The joy of a flying camera

I wanted to say that I have disappeared down a rabbit hole but it might be more apt to say I have ascended into the heavens.

They are everywhere

Warfare has been entirely transformed to a worrying extent. Sports coverage has become something more wonderful with skilled operators tracking the action. Airports have been troubled and halted. Those swarm displays are a sign of something astonishing and concerning.

After a lot of reflection and practice I bought a B-graded second-hand DJI Neo 2 from CEX for the relatively tiny sum of £380. It was the Motion combo with the goggles and single-handed controller. Rather than give you an exhaustive outline of my experience I will provide some summary thoughts after using it a lot for several months.

This dream requires restraint

I have literally dreamt of flying my whole life. This experience - putting on FPV goggles and then being taken out of my own body and flying above rooftops, gaping at spires, skimming along tree lines, shooting down water slides, swirling among starling murmurations and peeking into playful swifts over Worthing tower blocks… it’s all a thrill that has done something extraordinary to me.

*My friend made a bird mural which I captured… as a bird.*

My first steps were bewildering and almost too much to cope with. Flying it round my house was nauseating. I then bought (and returned) a more traditional controller. My growing realisation was that FPV using the one-hand DJI motion controller was a game-changer and so liberating.

Now I am in a groove that just continues to delight and amaze. It changes the way I look at architecture everywhere. I am always thinking about what the top of a chimney looks like - or whether overhead wires might be a problem as I ascend. I am also more aware of the wind than I have ever been - and often sing my own version of that Mary Poppins’ song (exchanging the word ‘kite’ for ‘drone’ - go on, you know you want to sing it too).

*It took several journeys to capture this murmuration - but what a thrill.*

In the UK are some healthy restrictions on getting into flying a drone - which I happily embrace - but it’s an easy situation to abuse and I fear for a culture where people will step over those bounds. You become painfully aware that we have all grown up in a world where fences and first-floor windows mean privacy. Drones change that in an instant in the same way that breeding giants might - the old barriers are no longer the same. The simple fact that these gadgets are so noisy is a privacy blessing. And yet, when you witness the way people with noisy phones ignore social boundaries on public transport, it doesn’t take much imagination to see how far drone abuse could go.

My personal response has been to shudder and seek to use mine to try and forge better relationships rather than annoy. If you can use something to serve others and enhance their experience of the world then it is a win-win I think.

Some reflections (in no particular order):

Treat each flight like it’s your last

Although this particular drone is so robust (I have crashed it a lot - it’s designed to be forgiving - a perfect first step in so many ways) there is always the possibility that you might lose it. This is something to embrace and live with.

It’s not a drone, it’s a (very) flexible camera

All those famous Hollywood crane shots that I grew up adoring. All those flight sequences with the Millennium Falcon. Suddenly you have the capability of doing/being something similar. A drone is never just a drone. There are always reasons why people have them - there are so many different use cases and mine just happens to be another way of telling visual stories. The delight factor for me is off the charts.

*I had to trust that those pigeons had better collision avoidance than me*

The small protected nature of the device means that it won’t easily hurt anyone - no exposed blades, the deceptively toy-like size and feel - and the tight control of movement in close environments - all of this means that I have been able to do some really fun shooting.

I took it on a youth camp over the summer sending it down a water slide and into a laser-tag wide game. It added a lot to the experience of the kids when we watched it back each evening.

Storytelling still sits enthroned

Low-quality footage with a clear story (or authorial voice) doesn’t stay low quality - it disappears into a bigger vision. This means that with skilled direction there are always exciting possibilities ahead regardless of the tool being utilised. This also doesn’t excuse the importance of understanding the unique contribution that each camera brings. How can it be used to enhance and invest a narrative with deeper significance? My head is spinning with possibilities and I am loving this era.

Video resurrected the radio star

Sound carries more than 50% of the film experience. This truism bears itself out at every step of the filmmaking process - but with drones this carries special significance because (in general) footage arrives as a silent artefact. It’s amusing that such extraordinary innovation has landed us into a new silent era.

Always be charging

At first glance the Neo2 has such a tiny battery provision that a pack of three seems like the only option. In the end I have four (labelled A-D) which I simply cycle through whenever I use them. To date I have never needed them all in one session, but at least with this set up I can allow for extended sessions.

Instinctive tech - it is The Way

Something I have often talked about on this process blog is the importance of having technology that supports instinct. The Apple Pencil (with a properly set up set of keyboard shortcuts on Clip Studio Paint) is one such solution - it complements the speed and instinct of the artist, allowing for ideas to develop as the work unfolds. Similarly, the use of the Motion 3 controller has allowed me to do something similar. For years I have pushed shopping trolleys in supermarket aisles with the secret fantasy of being the Millennium Falcon in that Asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back. Responding to oncoming boulders in zero gravity (AKA old ladies next to the delicatessen). And so, here I am moving round the tree branches at my local park, or zipping through the abandoned car park in town. I AM Han Solo AND Chewbacca avoiding Tie-Fighters who have foolishly followed me into the dangerous debris field.