The competition rules alone tell you what kind of shoot this was: chefs catch their own fish, then barbecue it on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean. That's the format at Bear and Burton's Keywest Invitational Tournament, and on March 7, 2026, a two-person Assignment Desk crew was in Key West, FL to cover it.
The primary camera was a Sony FX3. It's a practical choice for this kind of assignment: small enough to hand off, work from awkward positions and keep close to the action, but capable enough to carry the whole shoot rather than serve as a B-cam. Rachel S. and Landon J. supported it with a gimbal for moving shots, a drone for aerials, and a DJI audio kit for wireless sound.
The drone earns its place on a shoot like this more than most. A BBQ competition on a sandbar is a story about where it happens as much as what's cooked there — a strip of sand surrounded by water, with chefs working over grills in the middle of it. That geography doesn't read from the ground. From the air, the whole premise of the event explains itself in one shot. The gimbal handled the opposite problem: getting the viewer in among the chefs, the fish and the grills without the footage looking locked off or static.
Audio was handled with the DJI kit, which keeps the wireless footprint small and quick to deploy. On a competition where participants are actively fishing and cooking, you don't get long, controlled setups. You mic someone, you get what you get while they work, and you move.
What makes this shoot worth writing up isn't unusual equipment — it's the match between a small, mobile package and a location that punishes anything heavier. An FX3, a gimbal, a drone and a wireless audio kit, run by a DP and a camera operator who can each move independently, is about the right answer for filming people cooking fish on a sandbar in the middle of the ocean.