Learning to fly

One of the main aspects of this period of development is learning how to film dance/movement from the skies via a drone, situating the individual in the wider expanse of the landscape and playing around with the size of the person in the vast landscape. This means I need to learn to fly my new DJI Neo 2 drone.

I chose this particular drone due to it's compact size, ability to withstand the wind a little more than other models (because we all know the mountains are a bit drafty!), its obstacle avoidance system and the ability to fly it without a controller using pre-set functions directly on the drone and with hand gestures (let's see if I can fit them into choreography so no-one notices). The follow me function I have to say is a little creepy, if you've ever seen the classic film Batteries not included, it feels a little like that without the tidying up functionality.

So having passed my Flyer license with 100% (quite pleased with myself despite some of the ridiculous questions) and sorted my operator ID I'm now on to planning where I can fly and cross referencing that with some ideal locations because you can't just fly your drone anywhere. Unfortunately just about where I'm staying in Scotland is a red restriction zone due to MOD flight zones so I need to plan my locations carefully. Luckily there are a number of drone apps that show you the localised restrictions so you can plan your flights, and me being me, this means printing out sections of OS maps and doodling on them. Lucky I have OS maps subscription from my trail running!

I've also been running through all the shooting options on the drone to work out which will be the most suitable and considering some framing options. However we'll see if they actually work in practice. There is definitely much to be learned still....

Stay tuned for the first camera shots soon before I head north......