Five Tips to Keeping Your Drone Footage in Tip-Top Shape

Everyone knows that one of the cornerstones of shooting and developing a stream of successful photographs and videos is organisation.

This is no more apparent than when shooting aerial photography or corporate drone videography. Why? Well, the answer is simple. Video and picture files have more than just a few similarities. If you don’t have an organisation system, you could end up wasting much time looking for and identifying that perfect shot or video segment to use.

And it’s not just that. A lack or organisation can even result in you completing losing vital footage or, God forbid, accidentally deleting footage or shots integral to your vision.

Here’s a list of five tips and tricks of the trade that help you proficiently organise and easily access everything, saving you hour upon hour of frustration tracking down footage that you just know you have!

Make Sure You Accurately Name Drone Pictures and Footage

You’d be surprised just how many of us don’t save files with memorable and instantly identifiable titles. We think to ourselves, ‘I know what that is, I’ll remember’, which is all fine and well. But, here’s the question, will you remember in a week or month from now.

So, let’s say that you have a file called, ‘DJI_0123.mov’. Will you remember what footage you shot? Surely, you’d be better naming the file, ‘Dubai_skyline_01.06.2018’, or something to that effect. Then you know what the video is and when it was taken. This makes accessing the footage to be incorporated into any video production a cinch!

Delete Bad Aerial Footage

This one may seem kind of obvious, but deleting bad footage is always good. Do you honestly think that you’ll be able to use poor footage? And, it takes up precious storage space that good be used to save valuable footage, certain to pique the interest of anyone that sees it!

Seasoned drone aerial photographers review footage once it has been extracted from memory cards. Videos and shots with once minor differences (if any at all) and don’t bother storing the files on their computer.

Again, this will also save you valuable time sifting through all your files to find just what you’re looking for – and it makes keyword searching tens, if not, hundreds, of files a breeze.

Create a Spreadsheet…Or Two!

Why not consider creating a spreadsheet of all the videos or aerial photography you’ve shot? List each file alphabetically and create columns for descriptions of the video, by date, time, location, in addition to any important information. This will help you find videos or shots in seconds!

It you want to be ultra-organised, you could even include keywords like, height, aspect ratio, length of video or photography aperture. This is great for cross co-ordinating shots, making it even easier to find that perfect shot for your aerial video production.

Always Back-Up Drone Video Files

In today’s digital world, backing up data is more than a good idea, it’s an essential part of the shooting process. We’d argue that backing-up all your footage is as essential as taking flight with the perfect drone or camera.

Losing data is something that can happen to everyone. There are few more frustrating – or deflating feelings, for that matter – than thinking you’ve got a wealth of footage to splice into an inspiring video, only to find that what you want is missing. Don’t make the mistake of not taking every precaution to safely store all the videos and footage you need.

As pedestrian as this sounds, the right footage can make the difference between creating average aerial photography and top class worth like Dubai drone filming company Sky Vision produce, to showcase who you are or videos that inspire potential clients to pick up the phone and enquire about your business. See below video for an example of quality drone footage which was created by an extremely organized team.

Buy a decent hard drive or create an iCloud account to save your pictures and videos to. For a small outlay, you won’t regret it!

Sky Vision is a great example of a drone company doing it right

Link Your Video Files

Always link your files to your editing software online, instead of copying them into the project folder or file. This will save you time – and it’ll make sure that you can access your files from different devices anytime want.

Feel inspired late at night, early in the morning or at the weekend? Linking your files will make it as easy as pie to access the footage you need and start creating a jaw-dropping portfolio or video that’ll really get people talking!

Linking your files can also save you a great deal or storage space and make it so much easier to identify where the original images and videos you took are.