Video: Southchurch Park, Essex, UK

blackd1964 · Aug 14, 2013

https://vimeo.com/72140154

Southchurch Park is in Southend, Essex, UK - its a typical Edwardian park. This was an idea I had from flying in the cricket field with my AR drone, So I returned a few months later with the Phantom. It was later in the day than I wanted due to cloud cover ruining the dawn light so more people around than ideal, I am always slightly worried about peoples' privacy.

Trees are proving to be a challenge with 5.8ghz, drops outs come suddenly, so you need to be within line of sight but out of camera shot, not always easy. If you are playing Where's Wally I am in cricket field to the right, appearing like Hitchcock in a single scene

Shot at 50fps 1080p, edited using final cut pro 10

The music by Kevin MacLoed (incompetech.com)

halfpipe · Aug 14, 2013

Your vids are calm and smooth as butter.
Did I read that you use a gimbal?
The fisheye syndrome is hardly visible. Do you use barrel correction software?
I'm wondering how much footage didn't make it off the cutting room floor or how many batteries do you go through for one of these jewels showing your neck of the woods in such good light.
Do you start with a shot list or some sort of planned approach? Probably the shots don't really reveal themselves till you're up there.
If you were asked which angle seems to work best would you say A straight down, (b) straight ahead (c) 45 degrees (d) 22.5 degrees down from straight ahead or 22.5 degrees up from straight down?
Your work is a joy to view

blackd1964 · Aug 15, 2013

Thanks for the comments; yes I am using the Zenmuse gimbal, I also set the GoPro to medium not wide so the curved horizon effect is minimised, this also avoids Final cut pro "flipping" the horizon during any stabilisation. I like to keep all effects to an absolute minimum, Protune being the only tint effect within the GoPro original as it provides rich colours.

I have always been into video and photography but also proper big aircraft flying, so this a hobby that has everything. I have friends who work in TV and film production so I am lucky to have a critical eye or two to look over my output.

I approach each flight with an idea of what I want to achieve, I like to do bit of offline research using Google Earth. I then fly to a few positions and get an view for the layout etc before I line up shots and fly in, often fast knowing I can slow down in the edit, also fly planning for the shot to be reversed in the edit (trying avoid cars and people who would appear to go backwards too!).

Sometimes I try 3 or 4 angles and then check for the best in the edit, its often hard to judge when you are concentrating on the flight, thats the joy of non linear editing, my edits rarely map directly to the actual flight path taken, they are flown with battery efficiency in mind.

I like oblique angles, especially with shadow as they give depth to the subject, In retrospect 22-45 degrees work nicely, I have done some footage of a church which definitely shows these angles work best for seeing the building at the best angle. https://vimeo.com/72110994

I can get up to 8 minutes per battery, but tend to stop at around 6:30, I use the HobbyKing battery level onscreen display, although mainly for the timer function.

The amount of footage I use depends, but each of these flights have lasted up to 12-13 minutes and produced 1-2 minutes of actual footage. But some of it is just enjoying the flying not really looking for shots. I have quite a short attention span, so my edits don't linger about, 3-4 seconds and I like to move on.