Hey, hey, hey, hello, paragliding pilots across the world. Welcome to your weekly dose of awesomeness on Paragliding Atlas podcast, the fastest growing show on the interweb for the sport of paragliding. And today we are talking about a topic that most of us are or have been curious about it sometime, and that is how to share the absolute magic that we experience in the air with our friends and family and hopefully beyond.
And how about this? If I told you that there's one person who has figured it out whether he wanted it or not, and he has figured it out up to a point where it is infectious and a lot of us want to try and replicate that.
Yes, as the name of the episode suggests, we are talking about none other than our very own influencer who has managed to crack the short form content creation code and relentlessly brings all his adventures to a phone screens time and again, invoking nostalgia, FOMO and inspiration all in one go. Benjamin is hands down single most followed pilot on Instagram, amassing millions of views across his platform for for his creative style of storytelling.
And the whole idea of coming out with this episode was to try and divulge the details to a larger audience on how he does it, why he does it, and if you're inspired by it, how can you do it? So without further ado, this is not just to talk about how to get likes. Instead, it's a master class in passion, perseverance, and the
pursuit of stories that inspire. And no, you don't have to pay for it. That's the beauty of it as it resonates with the whole idea behind paragliding Atlas and that is to bring knowledgeable information about the sport at 0
cost to consumer. So TuneIn and I hope you like it. Oh and yes, do not forget to like, subscribe and share to both of our channels, the link to which is in the show notes below, because that is the way we get to spread this awesomeness together and make the whole community a lot more aware about the joys that the out of light brings in our life. Benjamin Killett, what an absolute honour to finally have you on the show. Man, I think I have to tell this to my audiences.
There hasn't been an easier guest to reach out to. You replied in 5 minutes and we are talking in two days from the start of conversation. Man thank you so much, love it. Now, it's a pleasure to be on here and I love bringing the Stokes community, so I'm happy to do these sorts of things and glad you reached out. So yeah, thank you very much for having me. Awesome man. But just to start, when you said you love sharing this with community, how did this thought process come to you?
Because I think you are one of the most successful Instagram influencer, if we have to put it that way on the in the paragliding scenario. Or like, how did the thought process of sharing the aerial adventures come to you and what's the meaning behind them? Oh, mostly it started from just to be honest with you. Like I would go flying and I'd make videos for myself and during the flight I would talk
to add context to the video. Because otherwise when you look back at if, if you're flying and you just take videos of the scenery, yeah, it's nice to look back on. But what I thought was added more value to that for myself was I'm just going to silence my phone.
I apologise. What I thought for myself added more value was to describe my thought process during that time and my emotion and how I was feeling and what I was looking at. Because I thought maybe if I look back at this footage and I go where am I? What was when was this? What was going on? So I would just tell myself I'm purely talking to myself saying, OK, so I'm looking at mountain pollocks and I'm thinking about making a glide over here, but I'm just making sure that I can
get high enough. It's November, it's 2015 and it's a really beautiful day and I'm happy to be here. Stuff like that. And I'd do that and, and then I look back at him and go, Oh yeah, go away here. Maybe I'll post that on that, that clip on Facebook and I'll do that. And I just upload it and people started liking it and, but mostly it's just for myself, like the thought process stuff. And then I can look back a bit and I can analyse my decision making.
I could look at the flight, was it a good flight? Was it a bad flight? Where did I mess up? OK, this decision was wrong, I shouldn't have done that. And then I can look back at my footage and go, this is what I was thinking. That's what was actually going through my head because your, your, your, your perception of what you're actually thinking changes over time. So I could look back and go, OK, this is actually what I was thinking. And yeah, that was incorrect.
That's I'd made the wrong interpretation of the weather conditions or my expectation of the day. And, and that's why I made the mistakes. So it was a learning curve. It was for my own pleasure and enjoyment. And I, I just shared it and I keep sharing it. And I, and I think people like that. I think people like to see and, and the, the raw point of view, what it's like to be in the moment and in that experience, but also understand what's going
through my head. And at the beginning it was for me. And when I got more experience and I started doing better flights, people started taking things away from that and using it for their own learning experience. And that's my style.
More raw, like it's nice to put up a scenic video of scenery and some cheesy music every now and again, but but more I prefer sharing the emotion, decision making and logistical side of it. I, I, I, I would say your voice overs are infectious enough to try and recreate. Try and motivate all of your viewers to recreate their own. You're doing something pretty right there. This reminds me of of a video review system that we have in a lot of professional sports in paragliding.
We use that pretty heavily in, in Sivs and I was, I, I always used to wonder that why can't we do the same in cross country and everything. But I think you are taking a step in that direction. And I understand the battery systems and all of the limitations of the cameras are, are obviously limited. But I, I often wonder if we can have a dash Cam or something like that on our cockpits, which just records the whole flight for safety evaluation or
anything. So I think this is one step in that direction in, in new technologies, I would say, yeah. But so let's say, would would you mind talking about your airtime, like how, how experienced you are, how long you've been doing this? And. Yeah, sure. So I started paragliding in 2014. So it's yeah, it's just, yeah, December 2014. I'm knocking on 10 years flying now. I learned to fly in on Coronet Peak in Queenstown. There's big tandem flying community here. So I saw people flying.
I had a decision one day I wanted to go and do something new. I didn't 0 research. I had no idea what paragliding was really. I just wanted to go and give it a go. But the decision I got was a, do you go for a tandem flight or do you go to the school? And the school did an introduction day for the same price. And I said I might as well go do the introduction day. I actually get to fly the glider myself.
And I went and did that, flew off the training hill five times and loved it. And then they said, if you come back tomorrow, you can fly off the ski field. And I went and fell off the ski field. I was hooked. And that did a bit more research and I found out that you could do long distance, you could do aerobatics and things like this. Yeah, that's how I got into flying. It's basically just from seeing other people fly myself and deciding that I would give it a go. I would.
I've been living in New Zealand for 14 years now. I'm British. Yep. So originally from the South of England and I now for the last three years I'm doing 6 months in New Zealand and then I'm spending the other half of the year in the northern hemisphere. I've worked professionally as a tandem pilot. That's my day job. That's six months a year in New Zealand. I've worked three months of the year in Switzerland and I'm travelling for about 3 months of
the year. But yeah, as I I do also make videos, which is a bit of a side hustle, but primarily my day job is flying tandems, yeah. A side hustle made you the most followed person on Instagram? How cool is that? It's sort of like bragging rights for life, man. Yeah. Thank you. No, it's cool. It's really exciting that the and to be honest with you, it's grown a lot over the last six months. I've honed in my style of video that seems to be resonating with people outside of the
paragliding community. It is exciting. It's lame enough that people that don't fly understand to some extent what's going on isn't exciting for them. But there is enough Easter eggs and knowledge in for the people that do fly to get something out of it. But it's very short, like a cram a day into a whole full biv day. But a lot goes on in the day of Flying Biv Cram it into a minute and a half and and and people enjoy it. But it's grown a lot in the last six months, which is exciting to
see. Basically, once you started sharing your flights and narrating narration and all the voiceovers behind it, how did the community start growing around it? Can you talk us to, can you take our audiences through early days of how a growth looks like in this perspective? Yeah, I mean, it's just mostly just friends and family really that were watching the videos that I that I was putting up. And it was quite raw, you know, in the beginning because it, as I said, it's just my emotion and
my decision making. But what helped with the growth was my skill as a pilot increased. And when I started flying bigger distances and flying, it was a combination my my skill as a videographer and a pilot grew together. I'm not a very skilled videographer. The, the more unique thing I think is that I'm willing to wear and use a camera and do flights that people aren't normally doing. It's the combination of the two. I was flying lines in New Zealand that aren't commonly flown.
But the unique part was that I was wearing a camera and I was talking about it. And, and as I grew as a pilot, the videos got better. I got better at recording videos and that's how it grew together. But mostly it was friends and family in the local community, mostly people who are very interested in flying, specifically in New Zealand, who got the beta from the the lines that I was flying in, learning the hard way, like I did some mistakes and shared it
nonetheless. And it was those two things together, I think that really made it grow initially in the very early days. Yeah, curious question comes to my mind and I'm pretty sure this was this was resonate a lot with our listeners as well. Did Ground Suck try to pull you down at times when you were putting out your vulnerabilities out to the world? From other people. Yeah. Not so much to be honest with you. I was quite confident making my
own decisions, always have been. A New Zealand, it's the community is growing, but there's not, it's not a huge flying community. There's not like a big mentorship program really like in other countries like in France or the UK or Switzerland where you've got big pools of pilots and you have experienced pilots that you can follow. If you want to do cross country flight in France you can just follow other people on a good day. They've got plenty of gardeners in the air.
You can just go out and do it. Whereas in New Zealand, where I really cut my teeth, is you can't really do that. You have to go and do your own thing. You have to go and hike up a hill, make your own plan and go for it. The community's growing, but it's not there yet. I wasn't influenced so much by other people's decisions. I just was left to just do my thing. I flew with friends and we did some stuff together but it was and there were more experienced
parts I have flown with. But mostly it's it was my own decision making and I never really felt too much of the ground suck as you say. Yeah, not so much. That seems like quite a blessing in in digital age. My my my, my question stemmed from the curiosity that social media by its default design is is meant traditional gratification and validation and everything.
And regardless of how much we try, somehow the algorithms do reach us and the likes and the comments end up affecting us unless we are strong enough to just not press that notification buttons or just check that out for people out there who are inspired by what you do. And of course, as the landscape is growing with digital and digitisation, there will be people trying to replicate. Is there a defence mechanism to try and block away the, I can put it in as simply as
negativity. Some, somebody goes out there and says that you shouldn't be doing this in the comments and you're like, that's his life, but I have to protect mine. So is is there anything that that you have done which has particularly worked for you, which kept the comments and the likes and the the validation that comes from it immune away from your? Passion. You mean doing something in the flight specifically for the
making a video? Oh the audience reacting other than planned to your video and you not letting that affect you in the air. To be honest, really the yeah, the comments and the things that I get from on my videos, 99% are, are positive. Mostly I'm, I'm fortunate like I, I'm put, I think generally I'm putting out positive content is it's about an experience. So I don't get very many
negative comments. See, the negative comments that I do get in towards what I'm doing are somewhat unjustified and it's mostly people that just don't understand. They just don't understand what paragliding is and how it works. I don't think I and I never would. And I don't post videos of me being negligent towards my own and other people's safety. I don't think I'm taking any any unnecessary risk and posting it online. So I'm not really exposed so much to that.
I think the negative comments that you get from I do get from people from sometimes you just laugh it off because it just, it's just people that just don't understand. And sometimes I try and educate and I respond to the comments. I always respond to, I respond to most comments. And I just explained to him, it's not like that like how you get people comment things like what will happen if you are you not scared that you're just going to fall out of the air and
die? I'm like, no, because I'm flying air. I know. And it's like it's, that's the only sort of things that that I get that in that negative way. Yeah, I'm not too concerned about that. I I like to try and educate people that don't understand what paragliding is. That's really a big motivation for me is that when people that don't fly watch it and they don't understand.
But most of it's positive. Most of the comments are positive of people who don't understand, but they're excited to see it and they want to understand what's going on. How are you doing this? You don't have an engine. This is crazy. And I love explaining that to people. Every now and again you get a -1 where people say, oh you're not going to, you're not going to
last long. They just, they just don't understand and that's OK. Now that's great that keyboard warriors are sticking to their keyboards and not affecting you in the air. And I think this is a welcome outlook on on social media. I was not expecting this because usually social media is a place where people love venting out. But if there's positivity in the community, then that's so motivating then. All right, got it, man.
Benji, before I move on to the next topic, I quickly just want to touch upon how did the growth look like with respect to timeline? Because obviously a lot of algorithms and information out there which says how to grow on these channels and everything is you should post at certain things. And from what I see that you were just going out and living your life organically. There was no specific motive in trying and being successful in
this direction. However, you ended up doing it as it should be. So how just to tell our audiences, how did the timeline look like from you posting to you getting traction to finally starting to grow and then the last six months? What? What's the road map to here? I've been posting videos on social media for for paragliding since I started flying, which we started flying 10 years ago. But maybe I've been posting more seriously eight years, but like the the reality you meant.
So it's been a long road, but the goal has never really been to do anything. I never really, I never started posting videos on social media with this in mind. I posted it in the beginning just to share my experience with my friends and family. And then the paragliding community or that I was living in within New Zealand got interested. And then that kind of motivated me to keep posting more than other people got more
interested. So I keep posting more and it took a long time, but then you go through waves of motivation because then you, you at some point you think, what am I doing this for? And you have to come back to your core motivation, which is I like posting videos that I enjoy to make, that I enjoy to share, that I'm passionate about and that I think other people might like as well.
And if you're not doing that and you're just making videos for the sake of making videos and it's a waste of time. And, and, and that's, I've, I've stuck to those principles since the beginning and it's just naturally just evolved. I've gotten better at them and more people have gotten interested them and it's and it's evolved and grow together. But I've been posting for eight years, more or less.
After about four or five years of posting, I started generating a bit more of a following on Instagram. My focus in the beginning was actually probably more on YouTube. And then the problem that what I did over the last year was stop posting as much on YouTube because the amount of time and effort that goes into making a
YouTube video is so much more. It's so much more work making a long form YouTube video than it is to make a one minute video for your phone on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. It takes me an hour, an hour or two to make a reel on Instagram and that sometimes can reach millions of people. And that has a much wider effect for me than spending a week. Literally like the YouTube videos can take me a week to make a 15 minute video and it just doesn't have the same
reach. And I speak an hour and it's just for the light, the balance of lifestyle for me, just making these shorter videos just makes it just made a lot more sense to me. And that's why I made that shift about a year ago that I stopped making so much YouTube stuff and I started just making just actually just putting more of my time and effort into Instagram and TikTok, the short Facebook short 9 by 16 vertical format videos. And they just reach so many more people.
And I've had the end. I've had so many people message me and ask me how do I get into paragliding? And that really motivates me. This is amazing. This is super cool. I don't care about the money that you know, or maybe I'll get more money if I did the YouTube stuff. I think this is easy, easy. I make short videos. It reaches loads of people, brings paragliding to the forefront. It's cool. And that was the kind of the
progression. Quick question comes to my mind when you talk about DMS, how many DMS do you get in a day man with that kind of following on Instagram and how many of them are from women? It's. An interesting fact because Instagram does give you quite a detailed analysis of your following, which I look at and I'm 92% male. Unfortunately for me, yeah. But now you get lots of it depends on the month, but you do
get a lot. I do get a lot of message, but mostly the people that that send me direct messages are people that are really motivated by watching my videos and they really want to just know how to start the sport. And I do not remind responding to those messages at all. No, I love it, man. I I think that there's something with the digital landscape and women consuming paragliding because we, the paragliding Atlas hover between 15 to 20% women listeners compared to male listeners.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so far. But yeah, let's see here. Let's, let's see who catches up in each other's foray here. That that's, that's great. But I quickly want to know, did you see some periods of growth like that first thousand was the hardest or 1st 10,000 was the hardest or first 100,000 was the hardest? Like which one was the slowest and which one was the fastest in the past metrics?
If I'm being totally honest with you, I don't know because, and I'm not trying to seem nonchalant about it, but I wasn't really paying that much attention to it. What I was doing was just sharing videos that I was passionate about. And yes, I did notice when I did gain following, but my when I was posting videos, I wasn't trying to get more followers. So I wasn't really, it wasn't like, Oh my, do you know what I mean?
Like I, it happened and it was probably I posted a few videos when I had a, my Instagram account was just starting and I did a couple that I got like 1,000,000 views on one video and that was huge for me. Like I didn't have that many followers and that and it was one video. I just put like a, a video of me. It was a 360 camera on my head and I flew false on full speed
bar down the a road. I just flew down the road and I put some catchy music to it and boom, they got a million and a half views and that and off that. So this is maybe a piece of advice for people who want to grow a social media account in the same respect is that when I, when that happened, when I got this boom million and a half views, I kept posting. I posted every day. I posted every day for the next two months or something.
And I rode the wave and riding the wave of that one that did really well grew my following. And that's really when I started paying attention to how many followers I have, how many people are following me, how many views I'm getting. Because before that, I was just saying, I don't care. I'm just posting stuff that I like. Think that's cool. And then I had this one that went really well. And then I rode the wave.
And then I grew. And then I went, OK, wow, OK, now I've got the OK, well, now this seems worth doing. And that was a bit of a game changer for me, just having one video that did well. What, what, what, what was the amount of likes you were at before that a million viral video and and after you eventually rode the wave out for the next two months, what what was the difference in the in the likes of or followers in your profile? Not sure, I can't remember to be honest with you.
I probably only had like maybe 1000 or 2000 followers and then that one had one big video. But then I spent a long time posting after that. I can't remember. It was it probably took me to 20,000 followers or something, but it wasn't initially off that one video. That one video just gave me the opportunity. It that one video that went really well, put me gave me a podium to stand on to then show all the other stuff that I had
to show. And so I got one opportunity, that being one video went really well. And then I just posted, I can't remember how many people what the what the numbers were, but I did do that. I noticed that that happened. Get the wave, I get the wave. A question comes to mind that when did the brand start recognizing you? Like when did it become desirable enough to reach out to Ozone or Xe Mag or there's a list of sponsors on your website where you said that.
All right guys, let's try and come together and create something rather than just me doing this by myself like. Yeah, it's a, it's a funny one really, because to be honest with you, like the, the, my experience with brands, what they want, it's not necessarily how many followers you have if
they're not that it depends. It depends which brand because obviously like it does help if you've got a million followers, it's going to be better for the brand because you're going to be able to market their products to a wide audience. But in reality, that's not the be all and end all. It helps, but it's not the most important thing.
My experience with brands is that if you create good content, if you're a person that matches the image of their brand and you're some there's somebody that you're, they're happy for you to be a figurehead and market for them and a good image for them. Then it doesn't matter so much how many followers you have. What they want is that you make good quality content that displays their product nicely and it's something that's shareable and that they can use.
For me, it wasn't like I reached a certain follow ship that then people started because the brands that I work with, they're not so concerned about the amount of followers that I have. What they want is they, they wanted to know that I was a good person that made good decisions, respected the safety of the sport, was respected by my peers. People respected me and would listen to me.
And, and I think that's way more important than just looking at the statistics on social media because it's actually, when it comes to brand partnerships and things like that than just looking raw statistics of engaged followers or whatever. It helps, but that's not really what people are looking for. So what really got me in and, and to make these connections with brands was talking with them, having somebody get my foot in the door and having conversations.
And then them speaking to me and understanding and getting to know me and knowing that I'm a person that they would like to work with and that they would be happy for me to represent their brand more than the social media stuff. Just out of curiosity, let's say if there's somebody I can take my example, I'm starting out and I'm trying to build up a whole
ecosystem around this. What would be a good time to go out and explore brand sponsorships for a creator who's trying to make something in their field? I. Mean it's never a bad time. Like as long as you're, you can present yourself that you have a you're a stand up member of the community that people respect and or you make nice, interesting videos. Like I wouldn't say to somebody you need to get at least 10,000 followers before you start. I wouldn't say that's the case
at all. It's it's, I don't think there's any benchmark for that. It's more about how you are as a person, how you interact with people and how much people listen to you and you're a respectable person and likable person. That's more important is I don't think you should be putting it benchmark on on on that. But as long as you're yeah, yeah, respectable person and people listen to you and you get on well with with the brands and you don't have to be a huge social, social media person.
I think I love it, the way you're presenting a beautiful side of social media and paragliding because usually every other aspect of social media, you need to have so many followers, you need to keep on posting toxically, You need to follow all of that and you're telling me no paragliding is all Chill row. Even the bras don't care about the numbers. Just bring your passion and
that's all that matters in here. Like having a massive following helps if you were trying it's this is a thing, right? Look, realistically, look, paragliding is pretty niche. OK, so there's not a huge if you're trying to sell a paragliding product And we were talking specifically about paragliding here, you don't need you don't need a million follow. You can't have a million if you can't have a million paragliding followers because there's not a million paraglider followers.
So it's no point. So if you've got 10,000 followers, but those 10,000 followers are diehard paraglider pilots, you're way better value than old mates celebrity who's got a million followers and none of them paraglide. So the, the, the, it's not, that's what I mean. It's not all about the numbers and it's more it's a tight knit community. So as long as you've got respect to Max, the community, then I think that's more important than
your total following. I quickly want to touch upon TikTok because I saw you're active on that platform as well and some when I usually research on how social media works, a lot of people say TikTok following isn't as effective as Instagram is. Is that true? Do do you find more abstract followers on Tiktok than than
other platforms? It, it's interesting, like I don't really, I'm not super experienced with Tiktok and, and basically what I do is whatever I post on Instagram, I post it on Tiktok. My understanding is that so far is that you have a different audience on Tiktok, The people on Tiktok, there's probably a little bit of a crossover with Instagram, but it certainly is a different.
You get a lot sometimes younger, but also older, like you have a mix of ages on TikTok too, but it's a just a different platform and people expect a different style of video, perhaps longer, perhaps more personalized, detailed, maybe more behind the scenes sort of stuff. Instagram is more like visual, catchy music, stylish and Tik Tok's a bit more raw. It's just a different style that people go for.
If I was really motivated, I'd I'd make slightly different videos on TikTok than I would Instagram. Takes a lot more time. But yeah, it is a slightly different style of viewing and I think that's why you do get a different audience. But it's a mix of ages and I, it's something if that's worth doing, you know, if you're going to be posting and doing social media, Tik Tok's huge. It's huge. It has a huge amount of people on it and it's worth posting there.
And another point that's worth mentioning as well, it's TikTok pays a pay-per-view. Wow. Yeah, so you get same on Facebook pays per view as well. Instagram you don't get paid anything. You don't didn't get any money from Instagram. You can get money from sorry through Instagram, you can get paid. They can people can gift you or they can you can do a subscription service. But Facebook pays you per view because they put adverts on the
reels and TikTok does the same. And you can make good money on TikTok people. And that's what a lot of people do. And that's why it's worth considering, because it's the pay-per-view on Facebook isn't that far off YouTube, yes. Wow, are you telling me that revenue models of Facebook and YouTube are competing with each other? So you can definitely get paid the most per view is YouTube. But but the the thing with Facebook is you get it's much easier to get more views.
So maybe you only get 30% per view on Facebook, but you reach a much wider audience. It gets displayed a lot because a lot more people are watching Facebook on their phone. So you may get paid 1/3, but your video will be viewed 10 times as much. So yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting for sure. Something to consider. Yeah. TikTok and Facebook pay-per-view. I feel like you'll be coming up with a master class on how to do social media and and adventure
sports here. Like when does the money start trickling in? What kind of number on views are we looking at to to bring in some sort of income? It really depends. It changes. There's a lot of metrics that go on you you get pay-per-view, but the amount that you get pay-per-view depends on a couple of factors. On YouTube, it's how many times people who are presented with your thumbnail click on the thumbnail. For all of the platforms.
It depends on the percentage of time that people watch your video. If they only watch the 1st 10% and turn it off, you get paid less than if they were to watch the whole thing through. And the metric is how long the total hours of all the people that are watching your video watch it. That basically the longer you can keep people looking at their phone, the more money you get. So that that's the same. That's the most simple way to look at it if you can, whether there is number of views or
hours or time percentage. But there's a few metrics, so you can't put your finger on exactly how much you're going to get pay-per-view. But that's the nuts and bolts of all the platforms, pretty much, yeah. Since we're talking about this, I have to put it out there that for me, this is such a big conflict of interest because all of us out there know social media does add to depression, anxiety, and everything that comes with it.
And yet we like it or not, just to be a part of the race of capitalism. We have to be a part of the machinery that promotes it because that is the only way to go ahead and make something meaningful in this landscape, which is dominating the revenue generation in today's world.
So the way that I I process it and I really find as you go through, like I've said before, you go through waves of motivation of why you make these videos and what makes it because man, I don't make good money from it. I'll be honest with you, I straight up I'm not, this isn't a full time living. I still have a day job. Like I'm, yeah, maybe I have a good following on Instagram, but I'm not rich. Like it doesn't mean Instagram makes no money. This is the reality.
And then you have to go back to like, why are you making these videos? And am I making these videos so that people are glued to their phone all the time? No, I'm making these videos because I'm making people aware that paragliding is a thing and it's a cool sport and I want more people to get in involved and give it a go. And one negative comment, a call back to the previous question that I've had, is that somebody commented and I really enjoyed
responding to this. Someone come and said please stop promoting the sport, we don't want more people doing it. They're going to ruin it for everyone. And I just thought you're an absolute moron. Absolutely not. No, no, I completely disagree with that. I want as many people to start paragoning as possible because we have power in numbers. And also it's amazing. I really love it. It's an amazing sport and I think everyone should be doing it because I love its bits. I think it's great.
And also if more people do it, the more sway we have. And look at Switzerland's if they've got the paragliding. A picture of a paragliding on the money, for God's sake. Yeah, the 50 franc. No, exactly the 50. Franc, no, there's a picture of a paraglider and the flying in Switzerland is amazing because they have good bargaining power with the Civil Aviation Authority. They have air spaces that are open specifically for free flight, Hang Gliding guide of flights.
They take these things into account. If we had a huge flying community internationally, we'd have more sway in in how airspace is shaped and how we're considered towards it. And and we can only make things better by power and numbers. And I think it's really for. So I don't think it should be any negativity towards more people taking up the sport. Just doesn't make any sense to me. But yeah, yeah.
I faced this dilemma and questioned myself and I was like, bro, if people before us thought the same, then we would be still on the ground. The only reason why we are getting the art of light is because somebody thought they wanted to share with a broader audience. And the only way to to to do more good in the world is to spread what you're getting. So it's to me that doesn't make
either sense at all. But yeah, I I can imagine that's quite funny putting sense into people's head like this. And now when we're talking about time, effort and wave of motivation, it really have been curious about editing and post production because that doing all the recording is the fun part that is effortless because that is where we are living our
dream. And then comes the screen time before we are able to share it. Just just take us through your editing process and let's let's talk about mine, the short form 1st and then then we'll go back to YouTube and why you eventually thought it was not worth it. Social media, when I'm posting on Instagram and things, they it's like a minute and a half long or if it's a story it's even less. I can do most of that just on my
phone. And that's what I did over the last year, especially when I was travelling through Europe, Pakistan and India, Canada, I was just doing everything on my phone. Takes me an hour and a half, two hours Max to put a one to 1 1/2 minute video together and that's fine. And that's why I do more and more of it. The YouTube stuff takes way longer spend. It does also depend on whether
I'm doing any hyper lapse. I've done some hyper lapses in the past, which is a lot more time consuming because it's a huge video file. I'm filming 5.7 or 8K and it records the whole time. So the computer takes time for it to process. You have to create proxy files so that you're in order you're able to edit it without any lagging. So there's some stuff that just takes time that I don't have to be set at the computer, but I have to set it up and the computer has to do the work for
a while, do I? So with the hype apps, I record the whole flight. I then I have to go through, get the footage onto the computer and I keyframe the whole flight and then I export the whole flight in a flat aspect ratio in 4K. Then I take the 4K and I proxy all of the footage so that it's a low resolution file that I can then edit with. Then I speed ramp all of it and then I export it with the original footage. And so it's a huge process and it takes time.
And that's why I've moved away from that because the the time that goes into it is just, it's just too much. And then at the end of the day, I'm doing this because I enjoy it. And when it become too much like a job, then it just doesn't seem just not into it. But yeah, editing for the social media, do it on my phone from anywhere in the world, it's fine. I do also make some of the social media stuff on my computer because it increases the quality.
I can make better, shorter videos faster on my computer when I'm at my computer. But if I'm travelling that I don't bring, I don't bring my computer with me. I just leave it at home. But yeah. Let's talk about editing GoPro the whole day into 90 seconds because let's say you you record maybe 5 minute clips or two-minute clips depending upon the time of the flight. And then at the end of the day you landed, you have your GoPro and, and the phone ready to be paired.
To me that just looks like so much work to transfer all the GoPro and then as you said, keyframe them or cut them shorter. So just talk us through the process from six hour flight to 90 minutes. What are the steps involved? So luckily, second time in pilot, I'm well trained on transferring GoPro footage to phones. It's I do it for money every day. But yeah, you get these. This is 1 here. This is the USUSBC micro SD card
reader. So I just take the micro SD card out of out of the GoPro and plug it straight into my phone and it transfers. And I have, I have an iPhone, but it's USBC and the transfer on USBC, whether you have Android or iPhone is fast. So I can take all the footage off the GoPro, put it directly on my phone within a minute. The other thing I do is that when I'm filming, so with the software, with the software that I use on my phone, it's the apps
that I use is called cap cut. You probably, you've probably heard of it. It's it's a popular video editing up on your phone. And then on the computer, I use Adobe Premiere Pro. Both softwares transcribe footage and you can delete pauses. So what I do is I turn the camera. I have a quick capture mode on the GoPro, which is when you press shutter button on the top turns on, it starts recording,
turns on starts recording. And I when I see something cool, I see something worth looking at or I'm in a good or an interesting moment or in a scenic moment, I talk and when I talk it marks the footage. And this is. When I go back to edit later, I drop all of the footage into the timeline and I just delete the pauses because it transcribes the whole sequence. So it just deletes the bits that I'm not talking. And that cuts my footage down by
about 80% to just the talking. And then I just take that talking and then I just sift through the words that mean nothing. And then or it tells the story and I just, I just, and then I just delete, delete, delete bits until I have the right length that I'm looking for. Sometimes I shift some of the video a little bit so the audio or maybe I have a really nice audio, but I didn't quite get the right shot. So I shift the video slightly to certain matches. But mostly I talk when I see
something cool. That's why I put a few videos out that it's just me going, wow, beautiful, wow, look at that. And it's because I don't know what to say because I'm not, I know this is and I'm just like caught up in the moment and I'm just like, wow, this is beautiful. Wow, look at that. Because I know that later I'm just going to cut to that point because I just have to say something because I know, wow, this is amazing. I need to look at this later
because this is spectacular. And that's why I got a bunch of videos. It's just me saying wow. I kid you not Benjamin, those compilations of Wows and look at that is so infectious to look at it puts a smile on the viewers face and believe me, your wow is going to get famous. So you might think of trademarking the way of saying wow, and look at that impact like, no, that's good to hear. Because I was I used to always wonder. I was like, how does he not run out of breath?
Like his voice is so consistent throughout the 90 seconds. And now it's like, all right, it's the cutting editing magic. I love it, man Thanks. Thanks for being so honest and transferring with your secrets behind the camera. So I'm pretty sure a lot of people out there are getting motivation from this and we'll be following your footsteps. But Benjamin, let's talk about the gear. How did you progress? Because this is one of the biggest things that comes to a creator's mind.
All of us want to have the fanciest gear because the supposedly that looks the best, but resources are limited for everyone. And so how did you prioritize? How was your journey with gear and investing money in that sense? In with camera equipment. Yeah, camera audio and or on investing in any softwares or anything like that. I just always use GoPro, really GoPro for filming on my head. I've used and I'm a sucker. I'm a sucker like most people. I'm an absolute sucker for new
gear. I like to have the latest one or at least try it. And for me it makes sense because I use it for work, especially for flying tandem. It's good to have the latest camera. You know, the clients are paying good money for the photos. So I like to have the the latest camera, but they also come with good new features. But I've always done GoPro. I use 3.5 millimetre GoPro of branded microphone adapter and a
Rode lav 2 wide microphone. And and I then it's been compatible for the last five Gopros. So I've used the same one and and I use it at 360 camera Insta 360. I never used the GoPro Max. I always just used Insta 360. I'm using it less and less at the moment just because it's a lot more admin.
But yeah, I just, it's the gear is not super complicated that getting good audio came from a wired microphone that plugs directly into the GoPro. I do have these new microphones that I use more now just for stuff that I'm doing on the ground. But as I'm sure you're aware, when you're when you're out on a Vol Biv trip, but in flying
weight is important. I've got to carry that bag up a hill so I'm not walking around with boom mics, you know, like a wired lav mic and a GoPro is it does the job. It's not too heavy. And the Gopros take amazing footage. They film 5.3 K and the the colour correction that it does on it in itself and and the stabilisation takes amazing footage like it is really I I can't knock it. There are other cameras out there that I haven't tried. DGI makes the 60 have got the an
action camera as well. I had a play around with the DGI one in the shop and I wasn't blown away by it. But the three the Gopros are good. One caveat I'd say is that you don't always need the latest and greatest with the GoPro because they do bring them out every year for the sake of bringing them out. Like the difference in video quality between the 12 and the 13 is negligible. Like I've owned both and I can't say that the difference is worth the upgrade.
The main upgrade worthy thing on the 13 versus the 12 is it's got a they've now have a magnet latch mount so you don't have to do the thumb screw whenever you want to change where the GoPro is. You previously would have to unscrew it every time. Now you don't, it's just magnets. It's way better. So that's the best thing. But the quality of the image is more or less is exactly the same fact. The 13th maybe slightly worse. Just because you've got less,
you've got less options. Yeah, with the gear it's not super complicated and with the phone, the phones take amazing footage then modern phones. Now if you have a new iPhone, new Android, they all film 4K, they have stabilisation. Like I I don't fly, I don't ever take any proper real cameras with me. I never have So that the iPhone, new iPhones, new phones and a GoPro is what I've been running and it works fine. Magnet Mom that you said, of course, I saw that when they came out.
With all the marketing and everything. Can our sport really make use of it? When the collapses and all the violence, all the shit hits the fan, do you think it'll still stick on? Absolutely, Yeah. No, that thing's not coming off. It's solid. I use it. I use it every day. That thing is not coming off. You'd have to you'd if you try, if you put that magnet latch mount on your helmet and tried ripping it off, you'd RIP the adhesive off before that latch goes.
It's not going anywhere. And that adhesive's on there. I've never lost a GoPro like I've full confidence in that latch mount. It's not yet. It's solid. I use it at work and I've got everything leashed. But yeah, it's that because it's it says magnet, but don't be full because it's latched. So it's there's, you have to, in order to disconnect it, it's you have to push buttons in like it's, you put it on and then it's catches. So it's not just held on by
magnet. It's there's a mechanism here. It's not coming off. It's a clip on basically and then. Yes, exactly. But it's super easy to take it on and off. And for me it's perfect because when I I'm walking up the hill and I maybe have a clamp mount and I have the GoPro on the clamp mount and then I need to swap from the clamp mount to my helmet and it's boom on. And you know what? It encourages me to Fillmore because a lot of times I can't be bothered because I've got to unscrew it.
And then and that's a big part for me is that I do this sport because I love it and it's fun and I don't want to it to become I'm doing this because I'm making a video. I'm doing this because I love flying and the videography is just something that I do as well. And this is actually maybe a point that's worth touching on because I've flown before with cameras and 360 cameras hanging off the side of me and creating hyperlapses and stuff like that, create really nice images and videos.
And I've got, you know, this camera on another camera here. And yeah, it makes nice videos, but in reality just takes too much away from the experience. And you have to find a balance. And that's why I've actually taken a step back in the amount of videos that recording and the amount of cameras that I've got hanging off me because this camera maybe takes, I have to plug a 20,000 milliamp battery into and a one terabyte micro SD card in order to film the whole fly.
And it's awkward on the take off. And maybe you break, you've got a different challenging launch. You've got the brake line wrapped around it, like it adds risk in it and it's hanging outside the whole time and it spoils your view. And, and I've been down that path and yes, it does make cool videos, but in reality, it just for me, I found that I had to take a step back.
I'm just, I'm putting too much in the effort of trying to capture videos and it's taking away the enjoyment and the real passion of why I'm doing it. And you've got to have a balance. And, and for me, that meant taking a step back from that. And, and now I just do more stuff just on the helmet. Super easy, man, that I forget the cameras on there, cameras on my head, turn it on and start recording and turn it off. Boom, just me flying again.
And when you've got other stuff hanging off, it's just too much. And I get a lot of people messaging me asking me how do you attach a 360 camera and make these hyper lapses? And I'm like, OK, I'll tell you. I'm happy to tell you. Please let me add the caveat that I don't recommend it. And I'm not just saying that because I don't want you to make the same videos as me. I don't care. It's just it's risk. There's risk involved. You take off's not going to be a safe and it's a big faff.
Like it's just be aware before you spend €1000 buying a camera and all the crap. Like it's not the nicest thing to fight with. Just As for the listeners, like I'm happy to tell people how to do it, but it's, it's, it's normal on social media. No, I, I agree. And and next time somebody asks you how to make magic happen, you can send them the link to this podcast because that is the whole idea of of doing this. Yeah. And I'm so glad you mentioned the the risks that come with all
of this. But let's say, managing risks of having camera equipment versus enjoying the rewards of flight. How you eventually found a fine balance. But for anybody, especially the new beginners out there, especially the ones who are experiencing the art of flight for the first time in their lives, they're super excited to share. I was no different.
I wanted a GoPro on my first flight and my instructor was like, no, that is not coming on until you have quite a good control over your wings and everything. The quick, the quick question that I'm curious about is that how do you manage to not do something out of the comfort zone for the sake of the video, be it placing a mount at a place or be it chasing something which looks amazing or that that side of things. How? How do you look at that? You really have to disconnect.
You have to, you know, you have to forget that you have the camera on. Really, if you, the dangerous part is you get into, and it's never really been an issue for me, but I can see how it could be an issue for some people is that they're making decisions based on the fact that they have a camera on and they want to do something cool because they've got a camera on and they want to. You have to completely disconnect that.
The other thing I'd say is that if you're learning and if you're in school or just fresh out of school, don't wear a camera. It's no point. Yeah, maybe you want to catch at the moment and get someone on the ground to film you because you're not going far. You're a beginner. Just in reality, you need to focus. The biggest risk and the highest incidents are people when they're right at the beginning and they're fresh and you need to be focusing on flying and and doing your thing.
You don't need to be making videos. Like I said, you're not going far. Get someone to film your take off from the ground. Get someone to film your landing. You don't need to be wearing a camera or holding a selfie stick or anything like that. You shouldn't even be thinking about holding a selfie stick until you've got a few 100 hours under your belt because you've got to fly with one hand and it's just a lot going on. Helmet cams I think pretty,
pretty good. If you stick a helmet camera on your helmet, I don't think the risk is that huge. You can turn it on, start recording. It's pretty, pretty simple. Maybe you have some risk on the take off of your I've never, it's never been an issue for me. I've literally on take off, never got my helmet camera stuck in the lines or anything like that. So well, I don't think that's a justified risk.
Maybe if you're flying aerobatics and you're falling through the lines, it could be an issue. Yeah, I've got, I've gotten the camera stuck in the lines after landing, but it's not on take off. But yeah, in the beginning, just focus on flying, focus on the enjoyment and don't let it distract you. Don't let videography on filming during flight distracts you from what you're doing because it's amazing, it's really good fun, and really it's about the flying, not about the video.
Makes sense. I, I do have a little bit of a different thought about GoPro on the helmet though, because first of all, I just hate that they're so heavy and they just add on a little bit extra weight, which you will get used to eventually. I I know that I don't. Even know this is The funny thing is that I don't know this is because this is I'm completely guilty of this because I just I've always had a GoPro in my head. I have no idea interest.
Yeah. Yeah. And the second one is could be a hypothetical situation where you you always consider all the scenarios. And what scares me the most is God forbid if it goes in your lines and the glider reopens, it's going to snap so hard in your helmet that it could actually impact some kind of neck structure or something in spine that if the. I think the adhesive will break before your or the line will break before you'd actually do damage to yourself.
To be honest with you, I wouldn't personally be that worried about it. The the problem is that it would maybe affect if you got really got stuck in the lines. It could affect the way that the glider flies. But you can always dump the chin strap. But I just never it's net for me. I've probably flying with a helmet Cam on for over a definitely over 1000 hours, maybe 1500 hours that I've actively been doing it. I have never got my head stuck in the lines. So I can't say yeah for that.
I definitely there are risks of making videos in flight. I think the biggest one is taking your hands off the controls. Maybe it's probably the biggest risk to try and mess around with the camera, but actually the risk of getting your head stuck in the lines of the camera on. Yeah, I just, yeah, I don't think that's the biggest risk.
I think the biggest risk is the distraction that you're being distracted from the flight and your decision making and you're not thinking straight because you've got a camera on your head and you're thinking about the camera, think about the flight. That's the biggest risk. I love your unfiltered honesty, but I wish every single guest on this podcast was that. But yeah, usually our community is full of people like this. And thank you for your point of view.
Quickly, before we wrap up, Benjamin, I have this tradition of asking my guests to share one memorable or one experience from the airtime which has stuck with them and wish they would like to bring out to the audiences. So does anything ring a bell which you would like to talk about right now? Do you know what it's? It's difficult because there's so many really good flights that I've done over the time, but
what's the best one it? Could be otherwise as well, like something that just sticks with you, that you revisit often and that the audiences would love to take away from this one hour of a talk. I don't know what's the most sensible because what's the most sensible one for me to bring up? There's one flight. This was the most probably one of the most exciting moments. This is, and this is actually with the caveat, it was a stupid decision. I shouldn't have done this. It wasn't sensible.
But nonetheless, it was one of my and most memorable flights and one of the most exciting moments that I've had during flight, but also an unnecessary risk that I shouldn't have taken. And that's the caveat that I'm attaching to it. But I was, it was a fight this summer. I was in Switzerland and had a
really beautiful fight. We took off from the Nice and we flew towards Martini and we went around the corner, flew into Valles and I'm living in the Lauterbrinen Valley and you have to pass the Bright Horn. So you're flying along Valles and if you want to get back from Valles to where I was living, and we were, we had a party that night in Gimelwald. You had to pass over this Ridge to get back. The cloud base is 200 meters lower than the Ridge. Now, my bugger, how am I going to do this?
I don't know how I'm going to do this. And it's like a four hour train ride back, which in the scheme of things, having lived and flown in New Zealand for a long time, is not a big deal. 4 hour train ride, perfect. I can sit on the train and have a beer. It's it's all good. But I'm trying desperately to get back and there was a glacier. There's a glacier, I can't remember the name of the glacier, but it's a really long flat glacier.
It's two, one or two kilometres long and it's slightly sloping up in the direction that I'm going and I can't see over it. I'm just high enough that I think I can make the glide over, but it's completely in the light. It's really hard to judge your distance from a completely snow covered glacier because there's no contour. There's no it's just completely white. You don't know how high you are over it. I think I'm high enough. Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure I'm going to make the glide.
And I started making the glide and I'm getting halfway across it and I'm like, I don't know if this is going to work. And I've got A5 to 10K an hour tailwind, but it's slightly sloping up. So if I don't make it, there's no turning around and going back. And I'm trying to judge my height over the glacier. And the only way that I can do that is by looking at my shadow. So I'm looking at my shadow. I'm like all the shadows getting
too big, turn away. All the shadows getting too small, turn in. I just did this and I must have cleared that glacier with five meters and that feeling of elation that I just, I don't, if I'd not made it over, it would have been absolute show. I don't know what I don't know. It would have been a difficult situation to get out of. But anyway, as soon as I made it over the glacier, I had home on glide. Boom, done. I'm home. I'm at the pub Done.
I'm going to go see my mates. We're going to the party. It's cool, just that feeling and I and I'd scratched before for an hour to get that extra 100 meters so that I could clear it. I really worked. I really worked hard to get that extra 100 meters and then boom, I nipped through with five meters to spare and I got home and it was just wasn't the longest fight they ever done, but that one moment I was just super exciting and happy to not land on the glacier and make it
home to the puck. Did you have a good night out though? No, it was good. It was good. Do you know what the adrenaline that was? The adrenaline was going through me for a while. So it's but no, it was probably not the most sensible thing that I did, but one of the most memorable. I was asking, did you have a good night out eventually once you went out on the tower? Yeah, it was good. It was good. But yeah, it's yeah, I was pretty excited. Yeah, it was good fun. It was good.
We had a good catch up with mates and and all the guys that I worked with, so it was nice. I was happy to make it and not have to miss it and be on the train.
I can imagine I, I love when we go proximity flying close to the terrain and especially situations like these when you're like, Oh, I have to just do my weight shift just the right amount so that like we are able to because I haven't been in that situation once, not for not with that high intensity, But I, I did clear terrain with almost just a meter and I was flying a high B, so the glide wasn't even that exceptional. So it was, but it does make it all the more worth it once you
are successful. But if you're not, the consequences are quite something to to learn to remember. But Benjamin, I think we have covered up everything that could possibly come to my mind in for this curiosity. Is there anything that that you might think from your end that the audiences should know about you? No, I think we've covered everything. Yeah, no, I think it's good. And yeah, just get there and go
and fly. It's and try not to look at your phone too much and go and live it for yourself. That's what I'd say. No, I love it, man. On that note, measurement, do you what's, how does the future look like? You know what are we looking to consume and how much awesomeness are you bringing to your screen in days to come? So I'm just like, I love my job.
I I fly tandem is I do love it. I I could see myself doing this for a while, but if I can move the percentage of tandem flying and some solo flying where I make some videos and I can maybe do half and half, that'd be good. At the moment, most of my income just comes from flying tandem. So if I can find a way to monetize the content that I make to make it worthwhile, I can spend a bit more time doing that. I recently just launched
Instagram subscriptions. So people that follow me on Instagram can subscribe to get premium content. And I'm going to give that a go for a couple months at least. And just as long as it keeps growing or I get to the right amount of people that I can keep providing content, then I'll keep going with that. But it's people want to see that
bonus stuff, then I can. It means I can facilitate taking time out of my normal working day to go and make those videos, which I'm super passionate to go and do. Unfortunately I still need to eat. So it's I need to either fight tandem or do this. It's I'd like to find a balance. If I can shift a percentage more towards some solar flying and making videos then that, that'd
be awesome. And, but at the moment I'm happy traveling, making videos in my spare time and being in Europe and being in New Zealand and a bit in between. I'm very happy doing that. I live, I'm fortunate, I live a very nice life. It's good. Wow, I'm so glad you recognize it that way because after speaking to you for almost an hour, it's very understandable for me to see that you're in a happy place right now and that is where anyone thrives and grows.
So keep rocking, man. You are doing it and just the way it's supposed to be. Thank you. I just have to bring this out because you mentioned that the subscription video, that thing that you have because I was scrolling through your profile. And just for the sake of our audiences, if you go to Benjamin Killer's Instagram, which will be in the show notes and the description, go to the pinned post next to that subscription which has almost half a million.
And I'm not telling you because the content is same for us para lighter pilot. But God damn in the comments that non Flyers are put under that video are freaking hilarious to look at man. I respond to this is The funny thing. Then some of the stuff you get put on there. I'm like I I have to have a little bit of self-control sometimes with with how I respond to it because it's it is funny. Yeah. We're just standing what paragliding is. They just have no, yeah.
That's hilarious, but I think with great power comes great responsibility. I try and behave myself. No. Awesome, Benjamin. Benjamin, I think on that note, one of the most amazing episodes that I've had on the show so far. So from the bottom of our heart, thank you so much for coming on board and sharing your wisdom, man, and cannot wait to share the sky with you one day, I'd say. Absolutely, I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, sky and the screen. I think that's where the magic
will happen. Perfect. Yeah. Thanks man.