okay this has been bugging me for a while. i watch a lot of drone content and honestly most of it looks the same ? teal and orange grade, same swooping moves, same dramatic music. and then i look at my own edits and i realise im doing the exact same thing without even meaning to

does anyone have a workflow or approach that helps them develop more of a personal style? im decent at flying and im getting better at composition but the editing side feels like im just copying presets and calling it done. using resolve mostly, tried premiere for a bit but went back

curious what other people do ? do you follow any specific colour grading approach or just go by eye? and how much time do you actually spend on a typical short edit

honestly the teal orange thing is so baked into drone content at this point its kind of unavoidable if youre just grabbing youtube presets, which i did for way too long. what helped me was actually studying photographers i like ? not drone stuff specifically, just photographers whose work has a distinct look ? and trying to understand why their images feel that way. a lot of it comes down to contrast decisions and how they handle midtones, not just the obvious colour stuff

in resolve i stopped using the node presets entirely and started building grades from scratch each time. takes way longer but you start to actually learn what each adjustment does instead of just sliding things until it looks okay. i'd say i spend maybe 3-4 hours on a 2 minute cut if im being thorough, sometimes more if the footage was shot in flat profile and needs a lot of work

also ? and this might sound obvious but it wasnt to me ? the music choice shapes everything. same edit with different music will have completely different energy and that affects how you grade too

i feel this so much. i think part of it is that a lot of drone footage just looks the same because the shots themselves are similar, the grade is kind of secondary. like if everyone is doing the same slow pull back reveal over a mountain then even a unique grade wont really save it

not sure if this is helpful but ive been trying to think more about what the place actually feels like and grade toward that mood rather than toward what looks impressive. moody overcast coastal footage probably shouldnt be teal orange anyway you know. going by feel more than formula has made my stuff feel more intentional i think, even if its not technically perfect