MELVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 22, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BZ Media LLC announced today the winners of the first annual InterDrone™ Film Festival which took place September 9 at the Rio hotel in Las Vegas. The grand prize and a check for $2,000 for the Best Video overall went to Scott Sporleder of Matador Network for Jordan From The Air.
An impressive lineup of judges included Randy Braun of DJI, Eric Dupin of Dronestagram, Jeff Foster of The Drone Coalition, Bob Gonsalves of the United States Association of Unmanned Aerial Videographers (UAVUS), Colin Guinn of 3D Robotics, Ron Futrell of AviSight, Tom Hallman of Pictorvision Inc., Dave and Sarah Oneal of That Drone Show, and Preston Ryon of Snaproll Media.
The nine judges used their expertise in aerial cinematography to determine the best video captured with a drone in five categories, with each category winner receiving $500.
| Category | Winner | Director | See Video at |
| Action Sports | Cinedrones are Awesome | Daniell Ashby | https://vimeo.com/84938216 |
| Cityscapes | Jordan from the Air | Scott Sporleder | https://vimeo.com/130034654 |
| Natural Wonders | Beautiful Scotland | John Duncan | https://vimeo.com/100426447 |
| Reel | Showreel 2014 | Mike Gisselere | https://vimeo.com/107821454 |
| Storytelling | Heaven | Daniel Feighery | https://vimeo.com/117731316 |
"We had more than 300 submissions from 19 countries," said Ted Bahr, Chairman of InterDrone. "The judges had a hard time selecting winners in each of the five categories as well as the winner overall."
Hundreds of attendees voted for The People's Choice and that award and $500 went to Chris Bonnet for Texas: An Assortment of Beauty, which may be viewed here: https://youtu.be/PilBKRz5B0c
The Film Festival reception began with the world premiere of the trailer for "The Drone Invasion," a documentary on the benefits of commercial drones. David and Sarah Oneal from That Drone Show and world famous hypnotist and drone enthusiast Anthony Cools hosted the Film Festival reception and gave out the awards.
The InterDrone Film Festival was hosted by Film Freeway and 2016's contest will open in mid-May, 2016. Next year, InterDrone will be held at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from September 7-9, 2016.
For information on exhibiting or event sponsorships contact Ted Bahr at ted@bzmedia.com or 631-421-4158 x101.
ABOUT BZ MEDIA
BZ Media LLC is a 15 year-old high-tech media company producing industry-leading technical conferences and expositions. BZ Media publishes SD Times, the leading magazine for software developers; AnDevCon, the world's largest Android Developer Conference; Big Data TechCon, the how-to conference for implementing Big Data; Wearables TechCon™ the largest technical conference and expo for developers, engineers and designers of wearable computing devices; and InterDrone, the International Drone Conference and Exposition.