so ive been flying for about 8 months now and honestly my flights are kind of a mess when it comes to getting usable footage. like i go up, fly around, get some nice stuff here and there but when i sit down to edit its just a pile of random clips that dont really tell any kind of story or flow together well. i can feel the difference between my stuff and the cinematic videos i see on youtube but i cant quite put my finger on what im missing exactly.

do you guys actually plan out specific shots before you even take off? like do you have a list of moves you want to hit - orbit here, reveal from behind that building, maybe a low push across the field - or is it more instinctive once youre in the air? im wondering if im overthinking this or if the problem is literally that im not thinking enough before i fly. any advice from people who actually do this regularly would be really appreciated

yeah this was me for the first year basically. the thing that helped me most was honestly just watching the location on google earth before i showed up and sketching out like 3-4 shots i definitley wanted to get. not a full storyboard or anything that serious, just enough of a plan so i wasnt improvising 100% of the time in the air. once i had those anchor shots in the bag i felt way more free to experiment with other stuff.

also the biggest cinematic thing that nobody tells you early on - slow down. like way slower than feels natural. i used to whip the drone around thinking it looked cool and then in the edit it just looks cheap. smooth and deliberate reads as cinematic, fast and jerky reads as random gopro footage even if your actual image quality is great. try cutting your stick sensitivity back and see if that changes how your clips feel in post.

oh man im in the exact same boat lol so i cant really help much but just wanted to say you're not alone. i have like 400gb of footage from the last few months and maybe 10 actual clips i'd show someone. my plan right now is to try doing like one specific shot type per flight just to really nail it before moving on to the next thing, haven't tried it yet but the theory sounds good at least