What do you think about this video? Any suggestions to make it better? - My longest (7-minute) drone video

[Yaros]

Hello, I have been making drone videos together with my friend on our channel Drone YL on YouTube for some months now with our mavics.
A few days ago I tried a little of a different style of video, and a little longer length. Normally we make videos that last 1-3 minutes, this one is 7 minutes.
It took 6 batteries to film, 25 GB of footage, and 2 days. I both used D-Cinelike and HDR in this video.
Tell me your opinion about it and how I can make it better!
Enjoy!

 

[projectarjun]

I can share with what I've been critiqued before. 7 mins is a bit too long, I would probably cap it at 3 mins and 4 mins if there is something you really want to focus on in the video. Also, try to avoid repetitive scenes

 

[Deleted member 103366]

For me and I am in no way a camera man, the apparent speed of flight was too quick, especially when you were low. The scenery is beautiful but disappeared from shot too quickly through both speed of flight and the duration of each clip. I suspect that that is why I was also left feeling it was an almost random 'pile' of clips, each shot with no objective in mind.
One thing that I think would have been interesting would have been a look into the mouths of the elevated caves that the drone passed but the drone more or less whizzed past them.
I assume others will disagree but this is what I felt.

 

[projectarjun]

For me and I am in no way a camera man, the apparent speed of flight was too quick, especially when you were low. The scenery is beautiful but disappeared from shot too quickly through both speed of flight and the duration of each clip. I suspect that that is why I was also left feeling it was an almost random 'pile' of clips, each shot with no objective in mind.
One thing that I think would have been interesting would have been a look into the mouths of the elevated caves that the drone past but the drone more or less whizzed past them.
I assume others will disagree but this is what I felt.

I have to agree with you on that as well

 

[Deleted member 103366]

Coming 'back' to this thread and seeing the 'title' image a thought popped into my head. A "loop the loop" around that sea arch might be a nice shot. I am not sure if it would be better to keep the drone facing one way or 'spin' it during the climb and or the descent so that the arch is in shot during both vertical movements.

 

[Yaros]

Thanks for your feedback! Will keep the suggestions in mind when recording next time

 

[Phantomrain.org]

This was a Beautiful Disaster. So much to work with but you just blew by it.
If the footage is clean and the music is good, you dont have to worry about the length of the video and cramming everything under the sun into it.

Just The Blue Water alone could make an amazing video , as most of us will never even see the like of it in our lifetime.
The Climbers could of have been a second video. as well as many others .

Slow down have fun with it and realize your in a Dream Land and no one wants to go thru that in a Blink.

Check out @projectarjun last two videos to see how he makes just one subject matter pretty sweet.

Phantomrain.org
Gear to fly in the Rain and Land on the water.

 

[Dale D]

Hello, I have been making drone videos together with my friend on our channel Drone YL on YouTube for some months now with our mavics.
A few days ago I tried a little of a different style of video, and a little longer length. Normally we make videos that last 1-3 minutes, this one is 7 minutes.
It took 6 batteries to film, 25 GB of footage, and 2 days. I both used D-Cinelike and HDR in this video.
Tell me your opinion about it and how I can make it better!
Enjoy!

You can make it better by making it shorter. Less is more in most cases. You seem to racing to fly into and out of each and every water inlet. It becomes too frantic. I'd prefer a calmer flight and calmer music. You are blessed with being able to fly with great scenery. You should take advantage of it and develop less scenes in more detail. If you check your statistics on most video hosting sites like Vimeo or You Tube you will discover that 70-80% of the viewers have stopped watching after 1/3rd of the film. I know I did.

I am looking at each scene and saying to myself, yep, this is just another pass up and back one of these waterways.

The technique and flying and color grading are fine.

Dale

 

[Bradfo69]

I have to echo what everyone else has said. You've incorporated a lot of good techniques in your flying, It's evident you have the concepts of what makes an interesting video down. Slow it down a little. It's also too long and too repetitive. You lost me at about 1:47 because it was just the same thing over and over. I am envious of having such an amazing place to fly and experiment as I doubt I'll ever get to a place like that with the amount of time you had to dedicate to this. I haven't had a bird in the air in months and it did serve as a reminder that I really need to get out and fly some more.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Great scenery, lighting and flying. Like was mentioned before however, the speed is just too fast. If you look at professional productions, it's nice and slow with short clips that accentuate the subject. You rarely see the entire fly up to a focal point. Slow, close distance, short clips (unless you are speeding up to a focal point such as a person). It's great footage, but I would break it into separate videos that are shorter, slower, and more about the close ups of the feature.

 

[Harro]

In my opinion videos have to tell a story, some sort of story, and then you choose appropriate clips to do that, otherwise it just becomes a random collection of "nice" clips. Also have to agree that anything (apart from rare cases) above 2-3 minutes I generally avoid.

 

[drov]

I have to agree with others about the speed. It spins your head the music is also not a good choice if you ask me. I would prefer a calmer music.

 

[macfawlty]

The locale is great. Hopefully, you’re able to return often to work on cinematic drone moves.
First, don’t start videos with backwards travel of a wide landscape. Backwards shots work well as a reveal of a prominent feature, but you don’t typically use a lot of them in an edit. More importantly, don’t speed up your clips in post. Almost every clip here you appear to have increased speed. If you want to speed up the timing in parts, do it with speed ramping. You can also take a long clip and cut pieces of it into different parts of the edit. The method for creating an engaging edit is to mix up different shots; wide/tight, forward/back, gimbal tilts, straight down, reveals, etc. You’ve got a lot of good footage, but need to do a better edit to make it work. The gimbal is key to dramatic shots.

 

[Gringorio]

First, if there's an arch you're obligated to fly through it ... Otherwise, such beautiful scenery, I'd make several 1 to 2 minute clips focusing on the various subjects: the cliffs, the climbers, the caves and arch. Also reversing clips doesn't look good when you can see waves going backwards. You have a lot of really good material from a beautiful place so I think taking suggestions offered in the replies and using your creativity you can create a number of fantastic videos.

 

[Cliff Nichols]

The music for your your video was perfect for the speed of the footage. Great exposure too. Maybe a little shorter edit by trimming up the clips and you are good to go. Totally enjoyed the scenery and video! There were a few scenes I wish were a little slower pace so I could appreciate your awesome shots.

 

[DiscoverSpain]

My personal opinion about your video and ideas for improvement:

- Too long and repetitive. Most of the scenes are similar with similar drone movements. Easy to fix: shorten it and/or add sequences from different points that are not similar.

- Colors seem oversaturated, especially greens.

- All scenes are speeded up, why? You don't need to show the whole scenes as you shoot them. Take the best parts of each one and overall, make them shorter and choose only the parts that have fluid and constant movement.

- As mentioned before, the scenes have erratic movements of the drone, change of direction, ...etc. Stabilization in editing can help you solve the problems, but I insist, I would make much shorter scenes and choose the interesting parts, with fluid and constant movement.

I think if you choose another type of music (totally subjective opinion) and make a video of no more than 2.5 minutes, following the above tips, you could make a great video.

Like any opinion, mine are totally subjective. I'll tell you how I would do it and I hope it helps you.