Drone business

StereoSound

Is there a small market for starting an aerial photography business?

I have a Dji Mavic pro which I use recreationaly, I love flying this thing and getting cash for flying turns me on about it. I have several potential areas of interest I could offer assistance to who may need an eye in the sky at short notice.

ED E

Certainly some business there but anything with a budget will look for a certain calibre of footage, the Mavic Pro is a little on the toy end of the scale. Might be a case of Inspire or better.

Supposedly the few seconds of drone footage here cost TCD 80k IIRC.

StereoSound

Would I be frowned upon if I turned up for a job and pulled a mavic out? Considering it shoots 4k and have had amazing shots with it to date I figured it would be more then good enough for professional use. A few spare batteries of course would be needed.

Gatling

You might want to do actual research into Drones and drone based businesses it's not as simple as rocking up with an out of the box set up.

StereoSound

My drone is already registered and I'm sure I'll need a license when flying over built up areas which would be in the nature of business use.

ED E

StereoSound wrote: »

Would I be frowned upon if I turned up for a job and pulled a mavic out? Considering it shoots 4k

You need to do a little more reading on cinematography.

My phone shoots 4K but my 1080p DSLR shoots much more useable video. Seems the MP does support RAW-esque output for proper work in post:
https://myfirstdrone.com/mavic/dji-mavic-pro-footage-how-i-set-the-camera-up-for-professional-shots/

Thats a good start, but you'd need maybe 50hrs experience in colour work to really start producing usable stuff (its above me personally).

StereoSound

ED E wrote: »

You need to do a little more reading on cinematography.

My phone shoots 4K but my 1080p DSLR shoots much more useable video. Seems the MP does support RAW-esque output for proper work in post:
https://myfirstdrone.com/mavic/dji-mavic-pro-footage-how-i-set-the-camera-up-for-professional-shots/

Thats a good start, but you'd need maybe 50hrs experience in colour work to really start producing usable stuff (its above me personally).

What sort of video editing software would I be looking at?

ED E

StereoSound wrote: »

What sort of video editing software would I be looking at?

Personally I wouldn't touch anything other than Premiere Pro.

Homer

You will need a better drone I would say. Magic is ok but the Phantom pro offers a better sponsor and is more capable in windy conditions which we get a lot of! Also you will need to get a better understanding of editing and colour grading.
You will need to complete a 2 day ground school and subsequent flight test to get your licence and insurance. Note there is a 15m flight limit pretty much everywhere in Dublin so to fly above that you will need special permission from the IAA which you can only get once you have your licence.
There is work out there and it’s an area that will continue to grow but you won’t be able to compete for most of it without an investment of time and money!

sword1

I think the bird has flown on that, so much last year

StereoSound

Homer wrote: »

You will need a better drone I would say. Magic is ok but the Phantom pro offers a better sponsor and is more capable in windy conditions which we get a lot of! Also you will need to get a better understanding of editing and colour grading.
You will need to complete a 2 day ground school and subsequent flight test to get your licence and insurance. Note there is a 15m flight limit pretty much everywhere in Dublin so to fly above that you will need special permission from the IAA which you can only get once you have your licence.
There is work out there and it’s an area that will continue to grow but you won’t be able to compete for most of it without an investment of time and money!

Average cost to get a drone license? Is there a waiting list?

Homer

Cost to get your licence will be approximately €1k between the 2 day ground school and then the test. After that you will need to arrange insurance and that cost will vary according to what drone you use and how many hours per year you intend flying.

StereoSound

Homer wrote: »

Cost to get your licence will be approximately €1k between the 2 day ground school and then the test. After that you will need to arrange insurance and that cost will vary according to what drone you use and how many hours per year you intend flying.

1k to get a drone license...... We'll that's expensive .

pedroeibar1

You are like a would-be carpenter asking about and discussing the merits of different saws. There is more to carpentry than just the tools. Businesses are the same. A grand in nothing in the overall scheme of a start-up.

_Brian

Guy near me in the business, he’s an award winnng ex BBC cameraman. His footage is something wonderful to watch.
There is that aspect too, camera work and editing. OP will be going in with zero experience and no references regarding ability.

StereoSound

Well its not a done deal, now that I have abit more info in the subject I will break it down for myself. I have no video or photo editing experience as yet. Maybe I can pick up on this one. I have no drone licence and I don't have the immediate funds to get one this side of Xmas. I'm pretty good at flying my dji mavic drone and probably won't have much hassle getting the license in the first quatre of 2018. I will study more on this drone license subject.

ED E

Also budget €1500 for a proper workstation if you don't already have one.

scamalert

as always ED E put in very valid point, 4k footage to edit requires a lot of cpu/memory/gpu power not to mention storage these things all add up to cost, if you entering that market where you will be expected to deliver complete product - not just footage.

CelticRambler

If you have no cinematography or editing experience, but believe you have good flying skills, you might think of setting yourself up to do aerial survey work instead - checking gutters, roofs, chimneys, fences, etc, etc.

There's a huge difference between "recording a video" and producing cinema-quality images. At the very least, you're going to need to buy and learn to use different kinds of filters, how to interpret a directors' instructions on the kind of shot he wants (angles, light, field-of-view, focal plane, etc,) and then how to manipulate your footage (or more likely not touch it at all because that's someone else's job), which in itself is going to require even more equipement (hi-spec computer, 2-10TB hard drives, plural!)

If you stick to survey-type work, you can concentrate on flying and getting a picture that shows your customer what they need to see. Chances are you'll work with them at your side, and the only extra equipment you'll need will be a decent monitor so they're not trying to look at your 5" phone screen!

Cianos

A few years ago drones were a very specialist item and there was a lot of wonder and awe about them. At the time, they were expensive and difficult to fly - the first one we had, we crashed it dozens and dozens of times. I thought there'd be a good market for surveyors, production companies etc to hire a skilled freelance drone pilot to do misc jobs.

Nowadays they're much more commonplace, and much easier to fly, and that trend is just going to continue. Rather than hiring a freelancer, for the same price of a day's rate companies can just buy their own drone and get pretty competent with it after a couple of hours of messing around. I'd say the vast majority of established production companies in Ireland would have a couple of DJIs knocking about the office at this point (extrapolating from personal observation here).

The tech is moving too fast, I would not have any confidence in setting up a business around being a drone pilot.

Not looking to burst your bubble, but it could save you a lot of time/hassle/money

scamalert

scamalert wrote: »

as always ED E put in very valid point, 4k footage to edit requires a lot of cpu/memory/gpu power

Using proxies in premier makes this a non issue now. Premier now makes this really simple (where you edit using lower resolution clips, but then export using the actual 4K footage)

Works really well now that they have simplified the process.

steve_

If your original question is whether there is a market out there...well of course there is, but don't expect them to come to you. You'll need to advertise your services and do some door knocking to get some gigs.

I run a production company based in Dublin and while the drone was a big hit maybe a year or two ago, today it's mostly just tacked on as part of a bigger production. People rarely want a 100% drone video and require ground based filming and editing.

Regarding the mavic, honestly i dont think its gonna be the kind of tool that books you much work or at the very least will seriously hamper your day rate as the drone costs very little itself. We film with the phantom pro and the X5 camera mainly to justify our rates. We really just use the mavic for weddings to get quick shots or for locations that require indoor filming and space is a bit tighter.

Being a freelancer who's only skill is flying a cheap drone won't make you that attractive to buyers. And learning to edit and edit well will take a lot of time and effort. If i could give you any advice it would be to start small, don't worry about making money from it just yet. Get out there and shoot as much as you can and edit together some videos. One feature of the mavic i feel is seriously overlooked by people is the fact it can film in portrait mode. My advice would be to use instagram as your main platform to promote yourself in the beginning. Shoot all your video in portrait mode and make some 1minute clips specifically for Instagram, then use as many Irish related hashtags as you can. No one is doing this here in Ireland from what i can see and i reckon it would be a great way to advertise yourself. I started filming some portrait videos a few months back and got hired by a good few PR firms in Dublin to create this kind of content. Creating some unique 1min instagram only videos would be something you could sell and you could branch out from there.

Here's a link to a video to show you how to edit the mavic drone footage for use on instagram.

Video

Seve OB

Well Stereo, how's it going?

beauf

I would imagine everyone is trying to set up a drone business so there would cut throat competition at the low end.

But a lot of people can do it themselves. I think it's heavily overused a lot of media.

Some who is really good at cinematography with a drone is probably picked based on a portfolio of professional work.