What are the benefits of aerial drone video?
What industries can benefit from aerial drone video?
How are drones used in the film industry?
What do drone photography and videography cost?
What do I need to know before hiring a drone pilot?
Who doesn't want to wow their clients and audiences? Well, the use of aerial video can help you do just that and stand out from your competition. It can help you grab attention, leave a lasting impression, and make your good video, commercial, or film even better.
Until recently, if you wanted to have aerial footage included in your video you had to rent expensive equipment (helicopter or an airplane), hire a pilot to fly it, and a videographer to shoot aerial footage, so this was out of reach for many businesses and filmmakers. In 2016 commercial drone use became legal when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) started regulating and licensing drone operators. Affordable, but high-quality drone equipment also became available, which made this type of footage accessible for smaller budgets.
Here are several reasons why you should think of including aerial shots into your video content or film:
For starters, it gives any video that wow factor. Humans are visual beings, and when you see anything from a different perspective (especially aerial), it elevates the visual experience to a completely different level. In simple terms though, you see more from the bird's eye view and this perspective can be mesmerizing, so you are instantly able to grab attention and get an emotional response from the viewer, regardless of what you are showcasing. Watch the short downtown Cleveland drone video below, you will see what kind of mood and tone can be set with some aerials and music!
In addition to arousing an emotional response from the viewer, many products and services are best showcased from an aerial perspective. Companies now realize that marketing content in video form works best (we cover this in detail in Why Video For Your Marketing Content blog post), and adding aerial video for those industries adds a lot of visual value.
For the real estate and hospitality industries, aerial photos and videos can instantly provide information not available from the ground perspective. With a couple of shots, you can showcase the location, property size and amenities, backyard features, proximity to transportation, leisure activities, and more. Most real estate customers and event planners do their research online nowadays, and beautiful and informative aerial views can help them evaluate the property and help visualize themselves in these locations. Here are examples of commercial and residential real estate videos produced by V1DroneMedia that do just that.
Aerial views are also best for documenting the work of companies in Construction, Roofing, Landscaping, Paving, Lighting, and other industries. This type of footage can give tools to not only share the progress of work and results with clients, but also content for marketing to prospective customers via print materials, website, and social media. Here is a paving company marketing video that V1DroneMedia fully produced. Drones make even dirty work look cool!
And here is a hyperlapse construction progress video that showcases the project to the client or prospective clients with a lot of powerful imagery, almost making the customer feel like they are on the site watching it happen!
Companies that manufacture and provide transportation and recreation products and services also can benefit from the aerial shots, as they can highlight their products and services in action. Such products are cars, boats, travel services and experiences, and many more. There isn't a car or a cruise commercial nowadays that doesn't have an aerial shot included!
Drones are also being widely used for outdoor event coverage, including live streaming. Aerial view of the event allows organizers to highlight attendance, show action on the field from a different perspective, convey the atmosphere and attractions of the event, as well as highlight sponsors. Sporting events, outdoor concerts, community festivals, business events, and weddings regularly use drone footage for their event videography and broadcasting. Here is the Sunnyside Chevrolet outdoor car show event video, and Quaker Steak & Lube franchise corporate video, combining traditional ground and aerial footage from V1DroneMedia.
In film and TV, drones are often used to showcase locations, buildings (i.e. establishing shots), time of day (sunrise, sunset, nighttime), weather conditions, and beautiful scenery with many of these shots being used for transition between scenes. Also, motion and tracking shots are very popular (we've all seen chase scenes from the bird's eye view) and showcasing remote locations and the expansive size of the subject matter (battlefield scenes, forests, deserts, bodies of water, etc.). Therefore, almost every movie and documentary have drone footage nowadays. As an example, here is a 30 second Cleveland Cavaliers commercial with Cleveland downtown aerials shot by V1DroneMedia throughout the spot, and below is the opening sequence of the NFL Draft 2021 shown on the NFL Network with the Cleveland drone footage shot by V1DroneMedia.
In short, drones will elevate your video value to the viewer and help you grab attention, whether you are making a corporate video, highlighting office or factory location, showcasing your product/service, showing a different perspective of your subject matter, or documenting an event.
What will drone video services cost? A simple short video clip can be as low as a few hundred dollars, with a short fully produced video with original footage starting around $1500-$2000. If you don't need original video footage, a fully edited video from existing video clips is a good budget option. Overall pricing depends on the level of complexity: type of drone equipment used, length of the video, location, flight authorizations required, ownership rights to the footage, and level of video editing services needed.
So, you have decided to get some drone shots, now what? If you are looking to hire a drone pilot or production company for aerial drone video, you should make sure that they are qualified to perform the work. Here are the top 5 things to consider:
1. Is the pilot licensed?
2. Is the operator insured?
3. Are they knowledgeable about airspace, flight restrictions, and authorizations?
4. What is the pilot's experience level?
5. Do you like their previous work/portfolio?
We cover this subject in more depth in our article Hiring a Drone Pilot
V1DroneMedia started providing aerial media services as soon as the use of drones became regulated by FAA and since then we have gained a lot of experience helping to sell residential and commercial real estate, produce corporate videos, TV commercials, document and Livestream events, provide aerial footage for TV, news and documentaries. See our Portfolio and YouTube channel for more customer projects.
Our drone pilot, Jason Damman, is a commercial airline pilot by trade who has been passionate for aviation since his teenage years, flying radio-controlled airplanes before going on to the airline career where he has now spent over 20+ years flying the friendly skies. You can get more details on our pilot and his credentials on the About page. Besides technical and flying expertise, Jason has also developed a keen cinematographer eye and always provides excellent customer service, for which he is constantly praised. You can see our customer reviews here.
V1DroneMedia video services range from raw video clips to include in your video, to fully produced and edited video, including traditional ground videography and post-production services such as color grading, licensed music and subtitles, complete with digital file delivery. We also have Cleveland aerial drone stock footage available for purchase.
If you are interested in a consultation or getting a quote, call us at 419-699-6010, e-mail at v1dronemedia@gmail.com or get in touch with us on the Contact page.
