I've been encouraged by the stalwarts of this group to post examples and samples of issues, experiments, observations and problems, and I've not done so (until now), because I had not set up the accounts necessary to do so.  This is my first test post of actual content I generated myself.  This is of the marina I frequent.



We'll see if this works.

Yep, it worked.

Nice compilation.

Good Job Charles, getting your first piece is the hardest , it also gives you plenty of scope to compare and improve for what you want to produce in the future. There is some really nice stuff there and well put together.

hallmark007 Posted at 2-26 11:29
Good Job Charles, getting your first piece is the hardest , it also gives you plenty of scope to compare and improve for what you want to produce in the future. There is some really nice stuff there and well put together.

Thanks!  I know there's some amateurish stuff in there as well, and as you said, I have a benchmark now to gauge my growth.  I've got some stutter (could have picked a higher frame rate to record), and some transitions are off-beat, and some of my transitions don't enhance the "story".  I was experimenting with some transitions I created from the (very) old Microsoft Movie days.  I still had them around, and I decided to see if they worked with today's video editing software.

very nice.  probably a lot better than the first video i ever made.  keep up the good work!

Charles that was really good and Brave! :-) The link only gave me 480p resolution max so to truly showcase your work and the Mavic 3 you probably need to find away to uploaded or export higher resolution?

That looks like a fascinating area, would love to spend an afternoon there doing some straight down stills of that coast/lake shore but alas I'm probably about 15 hours flight away :-)  

Charles Adams Posted at 2-26 11:36
Thanks!  I know there's some amateurish stuff in there as well, and as you said, I have a benchmark now to gauge my growth.  I've got some stutter (could have picked a higher frame rate to record), and some transitions are off-beat, and some of my transitions don't enhance the "story".  I was experimenting with some transitions I created from the (very) old Microsoft Movie days.  I still had them around, and I decided to see if they worked with today's video editing software.

You will always be your biggest critic, and thats the same for most of us. And thats how we learn to improve. I’d also urge users to print their work to many good photos end up on mobile phones and ipads .

Bussty Posted at 2-26 12:12
Charles that was really good and Brave! :-) The link only gave me 480p resolution max so to truly showcase your work and the Mavic 3 you probably need to find away to uploaded or export higher resolution?

That looks like a fascinating area, would love to spend an afternoon there doing some straight down stills of that coast/lake shore but alas I'm probably about 15 hours flight away :-)

Yes, I need to up the render resolution.  I rendered it for other platforms and didn't need high res, but now I'm learning that youtube can handle more and better.

A very nice series of clips and images. Perhaps the use of fewer different transition effects might be something to consider.  I think that in that instance, less is more

Beautiful! Lookin' really nice and smooth! I'm surprised there's any water left in there given how bad of a drought poor Colorado has been under. As others said, I'd love to see it higher res, and the only downside to a bigger file is the time it takes for YT to process it, so you might as well if you have the means to!

Here's some inspiration for you Charles. I thought his poster knows what he's doing...  

Flying through the marina just above the rooftops is an amazing shot!!

TeddyBozeman Posted at 2-26 13:43
Beautiful! Lookin' really nice and smooth! I'm surprised there's any water left in there given how bad of a drought poor Colorado has been under.  As others said, I'd love to see it higher res, and the only downside to a bigger file is the time it takes for YT to process it, so you might as well if you have the means to!

Thank you.  Colorado does have normal (average) snowpack this year, so far.  But normal is not enough to recover.  We need well above average, and for multiple years.

Nice footage. It is a great place to fly drone.  

Magnificent work, Charles! Thanks for sharing this with us.

If you have issues with the video not embedding,  use the advanced editor and click the film camera icon on the tool bar and put the URL to YouTube in there.

Amazing compilation Charles.    Very nice marina.  

It works.
Why did you add the borders around the footage?

Montfrooij Posted at 2-28 05:28
It works.
Why did you add the borders around the footage?

I didn't, at least not on purpose.  I used Premier Pro, and that's the default after I "scaled to size".  Something else for me to learn, as I don't really want to have those borders.

Charles Adams Posted at 2-28 05:39
I didn't, at least not on purpose.  I used Premier Pro, and that's the default after I "scaled to size".  Something else for me to learn, as I don't really want to have those borders.

I already thought this was not on purpose. And it is one of the more frustrating things of using a 'pro' editor like Premiere.
Davinci also has a way of being 'too flexible' which can result in unwanted behaviour.
I'm very confident there is an easy fix for this, but I unfortunately can't help you with this, since I stopped using Premiere long time ago.

Montfrooij Posted at 2-28 05:42
I already thought this was not on purpose. And it is one of the more frustrating things of using a 'pro' editor like Premiere.
Davinci also has a way of being 'too flexible' which can result in unwanted behaviour.
I'm very confident there is an easy fix for this, but I unfortunately can't help you with this, since I stopped using Premiere long time ago.

So you use Davinci?

BTW, I appreciate all the constructive critique.  While I like hearing compliments (who doesn't), I value constructive critique more because it gives me the most opportunity to improve.

Charles Adams Posted at 2-28 06:43
So you use Davinci?

BTW, I appreciate all the constructive critique.  While I like hearing compliments (who doesn't), I value constructive critique more because it gives me the most opportunity to improve.

Yes, I am mainly using it for it's great tracking feature.
It is super extensive and not as quick as my goto editor (Sony Vegas Pro). But I am using it more and more for simple edits since I want to move away from illegal software and SVP is my last one.
I don't want to use software with a subscription model, since I'm against that, so that leaves few options.
Davinci is one of them (and a lot can be used in the free version).

Be prepared to 1000% more options than you will ever need (a lot like Premier) but at it's current price point (free for most operations) you can't really complain I guess.

Charles Adams Posted at 2-28 06:43
So you use Davinci?

BTW, I appreciate all the constructive critique.  While I like hearing compliments (who doesn't), I value constructive critique more because it gives me the most opportunity to improve.

And yes, you are right. Serious comments are very much appreciated by me.

Charles Adams Posted at 2-28 06:43
So you use Davinci?

BTW, I appreciate all the constructive critique.  While I like hearing compliments (who doesn't), I value constructive critique more because it gives me the most opportunity to improve.

highly recommended you try davinci resolve.

hate to do this to you:  https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... peid&typeid=578

Couple critiques from a videography perspective:

- First thing I noticed immediately is its in 480p SD quality. Upload in full 4k glory! Is there a reason you uploaded such low res video instead? 480p just looks terrible. You lose all definition and sharpness because the footage is so downsampled and low res. 4k would make this immediately better, by a lot!

- I love the shot you did at 0:21, panning up over the docks, but there is considerable stutter here in the frames. Do you know what shutter speed you were shooting here? Keeping shutter speed twice your framerate should help give some natural motion blur here and smooth out these jerky frames.

- A couple transitions you did I would chop maybe the first 1-2 seconds off those clips, as it shows the drone accelerating from seemingly a stopped position. I think frame transitions look best when the drone is already at a consistent speed when the transition is made. Most of your transitions were done this way and it looked good.

- I think a slower speed would help some of your shots. Some of these you could even slow down in post and it would look nice. This is personal taste, but just a slightly slower speed I think would look better in a few of the shots.

Lastly I would just say I am pointing out to you things I am myself trying to learn as well. I am not a master videographer. I am still learning as well, so I hope you don't take my points as me being harshly critical.

The Saint Posted at 2-28 07:35
highly recommended you try davinci resolve.

hate to do this to you:  https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=forumdisplay&fid=130&filter=typeid&typeid=578

Love it!  Didn't know that lived here.  Greatly appreciated!

Tornado12 Posted at 2-28 08:18
Couple critiques from a videography perspective:

- First thing I noticed immediately is its in 480p SD quality. Upload in full 4k glory! Is there a reason you uploaded such low res video instead? 480p just looks terrible. You lose all definition and sharpness because the footage is so downsampled and low res. 4k would make this immediately better, by a lot!

Greatly appreciated!  You have provided lots of good info that I need to digest.  I'll address one issue.  Why 480p?  I mainly wanted to test the (new) workflow I created to get video content here.  My test was less about the video itself, and more about the means of getting video content here.  Lot's of peers here have suggested that I provide some video or content of the results of my drone tests, but that's not something I had done before (upload to youtube, post here).  I had created this video for another platform where the resolution was not critical, and just decided on a whim to see if I could use that video to get content here.

I still appreciate the video feedback though, as I'm learning a lot.

looks good

Charles Adams Posted at 2-28 08:24
Greatly appreciated!  You have provided lots of good info that I need to digest.  I'll address one issue.  Why 480p?  I mainly wanted to test the (new) workflow I created to get video content here.  My test was less about the video itself, and more about the means of getting video content here.  Lot's of peers here have suggested that I provide some video or content of the results of my drone tests, but that's not something I had done before (upload to youtube, post here).  I had created this video for another platform where the resolution was not critical, and just decided on a whim to see if I could use that video to get content here.

I still appreciate the video feedback though, as I'm learning a lot.

I see Charles. That makes sense. I think for a first test you did well here. You avoided many of the mistakes that I often see new drone videographers make. Couple of those things which you did well here:

-You didnt sit on one scene for too long. This is a big one. You had lots of transitions. Sitting on the same scene for extended period quickly gets boring.

-You weren't throwing the gimbal and aircraft direction around in any scenes. This is another one new drone shooters do that immediately breaks the cinematic feel of the video. You had a subject (This marina) and you chose to present it with multiple different clips and angles using transitions. This is the cinematic approach, rather than few transitions and lots of panning and turning in the same clips. It is the difference between a flight that looks like scouting / surveying, and actual cinematic footage. I think a lot of new shooters try to do everything in one flight pass, and it just destroys the artistic quality of the video I think.

Tornado12 Posted at 2-28 08:33
I see Charles. That makes sense. I think for a first test you did well here. You avoided many of the mistakes that I often see new drone videographers make. Couple of those things which you did well here:

-You didnt sit on one scene for too long. This is a big one. You had lots of transitions. Sitting on the same scene for extended period quickly gets boring.

I did have some "over-arching" themes that I wanted to employ in this video.  They may not be exactly linear, but the themes are pretty much faithfully followed.  I wanted to open and (near) close with the sunirise and sunset (other than the asteroid "a world of fun").  I also wanted to showcase the marina, then pull out from the marina and show the environment the marina is in, then show some of the scenes on the lake, then push back into the marina to close.  That was the "story" I wanted to tell.

The transition effects I just threw at the video (not very professional), as I wanted to test and see how well Premier would do with some gradient transitions that I had made over two decades ago for Windows Movie Maker.

Tornado12 Posted at 2-28 08:33
I see Charles. That makes sense. I think for a first test you did well here. You avoided many of the mistakes that I often see new drone videographers make. Couple of those things which you did well here:

-You didnt sit on one scene for too long. This is a big one. You had lots of transitions. Sitting on the same scene for extended period quickly gets boring.

totally agreed.  if there's nothing else to be gained, these are the #1 and #2 most important things to learn when it comes to cinematic video that i enjoy, in my opinion.

Really nice work, Thanks for sharing.

Charles Adams Posted at 2-28 08:45
I did have some "over-arching" themes that I wanted to employ in this video.  They may not be exactly linear, but the themes are pretty much faithfully followed.  I wanted to open and (near) close with the sunirise and sunset (other than the asteroid "a world of fun").  I also wanted to showcase the marina, then pull out from the marina and show the environment the marina is in, then show some of the scenes on the lake, then push back into the marina to close.  That was the "story" I wanted to tell.

The transition effects I just threw at the video (not very professional), as I wanted to test and see how well Premier would do with some gradient transitions that I had made over two decades ago for Windows Movie Maker.

Having loads of transitions has nothing to do with cinematic footage, transitions can be for style content or simply to move to the next scene. Don’t get bogged down with them, most transitions will simply be cross dissolve or what’s common now straight cuts. If your shooting and advertisement and need to show lots of content quickly this can be done as straight cuts or fast transitions. But I think above one simple transition would have sufficed.
Scenes can be short medium or long and none of these have to be boring. If your story is good and your subject is interesting people will watch. And this also can depend on what you’re using the material for , social media usually has short concentration span, so simply figure a way to make a short condensed version of the video for specific different types of Media. One of the better drone videographers Phillip Bloom has many drone videos 5 minutes long with very long and slow scenes and his transitions are few and smooth and sometimes long ie 3/4 seconds to insure smoothness.

If you have a good story to tell to people you know will enjoy viewing your movie it can be as long or as short as you feel they will be interested. Like holidays long videos for those who were on the holiday is not a problem , but much shorter versions for those who only need a synopsis.

In big screen movies almost all drone shots are one simple scene no transitions , which is to make the scene more dramatic and cinematic for the watcher. On the other hand you’re trying to make a 2/3 minute video so its a lot different. A good next move would be to combine aerial with ground shots, you can show a lot more detail close up as well as live subjects. If they are not for pro use a simple phone in a gimbal shoots reasonable good matching video.

hallmark007 Posted at 2-28 14:00
Having loads of transitions has nothing to do with cinematic footage, transitions can be for style content or simply to move to the next scene. Don’t get bogged down with them, most transitions will simply be cross dissolve or what’s common now straight cuts. If your shooting and advertisement and need to show lots of content quickly this can be done as straight cuts or fast transitions. But I think above one simple transition would have sufficed.
Scenes can be short medium or long and none of these have to be boring. If your story is good and your subject is interesting people will watch. And this also can depend on what you’re using the material for , social media usually has short concentration span, so simply figure a way to make a short condensed version of the video for specific different types of Media. One of the better drone videographers Phillip Bloom has many drone videos 5 minutes long with very long and slow scenes and his transitions are few and smooth and sometimes long ie 3/4 seconds to insure smoothness.

Thanks Hallmark!  Great feedback!

I've been paying attention to television to watch for and learn from their techniques (as an aside, I've also become more attuned to lens flares).  My wife and I are pretty confident in picking out drone shots.  We were picking some out we believe were a part of the Yellowstone spinoff 1883, in their first season finale.

Thank you to everyone that provided feedback, particularly the constructive critiques.  The video was well received by the intended audience, but the intended audience members are not video experts.  Their appreciative comments were welcomed, but that did little to teach me on how to go from "novice" towards a direction of "pro".

I appreciate this forum and its members and all your feedback.  That's why I come here!