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  • - See if I can keep to two minutes.

  • (high energy rock music)

  • (rewinding sound)

  • (laughs)

  • Like that's gonna happen.

  • (high energy rock music)

  • What's up everybody?

  • Peter McKinnon here and welcome back

  • to another Two Minute Tuesday.

  • It's so good to have you here

  • and see all of your smiling faces.

  • I'm back from Iceland,

  • it was cold, it was awesome, it was incredible.

  • So much good footage,

  • so much fun hanging out with great people,

  • and one of my best friends,

  • which would be Matti from Travel Feels.

  • And this Two Minute Tuesday is sort of an exposee

  • on his drone skills.

  • I've learned a lot from watching Matti,

  • and over these past few months,

  • shooting different projects,

  • and traveling to different parts of the world with him.

  • I've seen a lot of similarities that he does

  • every single time that he goes out to shoot.

  • So, I've kinda compiled them into five tips

  • to help you guys become better drone pilots.

  • It's basically an analysis of his drone piloting skills.

  • So, that's today.

  • Let's throw two minutes on the clock.

  • (explosion noise)

  • Not that I'm gonna stick to it

  • but I'll do my best.

  • And let's go.

  • Here's the thing with Matti.

  • He makes the most of each drone battery that he has.

  • If you were to compare my drone clips

  • with Matti's drone clips,

  • there'd be two significant differences:

  • mine would be like one super long clip,

  • that's like 15 minutes and a massive file size,

  • and I just kinda fly around to different spots,

  • almost more of like a sightseeing tour.

  • Now, I do get some banger shots out of that,

  • and a lot of them you've seen in different vlogs.

  • But what I've noticed about Matti,

  • he maximizes that juice,

  • that battery right down to the last percent.

  • And it's everything he does between full and empty

  • that we're gonna talk about today.

  • So, the first thing I wanna talk about

  • is planning before you fly.

  • Not just sending the drone up and sightseeing,

  • which is what a lot of people do, including myself.

  • I can almost see him visualizing the shots

  • before he takes them.

  • Looks around, he checks out the views,

  • kinda getting a grip of,

  • "I wanna be up high, I wanna be over there,

  • I'm gonna go over here, and I'm gonna go over here."

  • Because let's be honest,

  • you don't have a lot of time with drone batteries.

  • You know, some of the best drones

  • you get less than half an hour.

  • So, when you're up there flying and the winds are high

  • and it's taking more battery to get that drone further,

  • and back, and forth,

  • you wanna make sure that you're maximizing that.

  • So, planning out your shots ahead of time,

  • it's gonna make sure

  • that you get the shots you need in time.

  • The second point I wanna talk about

  • is utilizing each battery with variety.

  • This is, by far, what I think Matti excels at the most.

  • When I look at his shots from just one area,

  • there is so much variety,

  • from low panning slider shots to pullbacks, push-ins,

  • super high up, super far back, circling shots, 360s.

  • He does everything he can

  • to basically get every type of angle and shot that he can,

  • so, when you're working in post,

  • you have more flexibility, more freedom.

  • You have the option to choose any of these shots,

  • should one of them not work out.

  • If you're just zipping around, checking things out,

  • checking out the view, doing the classic zoom in, zoom out,

  • let's pull back and rotate the gamble up.

  • And there's nothing wrong with those,

  • but if that's all you're doing,

  • everything becomes so stagnant and repetitive.

  • The next thing you know, four vlogs down,

  • four videos down, four projects down,

  • four assignments down,

  • all your footage looks the same,

  • it just happens to be in a different place.

  • So, by mixing it up and adding variety to these shots,

  • you're getting an eclectic mix of camera moves,

  • that you're gonna be super happy with that,

  • give you that extra flexibility in your edit.

  • That you guys may saw in yesterday's vlog

  • on that Black Sand Beach.

  • Here's an example of just a few of the shots Matti got

  • while he was flying his drone with one battery

  • at the Black Sand Beach.

  • I'm gonna roll them through,

  • so you can see the amount of variety he got

  • for just one flight.

  • (upbeat, inspiring music)

  • Okay, number three is showing scale.

  • This is massive, if you want a cinematic look

  • to your drone shots.

  • A lot of people like to get up nice and close,

  • as if you were following that Defender

  • through that Black Sand Beach.

  • Nice and close is cool,

  • but when you pull that all way back

  • and you show how small that Defender is

  • with this massive scale,

  • this huge incredible landscape.

  • That's when things start to look very cinematic

  • and Matti is a master at that.

  • You can get those profiles shots

  • with the truck moving to the side,

  • start flying really really high,

  • but again, showing that massive scale,

  • show the shape of the road,

  • how small the truck is to give off that feeling of grandeur,

  • which makes things feel cinematic.

  • Showing scale is very important,

  • not only as to show off the landscape,

  • but makes your films and drone shots super cinematic.

  • That kinda leads into point number four,

  • which is having a subject in your drone shots.

  • A lot of people shoot landscapes,

  • it's just beach, it's mountains, it's sky.

  • Let's be honest, I do that too, we all do that.

  • Part of flying a drone is just fun to do that,

  • so there's nothing wrong with it.

  • But if we're talking how can we make this cinematic,

  • and how can we step them up,

  • is by adding a subject to those shots.

  • What Matti does a lot of the time with his drone work,

  • is he includes a subject as the focal point.

  • So the drone shots are sweet,

  • but what he's actually doing is tracking either a human,

  • or a vehicle, or an activity that's happening.

  • It's not just an around the world of a mountain.

  • It'll be an around the world

  • of me standing on top of a Defender,

  • or a follow shot of a car

  • instead of just that follow shot of the road.

  • So, having that subject in your frame helps tell the story.

  • As we all know, story is very important

  • and this is going to help you with that.

  • And last, but not least,

  • number five is having ND filters for your drone.

  • Just like it's important for a camera,

  • like we talked about in this video here,

  • or whatever it pops out.

  • It's just as important to have that on your drone.

  • Your drone is also a camera, it's also sunny outside,

  • you wanna make sure you're following the same rules

  • that you do in your shooting with your actual camera,

  • that you're doing that with your drone as well.

  • So, I've linked below some ND filters,

  • if you wanna check them out,

  • those are the ones that we use,

  • they work exceptionally well

  • when you're shooting with DSLR and D-Log,

  • those types of things if you're flying a DGI drone,

  • which are the settings that we use.

  • And these ND filters really really help

  • give you that dynamic range.

  • And we also talked about dynamic range in this video,