bit while they're still laying out, or maybe with correspondingly long lenses so that I can keep some distance, to also fly near a group like that. And there you can really see how the gliders pull in the thermals. That's when you really understand how a thermal works, and that there might be a kink in it or something.
You can see that really well. And those are shots that weren't possible in the past.
achieved. But there are also pilots who dream of, like, being able to fly a drone in front of me or behind me with a follow-me function, and it just films me at a specific distance. Is something like that actually technically possible yet? And do you think something like that makes sense?
Technically, a follow-me function is definitely possible. I find it almost fascinating to see how far the technology has come. I can draw a bounding box around an object on my phone, which I use as a field monitor. For example, let's take a jogger, a car, or something like that. And the drone then tracks it. So it recognizes this object, and it's followed. To me, that's, I don't know, technology from the next Terminator or something. I think that's pretty wild. For aviation, I don't think it makes much sense. They have become smarter, though. They gave an example now where a car drives around a serpentine. In the serpentine, on the hill of the serpentine, the camera briefly loses sight of the car but finds it again when it exits the serpentine and can continue the tracking.
For us pilots, I think it's a bit more difficult because sometimes we're just a difficult contrast for an image or for an image processor. So, harness
against the ground or whether they're fir trees or I don't know. Unless you have some kind of Hike and Fly from Gin that's like bright orange, then it could easily work. But I'd have more concerns regarding the anti-collision issue. So, a drone is now flying behind you. If you have other pilots flying in that area, then for me that would be an immediate no-go. Just like I wouldn't do that in a ski resort, regardless of which skier I am. You have lifts there, you have other skiers. If that thing comes down out of control somehow, then we'll have negative headlines and publicity regarding drones again, and that's exactly what we don't need at all right now.
Don't you think that from a technical development standpoint, there will probably be many more drones in the future—not just film drones for us, but delivery drones or whatever else—so that it will eventually be the case that every drone, and consequently every paraglider pilot, has to have some kind of transponder or Farnet solution or something similar, where you say, I'm always broadcasting my position, and then those follow-me drones would be very easy to program so that you literally say, here, follow this signal and just avoid all other signals. I'm curious to see.
how that develops. I could imagine for our low-land flyers in Leipzig, Altes Lager, and so on, this is certainly going to be an issue, because I can just picture in those regions that in the future we'll see these delivery drones or food deliveries or whatever else is being aimed for. Or also these air taxis—our transport minister, Mr. Scheuer, I believe yesterday was the first air taxi put into operation, at least a test operation in Bavaria. And that's probably where the journey is heading. But I could imagine that in the mountain regions, we might be spared from that for a while. But it's going to be an exciting development. Especially regarding how we regulate this across national borders, because whatever happens there has to work just as well in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland.
From that perspective, I'm not entirely sure where things are headed or if it will limit us. I think it has the potential to limit us because behind the commercial aviation and the business models involved, I believe there's a lot more money than behind paragliding. Unfortunately, I think we have to recognize that for ourselves.
When you look at your filmmaking, what you've done over all these years, you've also made a huge professional development yourself, always keeping the paraglider in mind, always going out flying with it. Do you sometimes get the impression that you might have observed something yourself while filming that helped you progress? Or is it more that the filmmaking actually hindered you from developing further while paragliding?
So for me, it's always intertwined or goes hand in hand. It's like I really, really enjoy using flying just to capture new impressions. I remember those first flight attempts at Eggishorn a bit. And when you've managed those 400 meters of altitude and then your gaze shifts to the glacier and you see the Arlitsch coming down like that. Those are just moments where I say, wow, it's so cool that you have a camera with you and that you're allowed to capture that. But it's similar for me as with drone flying. For me, it wasn't necessarily always the flying itself that was the priority in paragliding, but also the idea of how I can capture the whole thing while flying.
capture cinematically. Unfortunately, I don't fly nearly enough to have any ambitions regarding distance. I was actually quite surprised and thrilled to have popped up somewhere in the top 100 of the standard class last year. And I don't think that's ever going to get any better.
Because I spend far too little time in the air each year. Between my main job and filmmaking, I'm happy if I manage to get around 40 to 60 flight hours a year. And that was already a lot. There were also years where I only had 20 flight hours or something like that. Back then, it was more about whether I could even manage to keep up with the technology and the flying, or if that was something that might be at risk in the future because the time just wasn't there. And luckily, I've found a way to prioritize it much more lately. And I enjoy that a lot, too. But those are two different movements. Once you've reached a certain level of filming, I think it's not as important anymore, because you know what you're doing or what you want to do.
Then it's maybe just about trying out new cameras or new technologies. And then you can just focus more on the flying. And luckily, since last year, it's finally to the point where I worry less about staying up while flying, but rather I have the luxury problem of simply having no idea about the restricted flight zones and I just have to ask myself what I'm doing
...with the altitude? Where do I want to go? If you take both—I'll call them hobbies for now, even though it's actually very professional, at least the filming side of it—if you put both hobbies against each other, would you say you fly to film, or do you film to fly?
I think it alternates. So, when it's assignments with the national team and I'm hovering around there, then I'm definitely flying to film. In my private life, the focus is more on the flying itself, yeah. And if a beautiful film comes out of that, like with the Karwendel Triangle, then that's a great thing. I could imagine something similar coming out this year with the Mölltal Triangle; I'd really like to do that. I've flown it before, but I haven't finished it yet. Maybe that'll work this spring. And otherwise, I've actually thought about whether that could be a format and maybe you could just do it with several pilots.
...to explain cross-country flying better. That
means we actually need more explainer videos.
I think that's nice, but it can be a bit punchy, yeah.
Yves, thank you for sharing so much about your filmmaking and everything you've brought here. You make great films. I'm looking forward to seeing what you deliver for the next European Championship, and I also wish you much success with the Mölltal Triangle—I'm looking forward to that film too, to see what I can learn from you.
Yes, thank you so much. I had a great time, and yeah, let's see, maybe for the second Mölltal series.
That was Yves Jonczyk in conversation with Lucian Haas. If you would like to watch films like Knight Rider, the video about the Karwendel Triangle, or various competition reports by Yves, Yves' YouTube channel runs under the name Flymovies and can be reached at youtube.com/user/flymovies. Yves also reports on his work on the Facebook page facebook.com/flymovies. You can find further episodes of Podz-Glidz again on the Looglights blog and on Soundcloud. You can also subscribe to Podz-Glidz via RSS feed or through well-known podcast catalogs like iTunes, Spotify, TuneIn, or podcast.de. By the way, Podz-Glidz and the Looglights blog are completely ad-free and therefore independent. In order to continue these projects, which involve a lot of time and passion, I rely on the support of my readers and listeners.
If you enjoy my work, you can easily become a Looglights supporter by donating via PayPal or bank transfer. You can find the links on the website looglights.blogspot.com. Feel free to recommend Podz-Glidz and Looglights as well—whether in conversations with other pilots or as a comment, link, or like on social media. Now, I'll let myself go for now. Ciao and see you soon!