Aerial Wake Forest – Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary

This video marks the first in a new series of videos I will be rolling out featuring the unique, beautiful, and wonderful sights of the greater Wake Forest area from the air.

While my usual approach is moist with snark and sarcasm, I just couldn’t pull that trigger on this video after spending a couple of days around a mostly empty Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary campus. The problem — the place is beautiful and feels like you are stepping back in time. Instead I’d like to submit this video for your viewing pleasure to celebrate the campus and have left it void of any voiceover so you can just focus on the beautiful sights.

Now, while I kept the snark in the closet for this video, don’t get your expectations up that’s the way it will always be on future Wake Forest videos.

I could go on at length about the interesting history of the current Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary school and the removal of Wake Forest University to Winston-Salem but there is almost no better online resource for the history of the college and campus than the Wake Forest Historical Museum website.

I do have to give a huge hat tip to the administration at the seminary for giving me permission to fly over campus to shoot this video. They are always fun to work with and clearly leave you believing that the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is where really smart Baptist’s go to get even smarter.

For those curious about how I did this, the video is captured with a DJI Phantom Vision 2+ quadcopter with a three axis gimbal HD camera in 1920x1080P video. I also use a DJI Phantom with a GoPro Hero3+ HD camera. Editing is via Final Cut Pro. Piloting skills are via the school of hard knocks.

There are some very special moments and background about the video I’d like to point out using the times they appear in the video. If you know how to change the YouTube video setting on a video, I suggest you watch the video in HD.

• 0:14 – It took a few attempts to get the old Campus Gate to a point where I liked it. It’s a tough shot with all the wires and traffic around that intersection.

  Here is what the gate looked like before Wake Forest College left town.

  

• 1:03 – What is now Stealey Hall was once known as Wait Hall before the move.

  

• 2:00 – A hawk can be seen sitting on the top of directional vane on the top of Binkley Chapel. The hawk didn’t care about the flyby at all. The downtown of old Wake Forest can be seen in the background and the new Town Hall is located next to the large antenna seen in the background.

  3:11 – A flight over the old campus well in some tough wind conditions. Stealey Hall (Old Wait Hall) can be seen in the background.

  

• 4:17 – A big thank you to the anonymous visitors to the campus. If you look closely the boy points at the chapel right as I lift up. He had perfect timing.
• 4:48 – My personal favorite shot, flying away from campus and looking back.