Meet James Grace | Drone Pilot & Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with James Grace and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi James, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
The thought process for starting my own business was an unexpected layoff from Sony Pictures in November 2018. I worked at Sony Pictures in Culver City for almost 19 years, and when I first got let go it was scary to think about what was next. I thought long and hard about starting my own company and becoming my own boss. It was great working for a large corporate company, but it’s even better working for yourself.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
As stated before, I worked at Sony Pictures for almost 19 years and Warner Bros. for about five years before Sony. I started out working in the tape vault pulling video masters for operations at Warner Bros; within my first three months at Warner Bros., I started training after hours and on the weekends in other departments. This is what got me into postproduction and video and audio quality control for the studio. So when I started JMG Aerial Imagery, I used all the knowledge I learned throughout my years at Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures as an excellent foundation for video and photo capture for my Aerial and Gound capture.
HARD WORK pays off! Nothing is easy, but with hard work and dedication, you can achieve what you put your mind to. If you don’t work hard every day, I’m sure it wouldn’t be easy.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
In Southern California, this is a tough but very easy question to answer. We have everything from the beach starting in Newport to Huntington through Manhattan Beach and Malibu. We could surf in the morning and snowboarding in Big Bear in the afternoon (in the winter). Some of my best sunset photos have been at Santa Monica pier, or shots of the Hollywood sign from Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I want to thank my family and close friends for their support and encouragement in starting a new chapter in business and life; when you create anything, from starting a new company to building a relationship with clients, you have to have the support of others to encourage you every day to continue and be the best person for your family. Also, the team at Drone launch Academy for all the knowledge and teaching they pass along. It was great to be on their podcast for drone pilots to hear the story and hard work for how I got started and the continued success with my Drone Company, JMG Aerial Imagery (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s4-ep-3-james-grace-of-jmg-aerial-imagery/id1469111932?i=1000529481363)

Website: https://www.jmgaerial.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jmg_aerial_imagery/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-grace-a8456123/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AerialJmg

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JMGraceAerial/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/jmg-aerial-imagery-torrance

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAmEKeVbLKjoOOzjJ6Y1kwg/videos

Image Credits
All photos taken my JMG Aerial Imagery