Coney Island: One Last Time From The Air

New York Aerial Photography - Coney Island from Jason Lam on Vimeo.

Did you ever wonder how tv shows or films get those awesome aerial views of Manhattan? Those helicopter rides must get expensive. Unless of course you're not using full size helicopters, but radio control toy size copters with cameras attached. Upon stumbling upon the video above, we wanted to kmow more about how it was shot, and whether or not the NYPD tried to shoot the camera out of the sky from a SkyWatch tower.

Jason Lam, founder of New York City based SkyShutter.com, wrote via email that he shot the video using an AeriCam. With the redevelopment of Coney Island moving along, Lam wanted to capture the park in an aerial video, for posterity'sake.

SkyShutter.com's site states:

We specialize in Low Altitude and Close Range Aerial Photography. Simply put, we film where cranes and jibs are out of reach and full-scale helicopters are not permitted and unsafe for filming purposes.

Jason told NYC The Blog this is not a new idea, and in fact has been used by Hollywood for about 25 years. Fascinated with radio controlled planes and helicopters since his youth, Jason started experimenting by strapping his cell phone on an RC helicopter – with results that left more to be desired. As he started to purchase commercially available aerial systems from different companies, he became frustrated with high prices for poor design that was often heavy and aesthetically unappealing. So he did what any of us would do. He made his own AeriCam: "without any of the compromises of the current products on market."

Seeing as we've run into our problems on occasion while lawfully taking photos or video, our next question asked him about any run-ins he might have had while filming New York City in an AeriCam. "I have not have any problems with NYPD," Jason wrote. "They are most interested in the AeriCam than want to give me troubles."

You can see more aerial videos featuring New York City and San Francisco on Jason's Vimeo page.

And if you'd like to try out some of your own aerial video or photography, you can always get some helium balloons and try it yourself. Here's a step by step how-to.

Capturing The Scents Of The City, One Bottle Of Perfume At A Time

Bond No. 9 has created a perfume line in homage to nyc, with the ambitious task of creating separate scents for the many disparate neighborhoods in our great city, as well as scents for the Hamptons and Fire Island. And in this universe, only Manhattan exists. Sorry Brooklyn, in spite of what your guide book says. The photo to the right shows an advertisement in last weeks NY Times for The Scent of Peace, which is part of the Midtown collection, for reasons that are unclear. There are a total of 33 scents listed on their site, and though I have never sniffed any of them, I imagine they all smell like perfume.

Browsing through the selection, there are scents which attempt to capture the essence and smells, apparently, of a number of neighborhoods that one might not really want to smell in a bottle. Chinatown for one. Thoughts and smells of Chinatown have never preceded a daydream sequence whereas I imagine spraying it's scents all over me, but I'm not really a cologne wearer anyways.

Wall St.? What does Wall St. smell like? Cocaine? It used to smell like money I imagine, but now...it might smell more like burning money. I could see how that scent, with a touch of fruity accents, and just the right amount of some special sauce, could be a pleasant smell. For 14 year olds and men who spend much of their free time at bars.

Or how about Nouveau Bowery? Not the Bowery, which Bond No. 9 evidently determined to be to downmarket and smelly for even this line of perfumes, but Noveau Bowery, "The sweet scent of skid row transitioning to ultra-modernity." Ahh yes...That smells so good. Calgon, take me away.

And then we have Riverside Drive. It's not a road or bikepath I frequent, and I wonder how good the Hudson smells, along side a highway of speeding cars. But Bond No. 9 has captured that one of kind smell, and put in a bottle.

If any of these seem appealing, it would be the scents capturing our beaches at Coney Island, Fire Island, and the Hamptons. A cool breeze, lemonade, the bright sun, that is a scent I would like to wear.