- [Man] In this video, we're gonna go through
how you get cinematic looking footage
with your DJI Mavic Number Three.
(upbeat music)
With every drone,
there's different unique features that give it an advantage
over the other drones that are available.
So there's gonna be a few tips that are drone specific.
However, the majority of these tips
can be used with any drone
to get you better looking footage.
The first is time of day.
So when I was out flying the DJI Mavic 3
for the launch video,
I shot all over Alaska and all over Utah.
However, the majority of what I was shooting
was early in the morning and pretty close to sunset.
When the sun is lower in the sky,
you're gonna get longer shadows
and you're gonna get more color out of the scenes
that you're filming in.
If the sun's right overhead,
then you're gonna be just blasting your scene with light
and it's not gonna look as good
as when the sun is low in the sky.
And you get these really dramatic looking landscapes
with these shadows that stretch.
The big part of shooting sunrise
and sunset, and golden hour,
it's not only color, but also contrast.
So your footage will have this mix of brightness
and darkness that has this quality
that just feels more dramatic, more professional.
And that's one thing I wanna touch on
before moving into the next tip.
And that is the purpose of getting cinematic looking footage
is to shoot footage that looks
like something you'd see in the movies.
The goal is to have this professional filmic look.
And if you don't care about that look,
then these tips won't matter that much.
But if you're someone who is working with clients
or you just want to have footage
that looks good and has more of this filmic quality,
then these tips are gonna help you achieve that.
The second thing you wanna think about
is how you're moving your drone through space.
Now, you could just fly the drone in one direction.
But oftentimes, when you put two directionalities
or three directionalities together,
it creates interesting motion that's visually appealing.
So what I mean by this
is something as simple as an orbit,
you're moving in a direction on the left or right,
but you're also panning,
and that causes you to circle around your subject.
So thinking through different ways
that you can combine movements,
whether it's forward, backwards, left to right,
and then also panning, moving up into the sky,
bringing it down, and also thinking about how the camera
is tilting from low to high or high to low.
You wanna try different combinations of these
with the different shots that you're creating.
Now if you want a more detailed guide on drone movements,
I put together an entire video of 100+ drone movements
that you can use in your footage.
And I'll link to that down below in description,
so that you could check that out after this video.
So the next thing you wanna think about is your speed.
There's two things that you wanna do
with your drone to create cinematic looking footage.
One is fly super slow.
Super dramatic, just getting these really subtle movements.
If you watch movies, a lot of times,
there's always a little bit of subtle movement
and that helps make something a little bit more dramatic.
Now on the other side of the spectrum is super fast.
One advantage of the DJI Mavic 3
is that it can fly 46 miles per hour.
So use that to your advantage and fly up 46 miles per hour.
Now, I only suggest you do this,
if you're more of an advanced pilot.
Because if you're flying at that speed,
you have to have it in sport mode.
And when you put it in sport mode,
you're not gonna have any obstacle avoidance.
So if a tree's in your way, you're gonna hit that tree.
But flying at max speed,
it's gonna allow you to chase faster subjects
and help you create more of a sense of motion
throughout your footage.
But as I said earlier,
you also wanna play with slow, subtle movements,
go back and forth.
That's never a one size fits all kinda situation,
when you wanna get good looking footage.
You wanna have a mix and you wanna have a variety.
So when you're working at fast speeds,
something that you'll wanna think about adding on
is an ND filter.
Now I did another video
where I broke down the importance of ND filters
and how they really don't matter most of the time
when you're flying a drone,
but where they do matter most is when you're flying fast
and low to the ground.
So when you're flying in this way,
you're gonna see a lot of motion blur.
And you could see when I freeze the frame here,
everything is blurred around my subject,
but my subject is clear.
This is something that you can only achieve
by using ND filters.
And motion blur is something that you see
in professional work.
It's something that you'll see in cinematic looking footage.
So if you wanna achieve this look,
you need to add an ND filter
and shoot at double that of your frame rate.
So I typically shoot at 30 frames per second,
which I know for some,
is kind of a controversial subject
because people say,
"You have to shoot 24 frames per second."
But I actually am on defense,
I like the look of 30,
especially when you're watching content here on YouTube.
Obviously, 24 is the standard for cinema.
So we can go back and forth on that.
I did do a video that shows the difference.
Again, I'll include that in the description.
But when you wanna get this motion blur,
you wanna shoot at double that of your frame rate.
So I'm shooting at 30 frames per second
and my shutter speed is gonna be at 1/60th.
If you're shooting at 24 frames per second,
your shutter speed would be at 1/50th.
Now the beauty of this drone is that you have an aperture,
so you can close down to an f/11
and you might not need an ND filter.
However, if you're shooting in bright sunlight,
you're shooting in situations
where you are in the middle of the day
and you wanna get that sense of motion blur,
well, you're gonna need an ND filter
to be able to cut down the light,
so that you can shoot at double that of your frame rate.
And when you do that,
everything in motion is going to blur.
And if you're following a subject,
that subject is gonna be clear,
if you keep them in the same position in your frame,
while you're following them.
So another thing that you wanna do is use slow motion
to your advantage.
So, as I've said earlier,
you want slow, subtle motion.
And with that,
you don't wanna have any sort of jerky motion
in your footage to get that cinematic look.
Now, a good way to avoid the jerkiness
is to use slow motion.
So if you're using this camera in 5K,
you have access to 50 frames per second.
But if you're shooting in 4K,
you have 120 frames per second.
And when you shoot in 50 or 120, or even 200
when you bump into 1080,
you can hide a lot of little bumps and jitters,
and anything that might come up when you're flying.
Also, when you're shooting slow motion,
it's gonna create a more dynamic feel,
especially when you're working with fast subjects,
and there's a lot of movement throughout your frame.
So another thing that's gonna help you
get better looking footage is shoot in manual settings.
And the reason for this
is you don't wanna have your lighting fluctuate,
so you don't wanna have your image pulsing bright,
and then dark, and then bright again.
And then you also don't wanna have your colors fluctuate.
So if you have auto white balance on,
it might go more blue or more yellow, and back and forth.
And so you wanna make sure that you're shooting
in manual settings and locking your exposure
and your white balance.
It's just gonna make it a lot easier in editing,
'cause then you're not gonna have to cut around any time
where your camera's fluctuating.
The next thing is you wanna tell a story with your footage.
So there's two aspects to this,
shot size, shot sequencing.
So when you're up flying,
you don't wanna just put the drone up
and just get wide shots.
You don't wanna just go into the sky
and just shoot in different angles,
but just kind of these big, broad landscapes.
Those are great to get on a drone,
but you wanna try to sequence something out
to be able to tell a story.
And when you are able to tell a story,
your footage is instantly gonna feel more cinematic.
Because if there's some sort of progression,
something moving through your frame,
it's gonna feel a lot more thought out,
and someone's gonna follow that storyline.
So take this for example,
we were in this really cool landscape in Utah.
And instead of shooting just a bunch of visuals
of the bizarre scene that was in front of us,
I shot a sequence where we are actually interacting
with that scene.
And so when I cut this together,
I can use this in a video and it actually feels
like we're moving towards something.
So we start in one area,
we're working our way through this landscape,
and then there's the big reveal
where we're all on top of this peak in this crazy space.
And you don't have to do big storylines,
it could be something simple
as just moving from point A to point B,
but you wanna try to have some sort of progression
with a reveal at the end,
and that could cut together to be a cool little sequence
that you can add in your videos.
And with this, you wanna change up your shots.
So you're not always shooting just a wide
with like the horizon somewhere in the distance.
You wanna shoot close, refill the frame,
maybe from up above, looking straight down.
Drones are one of the only tools
that allows you to get up and get that shot.
And then you also wanna get the, you know,
standard shots that you see drone moves,
where the horizons in the distance,
and you see some foreground and some sky.
Vary up your shots,
play around with different framings and different angles,
and where you're positioning your camera.
So a big thing with the DJI Mavic 3 is the bit rate.
You have 10-bit footage.
If you're shooting in H.264,
it's 200 megabits per second,
which gives you more ability to color grade.
And if you went for the Cine version,
well, you have Apple ProRes,
which is gonna give you a lot of flexibility
for color grading.
Now, the drone that I have is just the regular Mavic 3,
I didn't get the Cine version
and it's more than enough
to create cinematic looking footage.
So when it comes to color grading,
you're gonna wanna shoot in log,
that's gonna preserve the most amount of dynamic range.
And with the bit rate,
your image isn't gonna break apart
when you start color grading.
Now when you bring this log footage into your software,
you're gonna wanna create contrast,
you're gonna wanna add saturation,
and then you're gonna wanna add a look on top of that.
And you can either create your own LUTs,
if you really wanna dive into color grading,
or you can buy different LUTs
and you can add them onto your footage,
and this will help you create a stylized look.
And I'll include a playlist in the description,
that's all of my color grading videos.
So if you wanna dive into how to color grade,
I have a bunch of videos of that on my channel.
And also, I do have a set of drone LUTs
that I created specifically for footage like this,
where you could just add these on
with a few different tweaks
and you can get some good looking footage.
I'll include links to where you can download
those LUTs down below in the description as well.
So a big thing with the DJI Mavic 3 is the aperture.
You can go from an f/2.8 to an f/11.
Now using that f/11 can create some cool looks
when you're shooting a bright light source like the sun.
So when you have the sun in your frame,
it will create this starburst look,
when you stop down your camera to an f/11.
And this is something that's gonna make your footage
stand out from other drone footage,
because most drones have a fixed aperture.
And when you shoot the sun,
it just becomes like a glowing blob in the sky.
Whereas when you shoot at an f/11,
it actually creates this texture and this look
that is pleasing to the eye
and is good to have in your frame.
So use this to your advantage.
Stop down to f/11 and put the sun
somewhere in your frame and get the starburst look.
Now another way to get good looking footage
is to find textures and patterns.
And drones are really good for this
because you can fly high in the sky
and you can see parts of the earth
that you can't see, you know, standing down here.
And so take advantage of this,
fly up in the sky and point your drone down or at an arc
and see if you can find different textures or patterns.
It's a cool thing to be able to add into your videos.
And when you combine this with shooting
at sunrise or sunset,
you'll get a lot of this contrasts
and these dramatic shadows,
which gives you this texture.
The next thing you wanna do is create depth.
Try to find scenes where you can have multiple layers.
And what I mean by that is you have something foregrounded,
but then you also have something in the background.
And depending on where you're shooting,
you could extend this further and further.
When I was in Utah, I had these epic landscapes,
but what makes it even more dramatic
is putting something foregrounded,
where you can see the different layers in the distance,
you can see the Jeeps and us standing on the cliff,
you can see the textures of the ground below,
and you can see the mountains in the distance
with the sunrise.
Having all of these layers
creates a more dynamic looking shot
and ultimately is more cinematic.
You put this with a slow, subtle movement,
maybe add the sun in your frame with a starburst
and you get a pretty epic looking shot
that's hard to achieve with most cameras,
but is easily achievable with a drone.
Now like I said earlier,
there's a bunch of videos down below in the description
that jump off from the different topics
we just talked about.
But next,
I highly suggest you check out this video right here.
It goes through a drone beginner's guide
for those of you who are new to flying.
And there's a ton of info
on how to get better looking footage.
I'll see you on the next video.