Hi! My name is Gifford Hooper.

I was born in Manzini, Eswatini (Swaziland). I spent my early years 0-9 on the homestead farm and in the bush in Swaziland and South Africa. My father was involved in many different projects in Swaziland, which meant I had an unconventional education, learning on the job apprenticeship style, which carried on when we moved to the British Virgin Islands and then to the U.S.V.I., where my parents set up a fibreglass manufacturing business. I was involved in helping build complete GRP hurricane-proof houses, as well as the first underwater marine tourist observatory in the western hemisphere Coral World. at the age of 12 I got my first job outside of the family business working for Water Island Charter Yachts, doing GRP running repairs and maintenance on their fleet of 65 foot yachts.

I had a passion for model making and at the age of 13 I wanted to learn other core skills, so I talked my way into getting a six month jewellery apprenticeship at 24ct Gold to learn fine art metal working. in the evenings I used to build static model cars, boats and planes for the model shops on the islands.

When I was 14 my dad had a bad accident and we moved to the uk. I started full time education at Dartington Hall School in Devon. DHS was a progressive school, and rather than force me into lessons the teachers allowed me to set up a model making room and continue my passion for building model aeroplanes, which led to building a photographic mapping plane for the geography department.

I finished my school education at the age of 17 and worked with my parents again, who had set up a business doing sublimation ink printing of fabrics and flooring products. This involved me doing all the photographic film, colour separations and plate making work for the print machines.

My passion for designing, building and filming with UAVs was getting stronger. In 1990 I had finally finished building a working UAV helicopter with live video downlink, just at the time a large prison riot broke out in the uk. All full-size aircraft were banned from flying within 2 1/2 miles of prisons, so I took the opportunity to call ITV news and offer my aerial filming services. From this point on it all moved very fast – next thing I knew I was sitting on the roof of a satellite broadcast vehicle outside Strangeways Prison, flying the first ever live, world wide broadcast from a UAV.

From this point I was hooked on filming with UAVs, and have been filming for 30 years. this has taken me all over the world, working on feature films, commercials, dramas and pop promos. In 1995 I was nominated for a technical achievement Oscar in motion film, and actually received an award from the academy in 2014, for developing the Hovercam (UAV) and its contribution to motion film.