I realised today that I was very bored, feeling a creative need burning from within as I looked beyond my computer's monitor and out into the gloom that is often the English weather. It hit me that I had a ton of drone clips that I had shot over the past year of owning my DJI Mini 2 drone, and that I had done absolutely nothing with those clips. Many were rather lacking and just average clips of flying around the sky in the countryside, but I found a lot of really unique moments that I never would have witnessed and experienced had I never made the purchase in the first place. This realisation led to me throwing a ton of clips into a timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro and slowly filtering the good from the bad and seeing what had potential. Ultimately a ton of clips got cut, but after a little bit of searching and trying different things; as well as remembering the stress of finding good music to use, I ended up with a little cinematic reel that I think is pretty neat.
Despite working as a 'professional' in the film industry, I find that my heart belongs more to the run-and-gun independent style of filmmaking. Roaming the land and simply discovering the world on my own and seeing what comes from it. Meeting new people as a result and simply enjoying being out and around nature and locations I otherwise would overlook. At some point I intend on building an FPV drone to take this beyond the limits of the DJI Mini 2 drone; I even intend on getting myself a new digital camera soon.
Anyway, I think there's a genuine lack of filmmakers here on Hive, and hopefully I can use some of my creativity and interest in creating little films to somewhat contribute to what is clearly a very small niche still. It'd be great to get something going and see more people creating little films specific and original to Hive. Particularly given the potential Hive offers in financially rewarding those ambitious creations that would otherwise make nothing on traditional media sharing websites.
I had a lot of fun creating this, and it was a nice reminder of a hobby of mine that I hold but have been neglecting for far too long for no real reason. Drones in particular are incredible tools for getting out and pushing yourself beyond into creative areas you probably had no idea you even had. Despite not really getting out much with it this year due to many unfortunate events unfolding in my life, I look forward to once again packing that little drone into my backpack and roaming the lands and even water.
Perhaps I will even write a little post, most likely in a different community given it probably wouldn't fit here, on the process of editing the cinematic reel. Oh! And the song used is an edited, by me, version of 'Pensees - Discomfort' that I hacked at and sliced together to make it more fitting for the clips and duration I had in mind.
▶️ 3Speak
Love what you’ve done with these clips, you’ve really made the most of them and brought them to life with some imagination in the editing room. Inspiring stuff.
Btw, there is a drone community if you'd like to add the #drone?
Thanks! I have no idea why I let them sit idle for over a year and didn't really do anything with them. I guess I just didn't see the potential in many of them at first. It has been a while since I last had to edit something, but I definitely enjoyed it and it made me want to keep at it and do more of these.
Me too, I’ve got tons of unused footage so maybe I should try this too. You’ve given me some good ideas after seeing how you played with your clips. I need to be in the right mood for editing though as my laptop is a little slow and very frustrating. Maybe time for an upgrade 😎
Yeah do it! It'd be really cool to see people go beyond with the footage they have and see what creations they came up with in an edit. I said to another in a different comment that Hive definitely needs more people on the filmmaking side of things. There's so much potential for it on here.
I don't have power issues but I definitely feel that. Even as I was editing (it has been a while) I found I was losing interest fast. It really didn't take me long to create that though. Maybe 15 minutes of editing in Adobe Premiere Pro. Though I think I felt a bit limited as I realised many of the clips I did have were very similar to each other.
Honestly I didn't even really bother colour grading. I just slightlty tweaked the colours and used an Adjustment Layer to give it a more faded look. Slapped on a 15% top & bottom Crop in that Adjustment Layer and that's pretty much the full extent. Minus the fade in and fade out.
I feel just the same when I look at my back catalogue but maybe with a little effort in the editing room it allows for those clips to become something different. I’m going to have to wait for an upgrade but once that’s done I’ll definitely be coming back to them.
By the way, your choice of music was excellent. Where do you source your tunes from?
I used to listen to this type of music a long time ago. There's a ton of YouTube channels around with small artists. If I recall, Wavevision and FOMH were some.
But YouTube is one of the worst places since it's just full of music and takes so long to find something decent. I use things like EpidemicSound or Pond5 for sound effects or music most of the time; EpidemicSound is only £10 a month (so like $13? One post here on Hive covers it). These services are really useful though since they're full of sounds and music that allow you to search via tags to filter things. It speeds up the process a lot when you know what you want.
Another big plus to these services is that you can give them your social media profile URLs and they'll whitelist them so if you do use any music, you won't fall victim to any of the usual annoyances with automated copyright protection algos running wild. That also means you're allowed to profit from it. Pond5 is a bit expensive so I don't really touch that anymore. That's for the bigger filmmakers making shows for TV. :^)
Seems if you sign up for EpidemicSound they'll give you a free trial for 30 days. Should be enough time to mess around with it and see if it's worth the cost if you start using it frequently. For the price and the library, I think it's worth it if you're being active enough in obtaining footage.
Everything in the video is representing the beauty of the world. Trees, greeny Fields, the birds, clouds , Love the beautiful views.
Thank you! It was all filmed in such a small area too. I think that shows the potential of these things. Even if you live in a remote location, all you have to do is throw the drone up in the air and look around to see how beautiful everything really is. They don't just make you more creative, but more appreciative of the world.
Hi my friend. Nicely done and really good choice of soundtrack 😁👍
Thanks! I tried a different one and it just did not go at all, haha. Then when I found this one, I thought it was perfect. But around the 1 minute mark in the song it changes a bit and did not go, so I had to do a little bit of surgery to remove it and stitch things back up to fit again.
I have been following a few YouTube channels for a few years now that upload pretty aesthetic sounding songs which are perfect for filmmaking and made by small artists. Lots of songs that are perfect if you have the time and patience to really get into the editing.
I really didn't spend that long on this in the end, but it did spark a little bit of interest in getting out and recording things again.
Usually to find soundtrack it would take me age’s. Haven’t done something decent with my video camera but you can check my YouTube channel:
https://youtube.com/user/tominis4321
Would be nice to hear some opinion from someone who works professionally in this industry 😁👍
There probably is a genuine lack of film makers here and it's probably something to do with it being hard work and it "just making sense" to hyperfocus on Youtube where "everyone" is.
Please make all the films :D
Were the sheep scared of the drone?
I've got a little fund going to start saving up for a new camera. They're just so insanely expensive these days and I just can't seem to bring myself to cash out such a large sum from savings to get one. 1.6k - 2.6k (GBP not even USD!) is just so much money now.
I think maybe at that point I could set up a community for one, try to give it a boost with my own works and encourage people once my own HP has improved as well. I know there is already a filmmaking community but the creator isn't very active and has ignored my attempts to connect in the past, so... ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It was pretty high up and not too loud, so nope! They just thought I was herding them up. A lot of farmers use drones for that now, actually.
I feel like everything is really expensive now x_x
I'd join XD Even if you decide to stick to live action films :) (I will eventually make animated ones whenever I can get past the building stage)
Good work ! I like it.