You can use the quick shots in the DJI Mini 2 to get some really cinematic video and make
your travel videos or your vacation videos or your exploring videos look amazing.
Today I want to show you how to do that.
Because the mini 2 is so small and lightweight it makes it one of the best travel drones
currently on the market I think.
It shoots great high quality 4k video it shoots really good photos and it fits easily into
almost any travel bag takes up next to no space even with 3 batteries and the remote
controller, and because you get so much flight time with three batteries you get almost an
hour and a half of flight time which is fantastic for such a tiny drone.
While the mini 2 doesn’t have any sort of active track features if you pre-plan your
shots you can still get some really fantastic footage that gives you a really natural view
of you in the location that you’re in and enjoying whatever sort of activities you want
to enjoy when you are out and about doing things.
For example you can use a dronie to show yourself moving into a location and reveal the location
around you.
And then if you combine that with a shot like circle.
Circle is really useful in a location to show what’s around your subject in a location
and to really reveal information in the story in the way you want to tell a story.
You can even move a little bit while in circle mode to have it track you a little bit but
the drone will generally stay centered around whatever coordinate you started at.
However adding movement into or out of that circle location can provide you with some
extra interesting shots because the drone will keep you in the frame while circling
that original location and gives you just a little something different.
Of course another option is to manually control the drone while you are walking, it takes
a little bit of practice and make sure that you’re walking in kind of a clear area but
as a bonus tip you can get some great shots while controlling the drone at the same time
as walking around an area that is relatively clear of obstacles.
Remember that when you are using circle mode or any of these other modes vary the height
that you use and vary the distance you use because when you vary the distance and the
height any one of those things, it will make the shot look different and that way you can
use the same shot or similar shots because you have multiple version of that same shot.
Also the closer you are to your subject the more parallax effect there is, which means
when you’re circling around something you see the background and foreground moving really
moving rapidly the closer you are to your subject the faster that background is going
to move which is going to add a lot of interest and excitement to your shot.
And then we come to Helix, helix is a very nice shot, it’s a very unusual shot.
I don’t use it that much, mostly what I use is dronie and circle, but helix is a nice
shot if you’re wanting to add just a little bit something different, you’ve got some
interesting topography or something interesting around you then helix is a nice shot to use,
But the nice thing is when you use each one of these shots and you mix them together,
it gives you a lot of options for things that you can then edit together later in post and
get something really useable.
The other shot we have available in the mini 2 is rocket, I don’t use rocket hardly ever
but it is nice to have the option of just a different view point, a different perspective,
so what I recommend is: when you are going out and shooting something in a location like
this or some place where you’re going to be for a bit and you want a lot of different
options then shoot one of each one of the quick shots of the mini 2 and that way you
have a lot of different options when it comes to editing and things you can put in, and
editing with drone footage makes great ways to cut between edit points if you are talking
to a camera or something like that.
So to access the quick shot modes you have to take the drone off you have to be in the
air a little way away with good GPS signal and then you want to tap on the 4k screen
here and then you can access quick shots.
You can see dronie, rocket, circle and helix are the 4 quick shots that DJI has given us
in the Mini 2.
Now with each one of these except for circle you can also decide how high and how far away
you want the drone to go, so you can select up to 390 ft, 90ft.
Rocket you can do 90ft up to 250 ft. Circle doesn’t have that but you can select your
direction on circle and helix, if you want it to go left or right and then on helix you
can select how high up or how close you want it to be.
I generally like about 200ft because that gives you plenty footage and plenty of time
to work with, because you are not going to use the whole 40, 30 seconds however long
it takes to complete that quick shot anyway.
As a bonus tip wearing something with bright colors really helps you stand out against
a dark background like what I’m in here.
If you’re not walking in, being in places like this and you stand out fine already then
no big deal but if you’re going to be in a place like this then wearing a bright, something
with bright colors really helps people find you quickly in the frame and then get a good
idea of what the scale is what the size is of the stuff around you.
Especially when it comes to shots like dronie, do it to a lot of different directions, especially
if you have really nice scenery one direction and really nice scenery another direction,
do one each direction because you get a lot of variety in shots that you can use when
it comes to edit.
It helps keep peoples interest when you have a lot of things to show them, a lot of scenery
and lot of different angles to show them, so doing more is always better.
Alright you’ve shot everything and now it’s time to edit, so lets talk about how we can
edit all these shots to makes something that’s really going grab peoples attention, keep
people’s interest and show off what you were doing and the location you were filming
in.
When it comes to editing, you don’t want to just put the entire shot together, you
can use the app to auto edit some of these and it actually does a pretty good job, but
what you really want to do is take the best, the most interesting parts of each one of
your clips and put them together.
So you can use the best part of the circle, the best part of the dronie, the best part
of the helix put them together to really showcase the location or showcase what you were doing
in that location.
And the way to do that is pretty simple, scrub through the footage until you find the spots
where in the case of the circle it reveals the background behind you, or use the dronie
first to reveal yourself in that location and then use the circle to show that really
strong parallax effect and give people and idea of what it is like to stand in that location.
Helix is another one to cut to when you’ve got kind of a dronie and then a close shot
of circle and then the helix where it’s little farther away and shows a lot of the
location and lot of stuff around you.
One way to keep people’s interest is to edit a clip that has a lot of distance or
a really wide framing to show the location and you in that location and then clip that
is a really close framed location something like either the drone just static hovering
in a location to show you walking around in that space or use the circle that has the
really strong parallax effect and edit those together and then cut to another really wide
shot that shows a lot farther off or a different version of the circle or something.
What you want to do is keep those clips between 3-7 seconds long to keep peoples interest
but also be continually revealing new information to people who are watching your videos because
that will keep their interest and also tell a story that people really want to watch as
they watch you or watch whatever your filming using this really sweet little drone in a
location or in a space and showing them what you’re doing in that space.
Now with any of these shots because the mini 2 doesn’t have any obstacle avoidance you
want to make sure and kind of pre plan and pre figure out where the drone is going to
be flying so you don’t run into any trees or anything like that because if you do it’s
going to crash and that might cut your drone adventure short.
But if you pre plan your shots in locations you can use it then you can get a lot more
shots than you would think of even without any sort of obstacle avoidance.
If you want to film yourself walking through a space like I did earlier with the trees,
this shot right here, if you just figure out the flight path that you want to fly, line
the drone up, and then just fly that flight path, a tip is use it in the C mode, the cinematic
mode, because that slows everything down, makes the drone a little more stable and a
little more locked in and gives you a little more chance to get good smooth footage even
though you are walking while flying the drone.