Megan’s Story, a narrative-style doc about a young woman’s recovery from traumatic brain injury, is a fundraising film I recently completed for the Brain Injury Alliance of Washington. Choosing to use narrative techniques to tell a documentary story changed the way I approached the filmmaking. Here’s what was happening behind the scenes.

For a typical documentary, my approach is interview and shoot b-roll (often on same day) then assemble the edit. My process in making Megan’s Story was slightly different:

1. Interview first.
2. Make story cut (no b-roll).
3. Decide what scenes needed to be shot, and write shot list.
4. Schedule and shoot them.
5. Assemble the edit.

The nice thing about using this approach is that if the interview goes poorly, or doesn’t lead to lots of scene possibilities, you have an easy out. You haven’t invested a ton of time shooting yet. In this way, you can use the interview as a proof of concept.  If it goes well, it forms the spine of your story and you move to the next step of production.

Gear used:

• C100Mkii
• DJI Osmo
• Rhino EVO Carbon Slider with flywheel
• Lensbaby Composer Pro with Sweet 35 optic
• Litegear LiteMat2 LED
• EyeDirect
• Multicart

Use of color
I set the white balance on the camera to tungsten and below (down to 2000K) to get the blue-green cast. I chose this color to represent her internal state after the accident.

Shot with Lensbaby

Lenses
Inspired by The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, I wanted to use distorted glass on this project to represent how it felt to be Megan. The Lensbaby Composer really does a wonderful job of throwing most everything in the frame out of focus, but preserves your ability to focus attention on one part of the frame. While I could have achieved something similar in post (and in fact the shot of Megan driving was tweaked this way) I like the control it gives you on the fly. And there’s something wonderful about committing to a shot in the moment.

Macro shot with Canon L 100mm f/2.8 IS lens

I also used two other lenses on the film: a Canon EFS 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom, and Canon 100mm macro f/2.8.

Primary Camera
The C100mkii continues to be my go-to camera for so many reasons: It’s ergonomically awesome, great in low light, color grading is easy, and autofocus just works.

Osmo makes traveling shots easy

Introducing the DJI OSMO
This was my first opportunity to use the DJI Osmo. I’m really excited about this camera! Don’t let it’s cuteness fool you: it’s much more than a toy. It’s tiny, sets up fast, and slashes the distance between imagining a shot and getting it. And the fully manual options and rectilinear lens blow doors off GoPro. At present it’s got a major issue, though: the horizon drifts away from level.  DJI provides a gimbal setting that allows you to manually level the horizon, but it requires constant fiddling. My solution was to shoot 4K and frame loose, and straighten the horizon in post. I hope this problem is fixable with a firmware update.

Another bummer about the Osmo is that the X3 lens is way too wide for shooting people up close. The traveling shot in which Megan flashes a smile as she approaches her desk is marred by the fact that her face is distorted by the wide angle (the equivalent of 20mm lens in full frame terms). The forthcoming X5 camera for Osmo will solve all of this, allowing the use of M43 lenses.

Rhino slider shot

Slider
I recently retired my dented Glidetrack Pro and picked up a Rhino EVO Carbon slider, after playing with the display model at Glazers Camera in Seattle. Moves are buttery smooth with the flywheel, an essential accessory. I have the 24″ model and am very impressed with it’s portability and consistently glacial moves. I’ll post a full review one of these days, but suffice to say I’m delighted with it.

Backligting courtesy of LiteGear’s LiteMat2

Lighting
Most of this film was shot with available light. I wanted a gritty feel so that was an intentional choice. In fact, I used only one light in just two scenes: the interview was keyed with my LiteMat2, and the shot in which Megan cries while contemplating suicide (above) is naturally backlit, with some help from LiteMat2.

Eye contact maintained using EyeDirect

EyeDirect
The EyeDirect device makes it easy to maintain eye contact with your subject during the interview.  Your subject sees an image of you reflected in a mirror over the lens. This increases the intimacy of the interview. I rented mine from Victory Studios here in Seattle.

Improvised dolly shot using Multicart

Multicart as dolly
My Multicart is indispensable. It does the hard work of transporting equipment, and, it doubles as a dolly. In the grocery store shot above, I’m perched on a couple of pelican cases stacked on the cart, camera in my lap on a bean bag, while my assistant Sean McGrath pulls the cart down the aisle. I could have shot this with the Osmo, but it wouldn’t have had the Lensbaby look. So I reserved all the Osmo shots for the last part of the film, where the crisp 4K image and deep depth of field was a good match for her emotional state.

Music: All of the tracks for this story were licensed through Audionetwork.com. They have a great deal – unlimited use of tracks in any one video for $395. I used 5 different tracks in this video.

One last thing worth mentioning: the opening shot was something I got a few years ago. I was on a flight and noticed the rare shadow outside my window seat as we decended to land, so I grabbed my point-and-shoot Sony and rolled on it. Even though the resolution isn’t very good, it’s still an amazing visual. And as Werner Herzog once said, “Good footage always cuts.”

“If you want to make a documentary you should automatically go to the fiction, and if you want to nourish your fiction you have to come back to reality.” ―Jean-Luc Godard

Too often, we documentary filmmakers confuse patience with preparation.  After a long day of shooting, it’s easy to excuse unrewarding results by saying “that’s just what happened.” But for many documentaries, especially paid commercial work, patience is not a virtue. And if you’re tackling a film about a story that happened yesterday, you may have very little to work with today.

This is the dilemma I faced recently when the Brain Injury Alliance of Washington asked if I could make a short doc to help them raise more money at their annual fundraiser. I said yes – if we could find a good story. But all of the stories they suggested had already happened. From a documentary perspective, they were weak (the strongest docs, in my opinion, tell stories that are in progress, with uncertain outcomes that will be unfold during the filmmaking). By shifting our approach to include fictional techniques, a world of possibility opened up (see the results, above).

Tackling a documentary story with narrative filmmaking techniques requires a different mindset. In a sentence, it means being less reactive, and more proactive. Here are 10 tips that will help shift your thinking.

Story is king but casting is queen. If you’re doing recreations, your character must be able to act. The good news is you’re asking them to play someone they know very well – themselves! But don’t make any assumptions about their abilities. Make picking the right character an integral part of picking the right story: and don’t choose one without the other. Sometimes just interviewing the talent (your story’s character) is enough for you to get a sense of it. Other times you’ll want to ask them to relive a scene for you in advance. If your gut tells you they aren’t up to it, get used to politely saying no. Otherwise, story will suffer. And you never want to disappoint the king!

Make shot lists. I do this for documentary shoots too, but it’s even more important when going narrative. Just a simple Google docs shotlist template works fine. The stress of getting everything you need during a narrative style production makes it very easy to forget something if you don’t have it on paper. On every shoot, I reach a point where I can’t think any more. So I  reach for my shot list and keep going until everything is crossed out.

Scout the location. Seeing a location will give you a lot of ideas. And, it’ll help you plan what equipment you’ll need on the day. Think about the light – where is it coming from? Will it be the same or different? Take advantage of natural light in the same way you would on a documentary shoot: use windows, skylights, and practical lights to the fullest. Think as much about where should take light away as where you should add it.

Ask for permission. In documentary, we have a saying: it’s better to ask for forgiveness than  for permission. But when you’re upping your game to narrative-style production, even small-scale stuff, a little permission can go a long way. In this film, we probably could have grabbed the grocery store scene with Megan without permission. But I wanted to dolly down the isle, so that she seemed to be getting smaller in the shot, with the shelves closing in on her. So guerrilla tactics were out. Getting a yes from a large grocery would be tough, but I figured asking an independently owned neighborhood grocery would be much easier. It was. My neighborhood grocery, Markettime, let us shoot at 6pm even though it was a busy time for them. We told them we’d be in and out in 15 minutes, and we were.

Previsualize your shots. Story boards aren’t my thing. But I definitely spend the time to have  every shot loaded into my head BEFORE I get on set. On the day, everyone around you will have an opinion about what you’re doing. The only way you’ll know whether those opinions are valuable or distracting is if you already have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. In practice, I almost always end up doing something different than I imagined. But under the narrative pressures of time, talent and location, if a shot doesn’t start in your head, you’re dead.

Keep it simple. If you’re coming from a documentary background, narrative filmmaking can get overwhelming very fast. Don’t let it. Keep your crew small, and your gear minimal. Not sure whether you’ll need a jib? Skip it. I used a crew of just two people for many of the scenes in this film – one assistant and myself. I direct, and operate the camera, while my assistant carries gear, pushes a makeshift dolly, and even acts as an extra when needed. But there’s one thing you should never scrimp on…

Dedicate to sound. On scenes with audio, bring a sound recordist. Your on-camera mic may squeak by in the documentary world, but it won’t cut it for narrative. You don’t necessarily need a professional sound recordist (though I recommend it). But you do need someone whose sole job is getting the mic close to your talent as possible, and monitoring the results. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when it comes time for the painstaking ADR (auto dialog replacement).

Bring clothing changes. As documentarians we’re used to shooting people wearing just about anything (or nothing). But with narrative, if you’re staging more than once scene, your talent will almost certainly need more than one set of clothing. It’s easy to overlook this one, as you fuss over shot lists, lighting, etc. But remember that a fresh set of clothes is as essential as a fresh SD card when you’re shooting narrative.

Be thoughtful. If it’s raining, would you want to lay down on the hood of a car for that shot you’ve been planning? Your talent probably doesn’t want to, either. Also, for difficult shots, trust that you got the shot on the first take (but don’t move on until you do). Be respectful. Don’t work them too hard. Take time for lunch. Better yet, buy them lunch.

Be clear. Clarity builds trust. Tell your talent specifically what you want them to do, to the best of your ability. If they don’t succeed after a few takes, suggest something else, rather than repeating something that’s not working over and over again. For the scene in which Megan is contemplating suicide, I asked her to relive that moment, and asked her to cry.  It was so dark filming that scene that I couldn’t see whether she had shed any tears until I saw them in the edit. But I could feel the emotion. So we only shot it once. See item #1.

Overlap the action. If you’re wondering whether two shots will cut together, direct your talent to perform an action: sitting down, for example. Near the end of this film, for example, Megan walks to her desk and sits. Notice how I cut on her sitting. That’s the trick to believable edits: cut on the action. Film until the action is complete, and then pick up the shot with the next angle just before the action, allowing it to play out and continue.

Watch your talent’s eyeline. Where your talent is looking gets very important in narrative cutting. So, pay close attention to which direction your talent is looking in shot A, and direct them to look the same direction in shot B, in order for it to cut. In the grocery store scene, notice how Megan is looking camera-right in her shot A closeup, and the same direction in the shot B wide that follows it. Bonus: direct your talent to change where they are looking in both shot A and shot B, and overlap the shots. The moment your talent changes her look becomes your cut point.

When in doubt, shorten. If your talent sounds like she’s reading her lines, try breaking them apart. Break paragraphs into sentences. Break sentences into smaller sentences. This works especially well for voiceover. Megan’s first line in this film was broken down this way.

Well isn’t this nice. Thank you Portabrace.

They really do make exceptionally high quality bags, and no, they didn’t pay me to say that. I searched for a long time to find a tripod bag that was light enough to sling over my shoulder on location, big enough to hold a light stand or two, and heavy-duty enough for checked luggage at the airport.

When I found the TLQB-39XT Quick Tripod Case, my search was over. It’s carried my Vinten and Miller tripods with me on every assignment for the past two years, and it’s proven it’s worth time and time again. A good tripod is the foundation of any cinematographer’s arsenal, and a good tripod deserves a good bag.

If you look closely in the photo you’ll notice that there’s actually two bags. The second one is my LPB-LED2 Carrying Case for Multiple Lite Panels 1X1 which I use to pack my LED panels with me on location. It’s small enough to take as carry-on during a flight, with plenty of room for everything you need: light stand, power cord, v-mount battery, etc.

Here’s a new piece I made for UW Medicine that helped this outstanding program raise $2 million at their fundraiser on Saturday night. Thanks to their efforts, the world is a little bit safer place for young athletes who play contact sports.

The A7rii is the first DSLR to firmly grip my imagination since the 5dmkii. I spent Labor Day weekend getting to know this beast a little better. And I have a few observations to share. I’ll avoid covering the same ground as others already have. Suffice it to say that this camera records 4K internally, has built-in image stabilization, super 35, full frame video, back-lit sensor with serious low light skills, etc. On paper, at least, it looks like a documentary filmmakers wet dream. So, is it?

Here’s a few things I would like to submit for your consideration.

1. This camera really does capture 14 stops of dynamic range. No, I didn’t do a lab test. I didn’t have to, because I’ve never seen footage like this before. This is potentially a beautiful thing. But…

2. Getting a great image off Slog-2 requires much patience. I spent the weekend playing with it in Resolve, and using a variety of Slog-2 LUTs. Grading Slog footage is far less intuitive than grading Canon C-log, in my experience. However, it’s also more rewarding. When you’re done, you have an image that a Cinema EOS like the C100 could only dream of  producing. But I’m not about to give up my C100 mkii just yet. More on why shortly.

3. It’s HARD to screw up your exposure. That is, you can overexpose by up to THREE STOPS and still not worry too much about clipping. If you underexpose, you’ll get a bunch of noise in the shadows, and have to de-noise in post. But you’ll still have a usable image. It’s a lot like shooting raw, in this way. Pretty amazing. NOTE: If you’re shooting slog2 (and you should be) you will want to generally overexpose everything by two stops, to avoid noise in the shadows.

4. The image stabilization is really good, but it’s not a silver bullet. I found that it was possible to handhold footage up to about 35mm, maybe 50mm (in full frame mode); beyond that, it’s Movi time. And forget trying to shoot handheld with Super 35 crop mode – the rolling shutter is just too noticeable. Still, it’s the first time I’ve been able to seriously consider using a DSLR to handhold anything other than hybrid stabilized lenses like my Canon 100mm 2.8 macro IS. So that’s really something.

Using the camera with a lens like the excellent Sony FE PZ 28-135mm f/4 G OSS Lens, which I tested it with, yields great results when shooting in full-frame mode.

5. Full-frame video look very, very good. While others have reported moire, and theoretically there should be some,  I didn’t observe it even in finely knit clothing like sweaters. So Sony seem to have really figured out a pixel-binning algorithm that works. Full frame video suffers much less from rolling shutter than it does in Super 35 mode (but Super 35 is much better in low light).

6. The batteries are pretty much useless. The tiny battery gave me under an hour of shooting time. But you can power it off a USB charger. So here we start down the path of building our rig…

7. No built-in NDs, of course. You absolutely have to use a matte box, and now we’re really getting rigged up. This is pretty much a deal-breaker for me, for documentary use. Thought: Wouldn’t it be interesting if Sony added built-in ND filters to video lenses like the FE PZ 28-135? Seriously, I want a heavy matte box on the front of my lenses like Rosie O’Donnell wants Trump to be the next president.

At the end of the day, this is an extremely well-speced hybrid camera – half stills, half video. I will definitely being using it for special situations, like when I need to have 4K, or when I want to get stabilization out of non-IS lenses. In fact, I have a shoot coming up in which I need to shoot handheld with a Lensbaby, and I think this camera will be perfect for that.

In order for this camera to displace the C100mkii as my documentary camera of choice, it would need a lot of ergonomic improvements like built-in NDs, longer lasting battery, and faster access to the menu items I need. My biggest daily battle is just getting the shot, so I need a camera that can support me 100 percent in that effort.

Rumor has it that Sony is going to make an announcement about a new video camera later this week. Things would be very interesting indeed if Sony were to transplant this camera’s heart-stopping, full-frame, 14-stop grabbing, lusciously backlit sensor into a real video camera body for, oh, about $5K. Here’s hoping!

Why is the C100mkii a ridiculously awesome camera? It’s not the fluid ergonomics, the built-in ND filters, or the camera’s snappy autofocus. Your audience can’t see how you got the footage; they just see that you did get the footage. And the footage is what’s epic. Canon’s color science is why we pay the medium bucks for the EOS Cinema series cameras. But to get the most from your footage requires a little work. By following these steps, you’ll get 12 beautiful stops of highlight-holding dynamic range, every time you press record. Here’s how.

Before shooting:

1. Set minimum ISO to 850. Unlike with a traditional DSLR, choosing a lower ISO will NOT result in a better image on this camera. Instead, it will rob you of dynamic range. So always always always set a minimum ISO of 850. In low light you can go higher – much higher, in fact, and get great results. But never go lower.

2. Shoot Canon Log (CP Cinema Locked). This is the only way to get the full 12 stops of dynamic range out of your camera. The footage will initially appear flat when you view it. But you have plenty of quick options for giving it snap, crackle and pop by applying LUTs. More about that momentarily.

3. Enable View Assist. The image on your LCD will appear flat, and to fix that and give you an approximation of the final image while shooting, you’ll need to turn on the view assist. It’s located in the LCD menu. TIP: I add this and several other settings to the custom menu, which makes finding them much quicker than hunting through the menus.

After shooting:

4. Use a LUT. A LUT (Look Up Table) is an automatic color correction designed specifically for your camera, which is applied to your footage in post. Which LUT to use? I recommend these free EOS Cinema LUTs from Able Cine. To apply them to your footage, you’ll need an inexpensive plugin like the $29 LUT Utility. These will work as a plugin to the NLE of your choice (i.e., Premiere, FCPX, etc).

5. Adjust LUT intensity to get desired look. Using LUT Utility, you can adjust the effect from zero to 100 percent. I often find that dialing in 60-80 percent of the effect is just about right.

Here’s an example, an interview shot in front of a window. The challenge is we’d like to make her skin look awesome, while at the same time retaining as much highlight information as possible in the background. So we shoot in CP Locked, and…

Above: CP Locked footage looks flat prior to grading.

LUT applied (no other color correction). As you can see above, this instantly does wonders for our footage. But it still needs a little work.

Getting the most from LUTS

To get the most dynamic range (that is, visible detail in your image from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights) choose the CxxxLog10toWideDR_Full option (the one applied above).

To get punchier results, and more life in the skin tones, try one of the other two (the ones beginning with ABNorm- and JR45-), continuing to choose the -WideDR_Full option for each.

ABNorm_CxxxLog10toWideDR_Full applied. Adding this LUT makes our image appear too crushed, in my opinion, and slightly over-saturated. There are two ways to correct that while retaining the punchier color of the effect. You can lighten the image (in this case, by pushing up the midtones) or you can reduce the LUT intensity.

Mid-tone brightness increased to compensate, above.

Finally, reducing the intensity of the ABNorm- or JR45- LUTs, which tend to overly saturate and crush the image, allow you to dial in just the right amount of correction.

The final results. Notice how lifelike the skin tones are, and how the important detail in the background is preserved. Besides applying the LUT, the only color correction I’ve applied to this frame is a slight boost in the midtones.

Conclusion: Using a LUT, we can very quickly get everything out of our c100 footage that the camera is capable of giving us. Vibrant skin tones, crisp blacks, and 12 stops of dynamic range that allows us to hold detail in brightly lit areas of our frame, such as the background used in this example.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend my time thinking about the content of my films than how to color grade them. Using a C100 and a LUT, you can have both.

I DP’d a short promo film for the 60 Second Film Festival recently, which involved quite a few drone shots. After nailing them all with my Phantom 2, I made a stupid mistake: I relaxed. With my eyes off the drone for a moment,  a huge douglas fir reached out and swallowed it. You gotta keep your eyes on those trees! A professional tree climber retrieved it a day later, but it’s gimbal was damaged. When I considered the cost of repairing it, vs. purchasing a new Phantom 3, I made the decision to upgrade.

After less than a week with my Phantom 3, (which I purchased from the fine pros at The Copter Shop in Woodinville) I can assure you that crashing  my Phantom 2 was the best thing that could have happened to my aerial cinematography. Here’s 5 reasons why.

1. The DJI Pilot app is ridiculously awesome. My head is still spinning with the mad power it puts at your fingertips: a map that shows you where the drone is and how it’s pointed, an HD monitor that gives you a beautiful real-time camera view, ability to override automatic exposures or temporarily lock them during a shot, ability to switch between stills and video, and so much more. With a finger swipe, you can hide the overlays and just see the gorgeous Lightbridge video stream. Going from Phantom 2 to this isn’t just an incremental upgrade – it’s an altogether different way of flying.

2. Full manual exposure controls. On the fly, using the Pilot app, you can assert full manual control over exposure. So, if you want to do a slow tilt up over dark green water to reveal a sun-drenched horizon, now you can do that without blowing out the horizon as it comes up. Try that on your GoPro!

3. Integrated 4k camera. The built-in camera is much easier to use than GoPro Hero. For starters, you don’t have to go through the tedious step of replacing camera batteries – ever – because the camera is powered directly from the flight battery. Next, replacing the microSD card doesn’t require doing surgery on the camera with tools – just insert it directly into the side of the craft. Also, the lens has threaded filters, which is going to make it super easy to mount ND filters as soon as they are on the market (the fine folks at Snake River Prototyping assure me they are hard at work on making compatible filters even as we speak).  Also, the camera doesn’t have that silly fisheye problem that all GoPros suffer from. Sold!

4. Lightbridge. You get crystal clear HD video transmission in real time, and it allows you to fly far, far away. Like a mile or more, and still see clearly. For me, this makes full FPV flying a real option for the first time. The video transmits through semi-permeable objects like trees, no problem, while my Phantom 2 would go to static the moment I went behind a tree.

5. Instant fine-tuning of stick sensitivity. When you’re doing aerial cinematography, you want very sluggish sticks at the beginning of the stick, but you want them to respond normally at the far end of the stick. That gives you a fighting chance when doing complicated moves like circling an object, or for a parallax shot. Or just for doing a slow, feathered start or stop to a move. On my Phantom 2, I tired all kinds of advanced calibration, and ultimately junked all of them because I couldn’t get it right. Part of the problem was that you had to connect to your computer to apply a calibration, then disconnect, test, and try again.

With the Phantom 3, you get the ability to set the response curve of the sticks (see graphic at right) without connecting to a computer. All the configuration options are a few swipes away in the DJI Pilot app.

After just one evening of test flying and stick calibrating, I was able to pull off a very difficult circling-while-climbing shot that I never would have attempted on my Phantom 2. And it feels like just the beginning of what’s possible with this craft.

The C100 mkii is an amazing documentary camera. It’s capable of 12 stops of dynamic range and it gives you everything you need (ND filters, EVF, phantom power, etc.) without additional rigging. But to get the most cinematic performance out of it,  it’s important to set it up correctly, and remap one of the buttons. Here’s how I configure my camera before a big shoot.

First of all, do an auto black balance. Canon recommends you do this every time you change the ISO. It’s especially important to do this if you’ll be shooting with high ISOs. From Camera Setup menu, select ABB. Make sure a lens cap is on. Press OK to perform the balance.

Auto Focus

1. Reassign One-Shot Autofocus to button #7. Button 15, the default, is in a very awkward location if you plan to use autofocus regularly, like I do.

This is an awkward button location for routine focus grabbing. So we’ll remap it.

Button 7 is a great choice for one-shot autofocus, especially if you’re used to working with DSLR autofocus, which places it in the same spot as the autofocus button on pro Canon DSLRs

To remap the button, select Other Functions > Assignable Buttons. Then choose button 7.

Button 7 is set to Magnify by default.

Press the joystick and scroll to select One-Shot AF

Picture Style

2. Set to record Canon Log. Under the Camera menu, select CP Cinema Locked and set On. This enables Canon Log, which gives you a flat file that grades beautifully in post. Using this setting preserves all the options that are available to you in post. Using this setting in combination with a  C100 lookup tables supplied from Able Cine is a speedy way to get amazing looking footage.

Monitor

3. Enable View Assist. Under OLED/VF Setup menu, select View Assist and set to On. This makes what you see on screen look more like what the contrast and exposure settings will look like after the image is graded. If you don’t enable this, the image on screen will look very flat, making it difficult to judge exposure by eye.

ISO

4. ISO [850]. To get the maximum dynamic range out of this camera, set the ISO at 850. If you set a lower ISO, you will be losing information in the highlights.

Auto lens compensation

5. Peripheral illumination Correction. Under Camera Setup, set Peripheral Illumination Correction to On (if available for your lens). This will automatically fix vignetting and barrel distortion issues on supported Canon lenses. It works like magic!

Codec

6. Select AVCHD 24mbps. Under Other Functions menu, select Movie Format and choose AVCHD. Then, under AVCHD menu, select Bit Rate 24 Mbps LPCM (LPCM allows you to record uncompressed audio – the best quality). AVCHD is slightly better than MP4 in terms of quality.

With these settings, you can rest assured that your footage will live up to the amazing potential that this camera is capable of. Have a great shoot!

I just finished filming an epic drone sequence on Seattle’s waterfront, in which I filmed a mammoth barge headed out to sea. Unfortunately I can’t share the footage, which my client is keeping under wraps for the moment. But I can share with you the 4 plugins that I’ve found indispensable for cleaning up and presenting drone footage shot with my GoPro Hero 4 and Phantom 2.

1. Flicker Free.

Cleans up the nasty interference pattern caused by quadcopter props when sun is a factor.

Any time you’re shooting into the sun, or when the sun is angled overhead in front of the camera, you can see this issue. It looks like a bad TV channel from the 60s: rapidly scanning lines caused by the shadow of the props on the lens. For the longest time I thought there was no way to fix this. One day I was using Flicker Free to clean up a time-lapse, and though: hey, why wouldn’t this work for aerial footage? I tried it, and it worked like magic. I generally get best results with the “remove horizontal bands 2” setting, but if that doesn’t work for you, try the other settings as well until you find one that does.

2. Lock and Load X.

Stabilizes and reduces rolling shutter. Works especially well to make parallax shots looks smooth and intentional. Something about how this plugin works just smooths out overcorrections in steering. It works far, far better for this than the built-in plugin in Final Cut Pro X or Adobe’s Warp stabilizer. This is another one of those magical pieces of software that I apply to ALL of my drone footage, whether it needs it or not. It always makes it better. Try it yourself – they offer a fully functional 30-day trial.

3. FilmConverPro with GoPro camera pack.

There are two presets for use with ProTune footage (which I use on my GoPro) that instantly make your footage look great. To get the most of this, you have to configure your GoPro Hero 4 the right way BEFORE you shoot. Here’s the settings I use:

• Pro Tune
• Flat
• Max ISO: 400
• Sharpening: low

I also find that the smoothest, most cinematic drone footage often results from shooting at 48fps in 2.7K (conformed to 24p in post). That way, in addition to the option for slow things down, if you ultimately export out to 1920×1080, you have a lot of extra frame that plugins such as Lock and Load and Fisheye Fixer can work with without losing any resolution. You can also crop in closer to your subject without losing resolution – which allows you to shoot a little loose – a little farther away from your subject. Improves the odds that you’ll get your drone back safely!

4. Fisheye Fixer.

Straightens the horizon curvature that is always present with GoPro footage.
The curved horizon thing may look great for in-your-face sports action, but for the typical drone shot, it’s bullshit. Get rid of it!

Fisheye Fixer gives you fine grained control over how much curvature to remove, so you can dial in the perfectly flat horizon that we like so much.

Bonus tip: Use an ND filter in front of your GoPro. This is like putting a pair of sunglasses on your lens, and reduces the amount of light coming in so that the shutter speed can come down to something more cinematic. This allows movement to blur and look natural. It also goes a long way to reducing jello shutter that is exacerbated by high shutter speeds.

I recommend using the Snake River Prototyping BlurFlix Air ND 4 (good for both cloudy days and sun). It’s currently the best on the market for drone use because of it’s light weight, which allows them to be used without upsetting your delicate gimbal.

For if you’ll be shooting in bright sunlight all the time, I’d recommend their ND 8 filter.

Happy drone shooting!