Promotional video with a drone

Hi everybody!

I hope you are OK!

During the summer I shot a promotional video for a small city in Sardinia, Italy. I used a Nex 5R and a drone to record some footage from the sky. Using the parts available on the market, my father was able to build the drone himself, so we saved a lot of money.



Maybe the editing is a little bit messy, I don't know. Since I worked on it for several hours, I lost my objectivity, so I would like to know what you think about it. It's not a perfect video, but with your experience maybe you can help me out.

The client is really happy, so I can't complain.

The editing was really smooth. I was able to try several versions of the videos, moving the clips around in no time.

Let me know and thank you for watching!

Camera used: Sony Nex 5R (for a clip I used the Sony A55)
Lens used: Tamron 17 - 50 2.8 | Minolta 70 - 210 4.0 | Pentax 55mm 2.0 | Minolta Rokkor 58mm 1.4
Edited with Final Cut Pro X on an iMac mid 2011 connected to a Promise Pegaus R4
Tripod: Manfrotto 055XPROB + 701HDV
Drone: homemade with 6 propellers

Great looking film, if you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost to build the drone?

Hi!
It took a while, but we spent from 3000 to 4000 euros. It is stable and reliable, but we are constantly improving it.

You can see a picture here . It's the one with Hello Kitty on the front
It's a little bit different now, we changed the gimbal and the propellers, but you get an idea.

If you have more questions, you can ask me

Thank you for watching the video!

… hmmm, it gives me a sort of 'mixed feelings':

Photography is superb, no doubt!
And I like the smooth movements (pans and drones)
I like the music…

… but I lack completely any sort of 'film-ibility' :silly:

Hard to explain… even in my native tongue…

I'm looking for some 'red line'… the pictures are completely random: landscape, people, close, far, morning, afternoon…

This sort of music, I associate to time-lapse (don't know why - just guts) … how about arranging the clips to some timeline, from morning to afternoon? Why this music? Has it any connection to that town? Country?

… my brain searches for 'structure' - there isn't any.

And although Drone-footage is always 'eye candy', after watching the 2 minutes I don't remember a single shot … why did you flow over that area, and not another? Or, along the beach, which looks very welcoming. Or thru the streets of that town (THAT would be spectacular!)…

plus, I don't know the context - so, I 'understand' very little what this video wants to tell me: Visit us (who)? Next vacation in… ? Built your factories on this land? Drill here for oil? :woohoo:

… maybe, I'm just jealous about your drone…  :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ciao Karsten!
Thank you for your feedback, you are very kind

You are right, the thing that bothers me is the lack of structure. I shot the video without a precise idea in mind and I have a lot of clips in my event folder, but I can not arrange them in a valid structure.

I have to study more before the shooting. My problem was that this one isn't my town, so I wasn't well prepared.

I find your feedback very useful.

Thank you so much for watching my video

… I shot the video without a precise idea in mind …

… oh, ohh ....

What I've done, a few hundred years ago, for a holiday movie of mine:
I 'borrowed' a structure.
What about a lil' poem? That's Italy, correct? You have soooo many marvelous poetry, songs, books. 'Steal' a few lines, <googling> what about Paolo Conte's Azzurro?

Cerco l’estate tutto l’anno
e all’improvviso eccola quà...
lei è partita per le spiagge
io sono solo quaggiù in cittá,
sento fischiare sopra i tetti
un aereoplano che se ne va.
Azzurro
…

ok, replace 'aeroplano' by 'drone'

each line as a title, … and your existing pics fit! 'searching for summer', 'beaches', 'over the roofs' (hey, lookup, a drone!!)

find a nice reader, with a full, 'smokey' voice .... add english subtitles for simple folks like me … create a visual poem … perhaps add some eye-candy grading, tons of slow-mo, give it a more 'graphical look'...

…

Hi Karsten!

Thank you for your reply

I am about to shoot a new promotional video for a new client, so I hope to give it a nice structure.

I have to show that in my Region there are seas, mountains, woods and archeology, so I'll try to give the video an order and show these places in a sequence. That's the idea.

If you have better ones, I'll appreciate your help

Again, THANK YOU for your kind feedback.

AndyAndreas wrote: … in my Region there are seas, mountains, woods and archeology, so I'll try to give the video an order and show these places in a sequence. That's the idea.

If you have better ones, I'll appreciate your help … .

speaking of 'stolen ideas':
I once saw a very charming video about some 'vacation region' (Italy? Spain? Greece? ... whatever), where a little girl played with her kite … the camera switched to the perspective of the kite (here comes your drone again!), she lost it, she seeked it, she found it ...

… if not too dangerous: add a thread to your drone, make an establishing shot, how the kid holds kite + threads in hands, switch to drone perspective ... that it really looks like, the cam is at that tine paper-kite!!

plain simple, partly spectacular pictures, heart-warming - AND informative ...

.... so, cast a little hero, built a red kite, let him/her walk around with the kite, let the kite/drone fly ... add lower third "Discover the unexpected. Discover _name region here_" - earn money, prices, new jobs :lol: :lol: :lol:

Nice work, Andreas.

Easy to see why the client is overjoyed, it's an excellent film. They want to promote the town, & that's exactly what the piece does. Perfect music choice for the old-world charm of the locale. The "structure" people are searching for is in the location itself; the scenery, architecture, proximity to sea. The film follows the mood of the music & the various beautiful locations you showcase. There's a lovely mix of form in buildings, rooftops, horizons, etc, with familiarity in people, faces, smiles, boys swimming, etc. It all works well.

My only issue with the piece is it's desperately in need of some color correction. We go from rich earth tones of the terra-cotta roof tiles to washed out over exposed skies which look white, also some bland faces with no skin-tone saturation.

A bit more creativity with the people might serve you well. Instead of having all the faces looking into the lens like they're posed, as well as having all the people clips together in one section of the film, vary it a bit. Show some people doing whatever they do in that town. A baker making bread, a couple sharing lunch together at an outdoor cafe, someone riding by on a bicycle, mix it up, don't have all your people posing, make them appear naturally, as we would see them if we went there. Maybe the occasional smile into the camera, but not all of them. While we're at it, why not vary the time of day? Some golden hour shots in the time leading to dusk could up our value. Sun setting behind one of the taller buildings could give us some attractive contrast. Perhaps a romantic couple strolling the beach hand in hand as the sun begins to set.

Loved the mini-chopper shots, great rising view of the skyline, some gorgeous sweeping panoramas, though I wouldn't mind you running your aerial footage thru a stabilizer, it's still showing a touch of turbulence at times.

Thanks for sharing

Hi TrixTrax9000 and Karsten,

thank you so much for your comment! I am so sorry it took me a lot to answer you both.
I had to shoot a new promotional video regarding 6 small cities, because my client wanted to show it in a German exhibition on January 5th.
I am now following your advices and I found a new structure for this video.
Since my territory is famous for its seas, archeology and nature I edited a three parts video where I show these things.

Too bad I had only 2 weeks to finish the job, and in some days it was raining, so I wasn't able to shoot.
My client understood that the time wasn't enough to prepare a perfect video, so he accepted this version, which is not the definitive one. I can show it to you:

drive.google.com/file/d/0B5cSDEjBNPrJSG5...WGM/edit?usp=sharing

I am very happy with the first part, because it ended up the way I wanted. But the second part is really a mess, I don't like it.

I'll be able to shoot more footage soon, so if you have precious ideas, I can change parts of my video.
Too much structure this time? What do you think? Some scenes need color correction (I use videoscopes -> Waveform to find the right adjustments) and I need to shoot again some scenes in sunny days.
The music doesn't sound right between parts, I'll fix that when I prepare the final version.

About the drone: we now have a new motorized gimbal, which allow us to get more stabilized images. I hope to use it next time.

To Karsten,

the idea is good. Sometimes it's difficult to find the right people for the video. But a lot of people think tat the best way to promote something is to tell a story, so I'll stole you idea for another video


THANK YOU so much for your feedback, it's very important to me since I don't know people who can judge my work.

To shoot the video I used a Nex 5R and a Tamron 17 - 50mm 2.8 lens.