Drone’s-eye view: CHS grad takes video of Creston Fourth with drone

Most people in Creston watch the Fourth of July fireworks from the grass next to McKinley Lake.

But this year, one spectator had a much closer view — from the middle of the explosions.

Using his DJI Phantom 2 Vision+ camera drone, Creston native Scott Stream recorded some up-close footage during the fireworks show, as well as birds-eye views of the parade and talent show. And now, he’s sharing the video for all Crestonians to enjoy.

Stream, 54, is a 1979 Creston High School graduate who’s been in the jewelry business for 30 years. He lives in Lake Tahoe, Calif., and spends the winters kitesurfing in Asia. This year, he traveled back to Creston over the Fourth to visit his mother, Lorraine Stream, and brought his drone with him, eager to shoot in picturesque southern Iowa.

“Creston is such a great subject,” Stream said. “It’s absolutely stunning. When you think about us, what Bali is to Indonesia with the rice paddies, Creston is to America.”

Prior to owning a drone, Stream had started shooting aerial video while kitesurfing, using a GoPro camera attached to his kite. But a few months ago in California, Stream saw someone shooting some video of swimmers in an even better way.

“Somebody was flying this white thing over all the swimmers,” he said, “and I said to myself, ‘I don’t know what that is, but I want one.’”

That white thing in the sky turned out to be a drone. Soon, Stream was ordering his own online. Now, for the past seven months, he’s been shooting video by drone and uploading some of it to his YouTube channel, “scottstream.”

Drones, known by some as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and by others as unmanned aerial systems (UAS), have a variety of functions. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, drones can be the size of a small radio or have the wingspan of a Boeing 737. The FAA estimates as many as 7,500 small commercial UAS may be in the air by 2018.

Although drones have made recent headlines for trespassing on the White House lawn and for their uses in war, they are also used by farmers, conservationists, cinematographers and hobbyists like Stream.

Stream said drones aren’t as hard to pilot as people may think. Technology helps the drones stabilize themselves in a crosswind, and his model’s GPS taps into six satellites. It will fly up to 3/4 of a mile away and up to 1,000 feet high, with a maximum speed of 45 to 50 miles per hour. He can watch everything through an iPhone or iPad attached to the controls, and if the drone flies out of range, it knows how to come back home.

Saturday evening, before the fireworks began, Stream let a couple youngsters take his drone for a test drive. They were Dane Swedlund, 9, and his sister, Chloe, 7, the children of Dan and Angie Swedlund. Both said they enjoyed the experience.

“It moves pretty fast,” Dane said. “It was actually easy if you knew how the controls worked.”

Chloe described it as a “cool flying machine” and said she thought it was neat how the controller hooked to Stream’s phone so she could see the camera images as she flew it.

Once the explosions started, Stream took to the controls himself. He said it was the first time he’d ever shot in the middle of a fireworks show. Although piloting a $1,300-plus drone through a flurry of bursting fireworks might seem chancy, he said it was worth it.

“I just went in by the seat of my pants and took the risk,” he said. “Towards the end of the video, there I was in the thick of it.”

Stream shot 45 minutes of video during the Fourth, including the parade, talent show and fireworks. His finished YouTube video, edited down and set to music, clocks in at 10 minutes, 54 seconds. It’s now posted on his YouTube channel for the Creston community to enjoy.

To view Stream's video, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aebyBZFjrYw.