Filmmakers, Developer Use Drone To Showcase Tulsa

A developer has teamed up with two Tulsa filmmakers to use a drone to shoot breathtaking images of the city.

They call the film they've put together "Tulsa Rising."

The video is super-high-quality 4K and it was all shot with a quadcopter equipped with a camera.

With filmmaker Jason Burks and Brandon Forbes at the controls, it can fly 40 miles an hour and hover several thousand feet over the city.

"I'm shooting shots now that we can go static and lock in for 20 minutes and shoot a time lapse for something hovering in mid-air which was unheard of a couple years ago," said filmmaker Jason Burks.

Tulsa's Ross Group, which is involved in a number of downtown projects, hired Jason and his team at Retrospec Films.

They asked them to produce a video showcasing Tulsa to investors or developers who might not know anything about the city.

"Giving people a better idea of what Tulsa is all about and giving people that through video and sound and 3D renderings is a wonderful thing," said Ethan Dodd, Ross Group.

And it's not just what's in this video, it's what they still plan to do. Retrospec will superimpose 3d images of buildings that haven't even gone up yet, like one of the downtown hotels the Ross Group just broke ground on earlier this month.

"The nice thing is that this project is specifically selling Tulsa to a group of people that doesn't even know what tulsa is and that is kind of fun because you get to step back and really ask yourself what makes Tulsa amazing to someone who has never heard of it?"

And this small piece of equipment just a few years back would've cost four times the amount it does now- making it easier for professionals like Retrospec Films to tell a story through video.

"If there is a guy that is passionate about Tulsa," Ethan Dodd says, "it is Jason Burks and if there is anyone that can take our vision and put it down on film and make it be even better"

"I think just flying drones around and seeing things I've never seen and I've lived here my whole life and I never knew what that angle looked like and not very many people do.. let's hit record and share it with everybody," Burks said.