Daniel Marlin loves flying machines and photography, so he knows how lucky he is to have been born in an age when two of his favorite things can meld into one glorious, fanciful enterprise.
Domino Productions is the marriage of Marlin’s passions: a Lawrence-based business specializing in aerial videos made possible by the fleet of drones Marlin loves to buzz around the skies of New Jersey and beyond.
Marlin officially launched the business on Jan. 1, but the 29-year-old’s adventures into the wild blue have been a long time in the making. He became interested in photography as a teenager living in Bradley Beach. He attended Red Bank Regional High School, where he was accepted to the Academy of Visual & Performing Arts as a freshman.
In the program, he learned the mechanics of cameras and lenses, shooting with film and developing it. His father’s friend had a darkroom that he let him use. “I was definitely lucky to get that experience,” he says.
The budding shutterbug was also pursuing one of his favorite hobbies: flying remote-controlled helicopters. He kept up with that hobby even as he lost interest in photography for a while after high school. He graduated from Wall Township High School and moved to Florida’s Palm Coast to work in IT with his father’s company for about four years.
He hated it. Florida wasn’t so bad, but life as an IT professional got old fast. He did a couple semesters of college in Daytona, but never finished, opting instead to dump IT and move back to New Jersey. He moved in with his mother and stepfather in Lawrence and took up bartending to pay his bills. He was the head bartender at Cherry Valley Country Club from 2012 until last year, when he got a job as a banquet bartender for Crowne Plaza Hotels.
Around the time that he was getting his bearings back in Jersey, high-resolution video cameras were becoming smaller and a lot more powerful. GoPro cameras in particular have revolutionized videomaking. GoPro cameras are high-res, very small and light, incredibly durable, and waterproof. They can be worn by surfers or clipped to dirt bikes for the making of first-person perspective videos.
Or they can be attached to drone helicopters.
When Marlin first saw the footage these mini-cam-rigged choppers were getting, it reignited his love of photography. He saved up his money and, two years ago, bought his first video drone, a fairly cheap one, just to test the waters. It was barely a month later when he upgraded to the Phantom 3 Advanced. It was the top of the line until being surpassed by the Phantom 4 and the Typhoon H.
About a year ago, he started recording videos professionally. After only a few months, he knew he wanted to do it for a living. Marlin has a Typhoon now, too, plus his Phantom 3, plus an array of filters and other gadgets to enhance his aerial videography.
Marlin has shot some events, from flag football in Hamilton to weddings and gatherings, and he does videos for real estate firms looking to add some zing to their marketing materials. A quick scroll through Domino’s online gallery, either at YouTube (Domino Productions channel) or facebook.com/TheDominoProductions, yields quite a visual symphony of these properties, mostly large estates for which the grandeur of sweeping aerial views fits the dreamy majesty that real estate agents ache to convey for their high-end inventory.
His coolest venture came after he received a call from some filmmakers in New York who were making a web series called “Kovar.” The trailer, which can be seen on imdb.com (search for “Kovar [2016]”) and the first thing you will see is Marlin’s panoramic footage of the Brooklyn Bridge.
He got that gig through Craigslist. Marlin had put an ad up and someone from Kovar’s production team contacted him to do some aerial work in New York. Only after shooting it did he learn what it was for. The producers are still in talks with distributors, Marlin says, so it’s not certain where the series will run.
Marlin is off to a good start. But getting into the business of aerial videography is not as simple as heading off to Best Buy and picking up a fun new toy. First, the drones (or quadcopters, because they have four blades) that give professional results start between $800 and $1,200.
Second, quadcopters are not easy to fly. It takes practice and patience just to get aspiring pilots beyond the frustration stage of wanting to stomp the thing into the ground.
Third, and most major, is that professional drone pilots have the federal government as their business partners, and Uncle Sam demands that they play by some strict rules. Until the end of August, flying any drone for commercial purposes required pilots to be actual pilots, or to have FAA-certified commercial pilots with them on a shoot.
At the end of August, a long-awaited drone pilot certification (essentially an exemption from needing a commercial pilot onsite) was put into effect, meaning pilots like Marlin can now get more commercial projects on their own, once they pass the FAA exam. The exemption is cheaper than getting certified as a commercial pilot for an occupied aircraft—$150 for the exam, as opposed to the $10,000 or so that it takes to get commercial wings.
The FAA also recognizes drones of more than 250 grams (0.55 pounds) as commercial aircraft. That means drones must be registered with the FAA. Failure to do so, according to the FAA, could result in three years in prison and $250,000 in fines for violators.
To commercially pilot a drone, a person must know a lot of other rules, too. One may not fly within five miles of an airport, nor within four miles of the Super Bowl. Drones must stay below a few hundred feet and out of the way of any occupied craft. If a plane or helicopter with a person in it happens to be coming by, the drone must be grounded immediately.
Marlin hasn’t taken the test yet, but is planning to do so soon. He is excited about the possibilities of being a commercial drone pilot—or, more accurately, a commercially legal Remote Unmanned Aircraft System pilot. With the certification comes a new world of possibilities. Like shooting concert videos. If Marlin has a third love, it’s music. He’s come close to shooting at least one live event, but didn’t get the gig because he was not commercially certified.
Marlin has met lots of people interested in what he does and who are wowed by the beauty of the ethereal images he brings back to earth. He also finds himself working often to dispel myths and fears people have about drones crashing and harming people. He says with the work people like Marlin put into perfecting aerial video safely, combined with the FAA’s strict rules, there’s not much to worry about. He knows what he’s doing and, if trouble does strike, he’s insured.
There’s a fourth thing (or maybe the first thing) Marlin loves, and that’s his girlfriend, Elizabeth Marino. When she has the time, she helps him on location and also assists in the editing room. “She has a good eye and gives me an outside perspective,” he says.
Marlin hopes to have a few employees within the year, and to branch out into more events like sports and concerts. Maybe even the Super Bowl, if they ever let drones fly there.
“I’m really pushing to do something big,” Marlin says. “I really want this to be the main thing I do.”
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