You're about to shoot a drone video. What are the best production tools to make it amazing?

To create an amazing drone video, consider using a high-quality drone with a stabilized camera, such as the DJI Mavic Air 2 or the DJI Phantom 4 Pro, to capture smooth and cinematic footage. Complement your drone with essential accessories like extra batteries, ND filters for controlling exposure, and a reliable memory card with ample storage capacity. Additionally, leverage professional video editing software like Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro to enhance and fine-tune your footage, ensuring a polished and visually stunning end product.

Before shooting, always make sure to check the site itself, do a survey. If you use a DJI Drone, use the FlySafe network to check if the site is under specific restrictions such as Warning Zones or Enhanced Warning Zones in the path of ascent and descent into runways of nearby airfields or airports. Areas around Airports, Government buildings, Military complexes, or even specifically sensitive areas are usually under federal/government specified airspaces. Check in with your local flight authority and/or your government to see if you can fly there or can have a permit for a shoot if required so air traffic can be diverted or verified so they will not interfere with you and vice versa. Always check batteries and sensors too, always be sure.

Success hinges on meticulous pre-production. Tools like the Sunseeker app are invaluable, offering a detailed analysis of sunlight conditions. This ensures optimal lighting for your shots. Don't overlook other essentials: a robust storyboard and shot list to streamline your creative vision. Also, consider a drone simulator for practice. Remember, the magic of a great drone video lies in the planning. Equip yourself with the right tools and your footage will not only capture scenes but also captivate audiences.

Always be prepared with your drone and its accessories. Depart home or your studio with everything charged, make sure your batteries are all good and packed up, bring spare propellers if it's deemed risky. Bring ND Filters or whatever snap-on accessories or lenses can be applied to your drones. Wipe your SD Cards clean if required, clean the drone, especially the sensitive parts like motors and battery contacts if it was used in a previous messy project. Do a check to make sure your SD Cards work fine and get ready to fly. Clear the area if possible and prepare your shots, create programmed flight paths and get your subjects in the field. Make sure it's not too risky to fly especially if you need it moving fast. And fly!

Export everything, either by grabbing the files straight off the SD Card or by transferring it through WiFi to your phone or ingesting tablets or computers. Get the files ingested if it's a part of your workflow and get editing with whatever NLEs you use. Even if it's not a part of your workflow, transcoding is recommended with how drones tend to have very variable metadata. Do what you need to do with the edits, but when it's time to do color grading, check if your drone manufacturer provides LUTs for your specific model's cameras. These LUTs are especially helpful and sometimes required if you record in LOG or Hybrid Log Gamma. You can do the color correction yourself but a LUT will save a lot of time and ease with your color grading.

Always respect the locations you shoot in, make sure you have permission, especially for big budget films and ones that require very risky maneuvers like FPV chase scenes or Indoor shooting for some reason or another. These flights can be destructive to the location like hitting trees, hitting walls and chipping them or possibly scratching them too. Especially if it's a place with exhibits in open air. Exercise caution and don't overdo. There are better ways to compensate if a shot is too risky to do. Try to always have line of sight to your drone, not just for connectivity reasons but also as a visual confirmation that it's still up and flying and it's not dropped out of the sky suddenly, hitting a passerby or even yourself and your actor