There are multiple ways to capture some stunning aerial videos with your quadcopter, even if you aren’t a professional drone flier or just don’t have the latest high-end flying equipment at your disposal.
Of course, as any other tool, you need to have a certain skill set under your belt to make this setup work for you, but if you are just wondering where to start off, Rob of Rob & Jonas’ Filmmaking Tips and seasoned drone flier Bryson Voirin are here to provide five extremely powerful drone moves that are going to take your aerial cinematography to a whole new level, especially if you are just starting out.
So without further ado, let’s dive in and see all the tricks these guys have up their sleeves.
The first suggested drone move by Rob and Bryson Voirin is known as the Lift Off. To get this shot properly, first, you need to point your drone camera straight down, then take the quadcopter a few feets off the ground and fly it upwards while keeping it as steady as possible. That’s how you can get a stunning lifting shot. As a finishing touch, you can tilt the camera up to reveal the horizon once your drone reaches a decent height.
The 360 move is another drone motion where your quadcopter circles a certain stationary object whether it’s on the ground or up in the sky. It’s paramount to keep the object in focus and simply fly around it. That’s also an excellent technique to create a stunning parallax effect, where your main subject stays in focus in the foreground while everything in the background behind it moves really fast.
The chase/follow move is the third flying technique suggested in the video above. When you’re performing such an action, you can follow a certain moving object from behind or just point your drone camera backward and shoot the opposite way. It’s essential to keep up with the speed of the moving object if you want to achieve optimal results. Again, try to keep your drone as steady as possible and avoid all jittery and jerky motions and rapid stops.
The fourth move is similar to the previous one in a way. This time, you need to fly your drone alongside the moving object while maintaining its speed. You can let the vehicle pass out of the focus, then slow the quadcopter down while the moving object goes entirely out of your frame. That way, for instance, you will be able to get a nice transition to the next scene.
Last but not least, you can do another lift-off shot, but this time, instead of pointing your drone camera straight down, you can set it at 45-degree angle towards a subject on the ground. Then you can lift your drone as fast as possible above the ground, thus revealing the whole surrounding area.
You can also experiment in post and play the shot in reverse to see what kind of effect you can get. All in all, make sure you use these shots for a reason and only when they serve your story unless you want to end up with a few random professionally looking drone videos without any purpose.
[source: Rob & Jonas’ Filmmaking Tips]
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Great resource. We have put off flying and use sub-cintracotrs for drone work etc…
That said with the new offerings out there pretty sure we’ll be fyling soon. Thanks for the tips.
Nice, thanks for sharing it!