FPV Drones Are Changing Filmmaking

INTRODUCTION

First, there were helicopters. Then there were drones.And now, there are FPV drones.

These little, flying, cinema cams are now able to pull off shots that could have only been dreamt of decades ago, or even a couple years ago. But how do these FPV drones work and what makes them so special? Let’s find out.

WHAT IS AN FPV DRONE?

One of the main differences between a regular drone built for filmmaking and an FPV drone is in the name. FPV stands for First-Person View. This means the drone provides a real-time video feed from its onboard camera to a display - usually in the form of goggles worn by the pilot.

This allows the pilot to see a front-on perspective of exactly what the drone sees, as if they were sitting inside the drone and flying it. This immersive experience provides a sense of flight and enables more precise control and navigation of the drone

FPV drones were primarily designed to be used for sport, where they race each other to see which pilot can manoeuvre the FPV the most nimbly and quickly. 

Because of this they are usually way smaller than the big production drones, like the Freefly Alta 8 or Alta X, which are designed to carry heavy payload cinema packages on a gimbal like a Movi-Pro or DJI-Ronin.

FPV’s smaller frame and lighter weight makes them far more agile and fast, able to fit through small gaps, all with enormous acceleration.   

FPV DRONE SETUP

Because cinema FPV drones are a bit of a niche product, they are often custom built by their pilots. However it’s also possible to buy some that are assembled straight out of the box

Let’s break down what a cinema FPV drone may look like. 

The frame is what the camera sits on and is made up of a body - that supports the camera and battery - and arms - that hold the motors that allow it to fly.

Usually frames are constructed from carbon fibre as it is a lightweight material that is also durable. When it comes to building a rig, the name of the game is to keep weight to a minimum.

An example of a frame that may be used for a cinema FPV drone setup is the Hevi Frame from Shendrones. This is a coaxial octocopter. This means that it has four dual motors that can each turn two rotors.

To this frame a FPV camera will be attached to the front of the drone, along with a transmitter, that sends a transmitted video signal using antennas from the FPV camera to a headset that the pilot wears such as a DJI FPV goggles.

Inside this headset the pilot can also set frame lines that mimic what the cinema camera is recording, which are usually cropped in from the wider FPV camera view.

This FPV camera is built to be as lightweight as possible and is only used for monitoring and transmission purposes so that the pilot can see where they are flying. It’s not used for recording.

For the actual video recording you’ll need a cinema grade camera, which is as lightweight as possible. A Red Komodo is currently the most popular. 

This is due to the tradeoff between its light, tiny body and its ability to shoot in a 6K resolution - which gives room for image shake to be stabilised in post - its RAW codec with a high dynamic range and its global shutter -  which reduces artefacts and motion blur when filming objects moving at a high speed. 

When using the Komodo like a crash cam, to shoot in dangerous situations where there’s a possibility that the camera may get damaged, it’s useful that it has no buffering in writing data to the card. 

In other words, the camera is able to transfer the footage to the Cfast card immediately as it shoots it without a delay. So, even if the camera crashes and you are able to pull the card out, then all the data should be preserved up to the moment that the camera crashed. 

The Komodo will usually be paired with a wide angle, compact, lightweight cinema lens, such as a Laowa Zero-D Cine 9mm T/2.9 or a 15mm T/2.1. If shooting in bright conditions a ND filter can be screwed into the thread of the cinema lens.

Because no focus motor is used, the focus distance on the lens will be set at a fixed distance, normally at, or just off of, infinity. 

A lipo battery will be strapped to the bottom of the rig. The longer you want to be able to fly the drone for, the bigger the battery has to be. So, it comes down to a tradeoff between a lighter weight and more manoeuvrability or a heavier, less manoeuvrable longer flying drone.

A 4,500mAH battery may give the pilot somewhere between three to five minutes of flight time depending on how aggressively they fly it.

HOW ARE FPV DRONES CHANGING FILMMAKING?

Aerial shots have two noticeable attributes, one, the perspective they provide, and two, the kind of camera movement they achieve. 

Let’s start with perspective. Aerial shots were first done by shooting from helicopters, which provided filmmakers with a birds eye view perspective that could give context to landscape and provide a sense of scope. For this reason, helicopter shots were often used as a way of establishing a location, before cutting into a scene at that location.

Because of the safety precautions necessary when flying a large vehicle, like a helicopter, this usually limited filmmakers to shooting these establishing shots as wides, far from any building or from the ground.

When drones started taking over, they usually adopted this same, wide, bird’s eye view perspective.

Even though some stunt helicopter pilots are incredibly skilled and can do amazing manoeuvres, their size is still a limiting factor.

FPV drones are different. Because of their much smaller size, and increased manoeuvrability, these drones can physically get much closer to objects or to the ground than ever before. Flying closer to objects with a wide angle lens at a high speed makes aerial establishing shots incredibly dynamic.

“You’d usually have wide interstitials of the location as you move from location to location. Ant and I are just bored by that convention and we wanted to do something more kinetic and more dynamic that would whip you from location to location and just keep the movie moving forward at a breakneck pace.” - Joe Russo, Director

One of these dynamic establishing shots even involved blending an FPV shot that wove through a hospital entrance, with a Steadicam shot that started the scene on the actors. Using a quick panning movement to hide an invisible cut. 

This kept the intensity of the pacing high, while at the same time clearly establishing the space that the scene is unfolding in.

This shot also shows off the second noticeable attribute of aerial footage - movement.

Although helicopters are able to pick up speed, and create dynamic footage, FPV drones are different in that they can make turns and accelerate far quicker, while also using their small size to fit through gaps that wouldn’t have been possible before.

Shooting with a wide lens, close to action has a very different feel to shooting action from far away on a telephoto lens. The physically closer you are to the action the more visceral, kinetic and immersive it is.  

“Drone work is really boring in movies and I wanted to hip it up. I wanted the energy because this is a very intense movie and it just keeps that motion going. And I’m kinda known for how I move my cameras.” - Michael Bay, Director  

So, being able to film aerial footage, in both interiors or exteriors, at high speeds, incredibly close to actors and objects, allows filmmakers to get highly dynamic footage, without using visual effects. This is all possible thanks to the combination of FPV drones and incredibly compact digital cinema cameras.

Although this technology unleashes incredible possibilities, it still has quite a few limitations. They mainly revolve around the weight issue. 

To be as lightweight as possible, these little drones normally can’t use larger cine lenses, a mattebox or use 4x4 or 4x56 inch filters to control exposure or create a filter effect.

This also means that when shooting day exteriors, much of the exposure control will happen by stopping the lens down to a deep stop. However, this is also necessary as usually these drones can’t take the weight, nor afford to power a focus motor.

This means that wide lenses with a deep stop need to be used. Therefore shooting objects close with a shallow depth of field isn’t possible.

Filmmakers are also limited to very small flight times before they need to change the battery. This makes it impractical to roll for long takes. 

Also, unlike remote heads on helicopters, or larger drones that use a gimbal system, the camera cannot be panned, tilted or rolled by an operator. Instead the pilot is the camera operator and needs to position the front of the drone precisely where they want to shoot.

Finally, there’s also the risk factor. Since a lot of these manoeuvres are incredibly fast it can be dangerous, not only for actors, but for the camera. In fact I remember hearing a story a few years ago about a shoot that was using the first Red Komodo in South Africa on an FPV drone for a commercial. The pilot was skimming it over the ocean at a high speed until, suddenly, it wasn’t just above the water, but under it. And that was the end of the first Komodo in the country.

CONCLUSION

Cinematographers often talk about film equipment, like lights, cameras and grip rigs as tools, which they can choose from to chisel each story into the correct shape. An FPV drone is another tool now available to filmmakers, which allows them to get action packed, dynamic aerial movement like never before.