CASE STUDIES
Heritage Roofing Restoration, Major National Museum , SW7
Documented progress film and timelapse, drone, fixed timelapse, and dedicated camera.
Brief
Olaleye Media was engaged to produce a documented progress film and timelapse covering the restoration of historic glazed courtyard roofing at a major national museum in South Kensington, working alongside the main contractor throughout the programme.
Challenge
The site is a Grade I listed building that remained fully open to the public throughout the works, with strict delivery windows and no closures permitted. Capturing the scale and detail of the courtyard roof structure required drone operation directly over a live, publicly accessible heritage site, cleared in advance with National Air Traffic Services (NATS) for a defined flight window, and approved by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
When the internal scaffolding came down earlier than expected, the drone flight had to be completed on a single morning, at short notice, before access to the roof was lost. With a narrow weather window before rain was forecast, clearance was secured that same morning from the Police and Diplomatic Protection service, alongside authorisation to fly within the Flight Restricted Zone (FRZ) from London Battersea Heliport. A fixed timelapse camera ran throughout the programme, capturing a still image every five minutes during working hours, and was repositioned inside the courtyard once the temporary roof covering was installed, maintaining continuous coverage as conditions on site changed. Throughout, the client had Live remote access to this footage via an online viewing portal, tracking progress without needing to visit the site in person.
Outcome
The completed footage served as both a heritage record of the restoration and a stakeholder reporting tool, giving the museum and contractor documented evidence of the project's progress and completion for internal and funding-related reporting. Combining fixed timelapse, drone, and dedicated camera footage into a single documented record of the restoration from start to completion, delivered within a tight same-day clearance window when site conditions changed unexpectedly, the result was a fully regulator-approved progress film and timelapse (2:38). Throughout the programme, the client had live remote access to progress via an online viewing portal. The result demonstrates not just technical range, fixed installation, CAA/NATS-cleared drone operation, dedicated cinematography, but the ability to secure full regulatory clearance at short notice when a project's timeline shifts.
Barking Riverside, East London
Aerial drone documentation, scaffolding progress across a major regeneration scheme.
Brief
Olaleye Media was engaged to provide aerial drone documentation of Griffin Scaffolding's work at Barking Riverside, one of London's most ambitious regeneration projects, supporting main contractor Bellway Homes in the construction of 52 houses and two apartment blocks (Block A & B), built from the ground up as part of a wider scheme delivering 10,000 new homes schools, and community spaces across East London.
Challenge
A scheme of this scale required scaffolding delivered progressively across a live, expanding site, over 10,000m² of scaffold and 30,000m³ of birdcage systems, while construction moved from bare groundworks through to completed, occupied homes. The site sits on the former Barking Power Station site, which retains a concentration of National Grid transmission towers, standing roughly three times the height of the houses being built beneath them. Flying safely meant more than distance, powerlines can appear flat and lose depth from the air, easy to misjudge from a drone's perspective. The flight was flown at a fixed altitude, following a circular path around the towers rather than crossing directly beneath them, with a dedicated spotter monitoring the lines throughout. The site's proximity to a flight path corridor added a further layer of pre-flight airspace verification. Capturing the site's transformation meant documenting it not as a single moment, but as a continuous progression, from early construction through to families moving into finished homes.
Outcome
Delivered aerial footage capturing the site's transformation from construction through to completion, showing the full scale of the scaffolding operation supporting Bellway Homes' delivery of all 52 houses, now complete. The footage documents not just individual progress milestones but the shift from active construction site to a settled, occupied riverside community, giving Griffin Scaffolding and Bellway Homes material that reflects both the technical scale of the work and its real-world outcome.