SHEA STEPHENS
MY PROJECTS

This was my first documentary that I produced, edited, and shot in 2023. I was introduced to the idea of using drones for wildlife conservancy by Ami Vitali in 2022. It was a loose idea that was thrown around by her and my father, who employed her at the time to do photography work for The BOMA Project. My father got me involved since I am a professional UAV pilot, later on flying experimental drones for Amazon Prime and having 2,000+ hours on multiple platforms. We got to work on making this idea a reality, and no better place to launch this project than the Ol Pajeta Conservation in Nanuki, Kenya. This conservancy has had encounters with poachers in the past, and we figured that they could benefit from some modern technology!

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I started a US based fundraiser that was able to collect nearly $5,000 USD for this project, which was amazing! This enabled us to purchase a DJI Mavic Air 2S, and a specialized Kenyan-based drone training team to aid us in our project. I flew to Kenya in 2023 to meet up with the training team and head to Ol Pajeta via a small bush plane. I planned to stay for a week to help conduct training, film the project, and also obtain my KCAA RPL (Kenyan drone license). The mission was a great success, Simon Irungu and Simon Nakito were absolutely amazing to work with and are now Ol Pajeta's first licensed drone pilots. This was definitely one of the top experiences of my life! When I returned to America, I edited for 40 hours to produce my documentary film. I wanted to make sure every detail was right, utilizing premium sound design, custom LUTs, and large amounts of caffeine. I hope to return to Ol Pajeta in the future to check in on my ranger friends and possible secure and even more advanced drone!