 If you're watching this, you may have already seen some of the incredible FPV videos that are out there. Some made by JohnnyFPV, NERC, Jaybird, I Could Name Drop For Days, there are a lot of amazing FPV video creators out there who are releasing bangers day after day, getting tons of likes and trash in and blowing up all over the internet. And honestly, you may have been inspired by a lot of these people. That's what happened to me, and I got started. And you may have gotten the courage to maybe look a little bit more into the craft. Like a transmitter, start to learn how to fly in a simulator, build your own drone, and start to fly it in real life, trap a camera onto it, and then try to make some awesome videos yourself. But for some reason, you've been posting videos. And maybe those videos aren't doing too well. Why might that be? My name is Kai. I've been flying FPV drones for two and a half years now, transitioning from video production. And I've learned a few tips and tricks along the way, trying to grow my TikTok, Instagram, and my own portfolio, and production company, and I want to share some of my findings that have helped me get some videos that have blown up and gone viral on platforms and give them to you. I know the trends are always changing, but there are a couple principles that I think you can remember and continue to work on that will remain relevant throughout all of the trends. So let's get into it. I have three things for you today, and we're going to share them all with you right now. What makes an FPV video blow up and go viral? Get ready, buckle in your seatbelts, hit that like button, subscribe if you like business FPV video production kind of stuff, and this feels like your vibe. I won't hold you any longer. Let's do this. The first attribute I found that plays heavily into the success of your FPV video is going to be obvious, but it is necessary to know and to implement its skill level and difficulty. A lot of these FPV videos require skill, right? From even the point of understanding how to build the drone to how to fly the drone, FPV is a relatively high barrier to entry. So to be honest, if you can get in the air and do something that honestly is already really great, and so your videos are already near that tipping point. But we're talking about skill level here. And so I think a lot of the good people that you can watch who really implement their skill levels and that you can take after model after and try to improve with the influence of our Johnny FPV, Captain Van Over, obviously one of the greatest racers in the game, NERC FPV, another goat. If you've ever watched his Flight of the Year in 2018, that was crazy, man. You gotta, you know, watch that. You're going to see in a lot of these videos that are done by the professionals. They're always pushing the limits of what they can do with their FPV drones. Whether that's flying through a moving train or flying in super high proximity to a golf ball or a motorcycle or some sort of high speed object, it can get crazy. And even for the non-fast moving things, if you watch videos like what Jaybird FPV made with the upper alley video bowling shoot, the skill levels of these pilots is undeniable and it definitely plays into whether or not your video gets traction. If you do something that blows people's minds, like what Ken FPV does on his videos and freestyling, then that might be enough to just set the bar and tip it off and everybody starts sharing it. And on top of that, not just flying skill level, but also having a knowledge and a skill level when it comes to being able to produce a good picture, a good quality video. You can use the footage and the DVR from your DJI FPV, but once you still have a GoPro onto that or an action camera, the quality goes up like almost by double. So I highly recommend you guys learning how to use GoPro's properly. We can get into all that, but honestly, Matt Pochlatt, I think that's how you say his name. Sorry, Matt, if I mispronounce your name. He made a really good video on GoPro setting specifically for FPV and he breaks it down very well. So I'll link that there as well if I remember to. There's two things I think you consider here. It's flight capability and also your camera knowledge. So in order to increase your flight capability, I'd highly recommend that you start looking into learning how to throttle control and there's a lot of principles that Mr. Steele actually lays out in his FPV tutorial. Take a look at some more of these FPV tutorials. Keep practicing in your simulator, learn how to fly steady. Honestly, learning how to hover, just being able to keep your drone still will teach you everything you need to know about like what it takes to keep a drone in the air. And once you start moving, your practice doing hovering is gonna help a lot. So the more you get your skill level dialed in into being able to control an FPV drone, it pushes the limits of what you are able to capture. But here's the thing, skill level is not the end of the game. There are plenty of FPV pilots who are just starting, making their first videos who are still making amazing videos that people wanna watch, people wanna share and are blowing up on social media. So what are the other two factors? The second one I wanna share with you is not as relevant to skill. Skill is helpful, but there's a certain threshold where I feel like it caps. And so once you hit that skill cap, the second thing you can do to start mixing it up and applying to your FPV videos, to make it blow up, is subject matter. Your subject matter can be anything from the person you're filming to the car subject you're filming to the environment you're filming in. Where you decide to fly and what you decide to fly around can make huge differences in just how amazing your video can turn out. So even before you decide to go out and fly and try to film better videos, another bigger thing to consider is where do I wanna fly this time? Where would be an awesome place to showcase an FPV that maybe hasn't been shown before, that isn't an airport, or will get you in trouble with FAA? That is a very valid question you continue to ask yourself as you continue to develop more content ideas and try to make a name for yourself as an FPV pilot. Example that comes to my mind when I think of a pilot that you subject matter really well is Finky, when he created that video with the long border. And while some of the shots were pretty high skill, I think the shot that stayed with me the most was when Finky flew his drone into the hands of his long border. He caught it and then he kinda played with it for a little bit and let it go again and he synced it with the music as well. It was just a really good shot and I never will forget that. I'm pretty sure he won the GoPro Million Dollar Challenge with that shot, so shout out to Finky. Make sure you watch, pilots like him to continue getting inspiration for what's possible. Obviously skill level was still important in that, but I would say also the subject matter was just as important for that shot. So if you can get creative enough and think about what you want to film and where you want to film it, that can really give you an unfair advantage as an FPV pilot too. Some tactics that I use to seek out new locations and new subject matters is definitely going on Instagram, looking at my local area, types of people who are in it. I'm definitely a big part of the dance community, so a lot of my friends are breakers and dancers and I know that I can get some awesome shots where I am able to use FPV to capture them in this new way that's never been done before and using the Google Maps terrain location to find new places in my city that have either not been covered by FPV before or that I could cover in my own specific and unique way with FPV. So hopefully those tips help you guys with improving your ability to use subject matter and your skill level to increase the likelihood of your videos blowing up. Now at this point, some of you still may be hesitant because you may be feeling like, oh, my skill level is still not that great or my subject matter, I don't really have anybody to film or I don't really think any locations are good. Yeah, it's okay. There's still one more tip I want to give you guys that I think can give you a very unfair advantage. No matter how strong these other two are, they'll help a lot. But if you can add this third aspect to your videos, it's going to give you a crazy, crazy edge. And that third aspect I want to share with you guys today is present in all types of media and it's story. Storytelling is so important, including when it comes to FPV. It can be difficult to remember when we have this incredible tool at our disposal that can do these things that mankind has never been able to see possible and it can get us really ahead of ourselves. We might want to just shoot things that look cool or just kind of wow people. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's one of the ways we push the craft forward. But if you want people to remember your videos and continue to take them with them for the rest of their lives or as long as they can, you need to make them feel something. I want to bring back the example of Jay Bird's right up our alley video where he flies into the bowling alley and he takes us through his tour. Skill level wise, yes, that was definitely hard and it took a lot of timing on the part of the pilots and precision but also when the actors took a lot of coordination. But I think the thing that really made stand out to not just FPV pilots but to the entire world, there were filmmaker friends who didn't know about FPV who were coming to me and they were raving about this video. And so I was wondering what makes this video stand out so well from all the other videos of FPV that have existed to this point and the biggest outliner for sure was Story. Not only did they have a skilled pilot, not only did they have a great some big matter and location, but there was a story to be told. You enter through the bowling alley and this guy is taking us through the tour of the entire place in the venue. You're really getting the feel, you're seeing the dialogue between people, the communication, they actually sound-designed it so that you could hear and then it ends with you becoming the bowling ball and all of these different factors of the video in one take mold together to really push you into that story. Now I know for some of us, Story can seem like a very abstract, strange, hard concept to grasp because there's so much you can do in a story. You could tell a two-hour feature film, you could tell a documentary but we're gonna keep it very, very simple. Let's just think about Story as two points. A and B and you're taking people from point A through point B and one of the greatest strengths that we hold as FPV pilots is being able to take people from point A to point B in a very different way that nobody has ever really seen before. The reason why editing is so important in a story and video is because you can take people and you can shift them to different perspectives within cuts and FPV is showing us this new theme where we don't necessarily have to always cut and get different angles with different shots. We can get different angles with the same shot in a matter of seconds and it's absolutely incredible. And when it comes to Story, it's not all about pilot skill either. You guys probably already know who Niklas Christie is and if not, he's an incredible filmmaker, YouTuber who recently got into FPV and he's not the best pilot yet. In fact, the first video he made featuring FPV I think he crashed his drone and he still made a great video about it. It's not about being an amazing pilot all the time. Sometimes it's just being able to transmit a good story and relate to another human being. If it's just all about the piloting, then sure, you'll probably impress other FPV pilots. But at the end of the day, if we wanna spread FPV to the world, we have to really use Story to tie us all together. For myself as well, I started making videos on FPV like a month after I started getting into it. Was I good? No, I sucked ass. Oops. But still, I was able to make videos sharing my progression and my journey and I think that element of things was really what allowed people to connect with me and my videos did pretty well. And I am super curious to see what your guys' favorite FPV videos are. Go ahead and leave it in the comments what inspired you to get started or what has inspired you to keep pushing. Now instead of giving you a list of tips that you may or may not remember by the time you click out of this video, I'm instead going to give you a list of questions based off each topic that we talked about today that you can write down, take a screenshot or ask yourself every time you're pushing yourself to make a new video or thinking about learning FPV. Category number one, skill level. What am I doing to increase the level of my skill for FPV and piloting? What am I doing to learn? Am I learning throttle control? What are things that other professional FPV pilots are doing that they have mastered to get so good? And by watching those videos, what are some things that I can take and learn to be able to do those myself and put my own spin on it? Category number two, subject matter and environment. Ask yourself, what are some places around my area I can find either on Google Maps or asking friends or just looking online that I can use and fly FPV at that haven't been done before or that I can put my own spin on it? Category number three, story. Ask yourself, what am I doing to take people from point A to point B in my own unique way? How am I using storytelling techniques such as video, editing and sound to create my own unique twist in a way that will provide people value, help them remember what I made and have them share it to other people? I really hope this video gave you guys some insights and tips to help you take action to get started on your journey or to continue making videos and give you advice and actionable tips that you can use to take your video to the next level. If you wanna keep watching and these videos seem helpful to you and relevant to your life, then by all means, click them out. And yeah, thanks a lot for watching. See you guys in the next one. Peace, good luck.