How to Shoot Cinematic Drone Footage

Drones are a great way to add some variety to your video footage and reinvigorate your work. This excellent video will give you six helpful tips for shooting cinematic, eye-catching drone video.

Coming to you from Parker Walbeck with Jake Weisler, this great video will show you how to get cinematic footage with your drone. Drones have become a fantastic tool for videographers, enabling them to take video from entirely new perspectives that would have been prohibitively expensive even a decade ago, even on consumer-level devices. Nonetheless, they require their own technique and considerations as opposed to traditional cameras. One of the best things you can do is to put your drone in tripod mode. This limits its maximum speed and the jerkiness of its movements relative to the magnitude of the inputs, making it much easier to get smooth, engaging footage. Another great tip I noticed was simply how Weisler grips the joysticks between his thumb and index finger, making it far easier for him to make small, precise movements. I never even considered how much easier this would make my life instead of using my thumbs on top of the joysticks. Check out the video above for lots of helpful tips. 

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

Log in or register to post comments
1 Comment

Step one: Leave the drone in the box until you've studied enough to take their stupid pilots exam
Step two: Pay all fees, permits and call the airport to ask permission to fly 100 feet in the air
Step three: Forget it, I've missed the shot