 I made the decision to specialize in FPV drones at the end of 2019 and in the last four years it has only brought me opportunities I could have previously only dreamed of. However, I also recognize it's limiting as a filmmaker if I only restrict myself to FPV. So that's why in today's video we're going to see what happens when we combine the magic of FPV with other filmmaking techniques to be able to create cinematic stories. Let's start by reviewing the pros and the cons of FPV drones. Pros, they are versatile. They can be fast and powerful chasing speeding cars or slow and precise being able to go through objects and fit through things you normally wouldn't be able to. They're untethered so you can go up you can go down and through things you normally wouldn't be able to reach or navigate through with normal cameras and they've also got this unique bird-like movement that is just soaring and smooth that is really hard to achieve with other types of filmmaking techniques. Now let's talk about some of the cons. A lot of people don't talk about these but I think through my experience it's important to acknowledge them. They are loud. You cannot really record audio while you are rolling with an FPV drone because of the giant whirring noise. Your camera quality is usually limited. If you want to run a lighter smaller FPV drone setup you're usually stuck with a wide-angle lens on action cameras which makes it hard to film close-ups or to get closer to subjects. If you want to run a bigger camera then you got to build a bigger drone setup which brings in a whole another set of challenges. More money, higher risk, more restrictions and bigger danger. They can be less precise due to manual flight characteristics wobbling around not being locked down by someone's hands or by an arm and because of the unique movement of FPV drones it can pose a challenge to cut between different angles and other kinds of camera setups. Now that we have this list of pros and cons we can take a look at the cons and figure out what filmmaking techniques we can use to supplement and improve our overall film while leveraging the strengths of FPV and taking the whole edit to the next level. The objective of this video is to tell a story between me and my friend Wavy. We want to incorporate dialogue because that's not something we often get to do when we're using FPV drones to film because of the noise. We want to use still lockdown shots that focus on the characters and allow us to see the details while complimenting that with the action and the speed of FPV drones. For here we'll be using of course an FPV drone which is my new drone Cinema with a GoPro Hero on it. We'll be using my iPhone 15 Pro Max and its ProRes Log capabilities. And lastly we'll be using my Sony a7S III including some awesome products that SmallRig was kind enough to send me like their giant 99Wh V-mount smart battery and their lightweight tripod which was impressively light yet still strong enough to hold my Sony a7S III with this like big brick and monitor and yeah it was super solid so thanks SmallRig for sending me these shout out to them. And this video was the perfect excuse to do that. So the way I put together this video was by basing it around Wavy's story. He is a skater and he teaches skating online to millions of people. He's amazing. I am not a skater. I've skated like for two months in middle school and so I forgot to ollie. So the objective of the video is to teach me to ollie and showcase Wavy and we're going to shape the cinematography around that. For the story and dialogue shots we locked down the SmallRig lightweight tripod with the Sony a7S III on and the iPhone 15 Pro Max as a secondary angle. Rolling with these cameras instead of the FPV drone allows us to capture dialogue because if we tried to film these scenes on FPV drones then we would A not be able to hear anything because the propellers are spinning and then B the shot would not be as precise and it wouldn't be as close up because we'd be stuck to a GoPro angle. Once we got the different dialogue and story shots between me and Wavy it was time to get the action. So I grabbed the a7S III with SmallRig attachments off the tripod and started to go handheld to capture more of the action shots of Wavy on the ground. This handheld setup not only allows a more personal look but it also allows us to capture more details with my 35 millimeter lens like Wavy's face. And then lastly it was time for the FPV shots. So the question I always like to offer is how can we take this video to the next level using FPV and what it can do that other cameras cannot. And a couple of those things are using the versatility of the FPV drone going in super fast and getting super close to get into the action. Having the untethered access being able to come from the sky and go down to the ground and those great bird-like movements that make you feel like you're just flying. Before I share the final video I wanted to invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. It's free and I usually go in there and just share my inner thoughts things I am thinking philosophically for creators for filmmakers for FPV drone pilots whatever findings that I come up with go directly to you. Go ahead and sign up if you want to come along with me for the journey. So after combining the shots of our FPV drone Sony a7s III and my iPhone 15 pro max this is the short video we got. I don't know how you do this man. I was in the same boat a few years ago man I was just like you but I'll show you how it's done. It gets easier. Our problems. The thing I want to invite you guys to do is if you're into FPV drones you want to learn how to pilot or you want to direct videos with FPV pilots is really start to turn those gears and experiments. How can we use these angles in storytelling overall? They're being done in feature films now and yet you can tell that there is so much more. The ice is just breaking and you can be a part of it. Thank you guys for watching. This has been Kai and I'll see you in the next one.