The Dronepocalypse Is Here — in Documentary Footage, at Least

To anyone shooting a film or documentary, there are dozens of choices to make to get the shot. Jibs, stabilizers, dollies, and drones. Any of them can add to, or detract from a scene depending on how they are used. To say drone footage is bad is to say the opening few minutes of the 1999 film American Beauty is bad, or the start to The Sound of Music is awful (OK that is a helicopter but what you see is the exact same effect). If this article had been about how a shooting technique and choice of equipment should focus on adding to the story, and how and when to use drones to achieve that, I would find that an interesting point. To whine about all the drone footage today in documentaries left me feeling like this was part of the SNL skit about a filmmaker with Seth Meyers called, A Frightening Tale. Except here, there is nothing funny about it.

Werner Herzog used helicopters to film the amazing "Lessons of Darkness" which is a lot more disruptive and noisy than a drone would be but sometimes the arial view makes the point. They shouldn't be used by novices in national parks or nature areas as they are annoying but having a film maker with a permit seems to be a good way to compromise. Just taking drone shots to add images to a documentary is just stupid cheap filler. There are much more creative ways to fill the space. Anyhow, if someone wants to really hear about Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, they should read "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou.

The title got me. As a filmmaker who sometimes uses a drone for documentary establishing shots, I appreciate how affordable and portable these new tools are. A shot that used to require a prohibitively expensive helicopter and stabilizer can now be achieved with a drone that fits in my backpack, and I can buy my own for less than $1k. That being said, I agree with there being a danger of overuse, as with any new tool. I'm definitely noticing it, but I'm paid to notice, so it was interesting to hear another perspective and read the diverse comments. Now can we talk about slo-mo abuse? And gimbals for EVERY shot? And all the *epic*, dubstep-scored "Watch me walking down the street in slo-mo ... I look like a celebrity!" videos on YouTube? We've entered a new era, where kids coming up in film making today have access to every tool necessary to make a gorgeous film, given a chance: nonlinear editing on a laptop; drones and gimbals for insane levels of stability; 4K cameras at every price point; royalty free music at their fingertips; LED lighting for pennies. Let's hope they are also learning to tell important stories with all the wonderful tools. Or in today's culture of being famous for being famous, is simply looking pretty/stabilized/properly lit actually the goal?

There are so many cinematic clichés. I think drone shots are terrific in the right context, and I never get tired of them (yet). I am very tired, however, of the camera circling around a couple as they kiss or dance. Or tight shots of the actors' faces when the director forgets to pull back once in a while so we can see the whole scene, or even the whole actor. Or scenes so dark you have to squint. Enough already!

I am a non-fiction cinematographer. I encourage directors that I work with to embrace stylistic rules and limitations. Every decision regarding creative choice should be preceded by the question of "why?" Like a shark, the audience can smell fear in our choices. Confidence comes across on screen and tells the audience they can trust us to take them on the journey.

While it's true that drones are illegal in national parks that regulation only applies to private visitors and not commercial film makers who easily get permission to use them. Nat Geo's series on Yellowstone last year and "Free Solo" are but two examples. Commercial filming in national parks has increased because it's cheap as parks can only recover administrative & staffing costs, charge no location fees and so the National Park Service has caved to their interests as the path of least resistance. Permits are routinely approved for everything from fashion shoots, movies and game shows to reality TV. Sad but true. And it's only getting worse under the Trump. Mob.

Make artistic arguments against them if you want, I love the smooth, panoramic shots afforded by drones. All of them. Maybe it's because I lived most of my life only getting to dream about the amazing views we can now take for granted.

Before there were drones, we dreamed of the views above us. In our Freudian landscapes, there were aerial views. My family and I were just remarking on the prevalence of drone footage in movies and television landscapes. I like it if it adds to the understanding in the story, but not if it's used as a visual candy. Aerial views quickly establish a location better than traditional footage, so if the story jumps from one city to another, it's a quick way of portraying that.

Like everything new, it's overused. Until it isn't.

Drone shots don’t bother me as much as actors carrying empty coffee cups. I can spot an actor handling an empty coffee cup or tray of them in the first few seconds of the shot. No one does it correctly. Well HBO did. (GOT) But, back to drones. The use of the drone is no different than a studio using a crane or some other flying device. Done well with the correct editing, you hardly notice it because of the story telling. Now that empty cup.... Rox of Spazhouse, Intuitive Research

I recently went on an island vacation with gorgeous sunsets and some idiot decided it was the perfect time to fly their drone. Nothing like an annoying buzz of an electronic fly to destroy a perfect moment.

Heck with aesthetic/artistic considerations. Just stop the inconsiderately intrusive noise!

At least Gregor Samsa knew he was an insect.

What epidemic? These are good shots.

Agreed. Drone shots, especially those lingering atmospheric ones, are super-lazy, and almost never advance the narrative in any meaningful way. Drone shots are when I check my phone for new messages.

watching smart TV video with a friend yesterday of offroad motorbike racing taken from helmet top GoPro or similar, I commented that the compact lightweight water/weatherproof High Definition GoPro had been a game-changer for action photography. Now such HD video is normal in drone photography. Then as we spoke I saw the video in HD slo-mo - crystal clear images of bikes jumping slo-mo through the air - and as a photographer I went 'that's something I didn't inherit with my dad's Nikon F1' ...

I am appalled at the premise for this article. How dare you criticize a technology and give it a "name". This is aerial photography at its best. It gives you unlimited access and views of "hard to reach" locations and a unique perspective. I don't agree with the assertions made in the article.

As a documentary filmmaker, my comment is go pick on somebody your own size, like for example the big narrative films with budgets in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. Imagine for a moment what 275 documentary filmmakers could have done with film budgets of a million dollars each instead of using that loot to crank out that artistic wonder Solo, A Star Wars Story. The entire endeavor of documentaries would become transformed. Could I have one of those million dollar budgets, please? I'm willing to compromise and not use any drone shots.

Well... as long as we put up with everything being an "icon" these days, I guess drone footage is no problem...

Maybe it's moved to other kinds of documentary more recently, but for many years the kind of documentaries that Omni theaters show have featured seemingly obligatory drone shots. They are very hard on those of us who get motion sick.

THANK YOU for bringing this up. Overuse is becoming annoying. It is also a distraction when the inevitable nausea-inducing "over the waterfall" shot .

It's not just documentary film makers. Reminds me of the old joke with the punchline "Because they can".

Reminds me of the arguments against too much compression in music recording. Isn't technology great? We've got all these cheap buttons we can push.

I don't get it. This is just another toy. Ir's already become a cliche. It offers curious viewpoints, but does not give us insight. As a tool, it has its values, but then, so did moving the camera, let me see, when did that curious event happen? Cinema is not about gimmicks.

Drone photography is among the safest recreational activities -- zero deaths in the entire world, literally! Most of the devices these days are 0.5-1.5 pounds; i.e., about as big as an NFL football flying through the air. More folks have died taking cell phone shots. Drones create unique perspectives that cannot be captured any other way. Restrictive rules threaten the first amendment. Gov't groups like NPS overreach when they try to regulate airspace -- never part of their charter from Congress -- and we see over and over again the only policy they can construct is total prohibition. The NPS ban not only affects Yosemite but also big open parks like Ocean Beach by SF or Malibu coastline -- places where young tech enthusiasts or surfing recorders may easily fly safely. If you want to ban drones on Congressionally designated wilderness, that's fine. But now there's literally 101 gov't agencies jumping in to create a patchwork rule system that is simply unjustified. It does not surprise me when many states prohibit any new rule not passed through the state legislature / signed by the governor, or approved by the FAA. To the drone photographers out there: go take the test and become FAA-authorized drone pilot. Cheers!

I love drone shots! And yes, they need to be integrated and useful to the story being told. But they are gorgeous and informative. A subtle thing about drone imagery is that often the feelings we get are contradictory. We are comforted by seeing a world we know, and at the same time there is some soft tension from seeing that same world in a new way, like a bird. There is relaxing and being intense at the same time.

Oh stop. Why is this a story? Drones are just a different kind of camera with a unique vantage point that can enhance the storytelling when done well. Ordinary people and filmmakers are no longer constrained to ground level shots. Same criticism could be applied to any type of shot that is overdone (the single take shot, the steadicam, handheld, GoPro shots etc)

The issues is not what device is used to film, but the lack of creativity on the filmmakers' part. There's plenty of cliché filming strategies and styles seen in shots done with regular cameras, and then there are those filmmakers who have new ideas and see scenes differently.

It's great when a critic who watches hundreds of movies a year spots a trend's direction toward overuse and points it out to the rest of us. Drones will have their time of overuse and when people have had enough, filmmakers will use them judiciously. It will echo the use of any gadget. Imagine how many Go Pro cameras are sitting in drawers and on shelves, their batteries discharged, sealed in their waterproof cases, abandoned.

I've loved bird's eye motion picture photography since the earliest crane shots from Hollywood. I'm less concerned about how often drone photography is used than about how often these devices are launched on a given day. And it seems to tie into the modus operandi of tourist these days -spend a great deal of money to get someplace, take a selfie and go back home. Yosemite's ban is sensible - people spend more time actually filling their eyes with the wonder of the place and less time adjusting settings and checking batteries.

I travel a fair amount, and will do my share of perusing around on YouTube as part of my decision process of where to go and what to see. Drone footage has been a big part of that, and helped me decide to see the famous 9 Arch Bridge when I was in Sri Lanka a few weeks ago. Ground-level footage is one thing, but aerial views can help me decide on access, hiking potential, and other things. But as I found out, certain attractions like this railroad bridge are magnets for drone operators. Even though I had the schedule for the next passing train, I knew for sure it was coming when I heard the “mosquito” sound from across the gap, as a drone followed the train to the bridge. It was getting a bit annoying and distracting as it flew lower, but luckily the train itself drowned out the noise as it passed. A mild look of annoyance on my face had someone comment to me that she had been at another local site the day before where 3 or 4 of them were flying at the same time. Fortunately for me, I had enjoyed the tranquility for quite a bit already so the visit was not ruined for me. But I can imagine a scenario where I could spend great time, money, and effort getting somewhere, only to have the peace and tranquillity drowned out by mechanical mosquitoes up above. Maybe the small group of rebellious youngsters I passed on my way out had the right idea. When this particular drone came in and swooped by for a close-up pass, a wave of middle fingers raised up to greet the camera...

They are so often an overused cliche and are also as often technically inferior cameras. Moreover, it creates laziness on the part of filmmakers. The cumulative effect of these things is it takes away production value and story instead of adding them.

This is a welcome article as it affirms there's a savvy audience out there - ready to call out a technique if used gratuitously, but just as ready to be thrilled when it does work. A technique works if it's so entwined with story that we hardly notice it. Filmmaking 101. Thank you!

So people are excited about aerial photography. Big deal.

Seems like a non-issue to me. Like any other technology or perspective, drones have their appropriate uses. As an immature pilot and nature photographer, all I know is that it's opened up a whole new world in my work and gives viewers access to images that wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

I think Mr. Ebiri does a good job illustrating when drone footage can be used to enhance and compliment the narratives. There are many examples when such footage is used to sublime effect and I'm happy to see another tool available to independent filmmakers who wouldn't have been able to access these shots in the past. However, I agree that its use in the wrong context is jarring and increasingly cliche. I used to follow a travel vlog primarily due to the clearly skilled editing and intimate vignettes of fascinating, far away locales. As you traveled along with handheld cameras you felt tantalizingly close to the action, like you were a participant. Alas, last year they purchased two drones and virtually every shot became sky-high drone footage. I don't see the world flying 500 feet above the ground and so all feeling of reliability to the environment was lost. I no longer could "see myself" through the narrative (a death sentence for documentary work) and stopped watching. As Mr. Hynes so aptly observed, “if your film’s currency is intimacy, is access, is humanity, why are you floating above everyone’s heads?”

I spent some time in Bisbee back in the 70s, thinking about settling in. "Don't worry about the yard. You want it bigger, we'll blast it in for you." The whole town is blasted out of the rock. I can't imagine how you could do a documentary there without something like a drone.

Let us not forget that many of the sweeping scenes in the Lord of the Rings series were obtained with a very expensive setup on a very expensive helicopter, making all sorts of noise above what a drone would. The previous need for very heavy cameras has disappeared, with small sensors giving a similar (but not identical) quality to the images, both still and motion. The rarity of those kind of flying shots, seen too at Disney in the "Soarin'" had been, during the times of expensive budgets to product them, made me crave to see them again, to dream of being able to fly, and enhanced the productions like no other shot, boom camera or otherwise. There is a chance to overdo it, certainly, but to go where no camera has (easily or cheaply) gone before is no reason for directors and producers to eschew their use. A recent Lottery promotion for the State of Minnesota has many cuts, some of which were likely drone produced, but could easily have been done with helicopter. I don't care how they were produced, but I watch that darned ad every time it comes on screen. For those who drones are blase, or overdone besides, I feel sorry that the thrill of flying without an aircraft per se that those shots bring to me isn't shared with the same reverence. Just learn how to use an editor and how to color correct and all will be fine.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently, especially after seeing "Leaving Neverland" and "The Inventor" one right after the other in one weekend. The suddenly cliched nature of drone shots became very clear to me. I think part of the problem is the contrast between the kind of dramatic, sweeping camera effects we've seen before (I vividly recall the early scene in Jurassic Park when the helicopter arrives on the island, which was also accompanied by a memorable bit of music) and the weirdly sterile, perfectly controlled aerial tracking effect you get from a drone. This is enhanced in the frequent views you get of the drone's shadow on the ground, or a briefly glimpsed reflection in the side of a building. In order for drone usage to seem less off-putting and overdone, directors are going to have to use them way more creatively that I have seen them used thusfar, and not just as a way to get a cheap overhead perspective.

it's all about compelling subject matter, technology has made film and photography stunning in many cases and in many cases it is produced by amateurs. As such, many of us have come to shrug at technically beautiful photos, they are everywhere. The capture of intangible moods/feelings being invoked within the eye of the viewer is what sets apart a great piece of film or photography. Drone shots, such as the Theranos example added nothing to that piece and was a good example of overuse. My close friend use to be a professional architectural photographer and had contracts with the Ritz-Carlton and other high end properties. He is in the BBQ business now, and jokes that he got undercut by kids with an iphone producing shots as nice as his 30k kit. He gave up, the technology eliminated the need for the professional skill set necessary "back in the day" to produce that great shot. Drone footage is the same, fascinating at first but with out proper context to get a core reaction from the viewer, it's dull once you get over the initial wow factor.

As a part time professional videographer, I have no problem loving the use of drones. It has leveled the playing field between the pro and the amateur or low budget filmmakerm as has the use of gimbals and 4K on low cost cameras and phones. The technology has been leveled and the issue now comes down to storytelling, as it always has been. There are millions of great stories to be told on the planet and this technology revolution is empowering a new army of filmmakers. Power to the storytellers.