[EricH]

If you become a college student at a school with an Unmanned Arial Vehicle (UAV), join it. Currently, their design challenge involves helicopters. (The UAV team here does those stunts routinely...but not for as long.) For a really cool video, try mounting the camera on the copter.

And yes, you do need an AMA or equivalent license to fly (or a buddy box held by an AMA person.) I'm on my college's Aero Design team, and we "borrow" one of the UAV team to be our AMA person when we fly at a field. (We don't have our own yet.)