Early August morning in Christchurch, surise over the Norman House, views of the Castle, and Christchurch Priory
You can see a 360 Pano and a couple of Panos here Early Morning Over Christchurch Priory
@Longstride
Hi @AprilCoon no I always start with the video and then add the music midway through the process, see what works, then tweak it… here’s what I personally found when I started out…
This is the first video I have done where I tried to follow your advice from way back in early July. I had a plan of what I wanted to do, it changed slightly when I saw the glow of the sunrise through the the windows of the Norman House ruin, and then flying up to reveal more of the sunrise. The other parts were much as planned, but all the panning was done by hand as I haven’t fully got the hang of point of interest clips yet. I was also recording the whole time in between the shots which made the editing a lot more tedious, so still learning as I go along, and yes it was still too long, maybe I was trying to put too much into one video, maybe I should have separated the Priory from the rest of it. But think it is my best yet thanks mainly to your advice and others.
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I just uploaded the video over Christchurch Priory but I had a few issues getting it there. Since the last video I put together I got a new computer that is more upto date, a bit better than Dave’s laptop (that’s a pretty high spec laptop, even by today’s standards).
Any way took the clips off the SD card from the MP and started to edit and got to a point where I wanted to render and see what it looked like, I’m using Resolve by the way, clicked start render and it failed and Resolve froze, shut it down and tried to restart it and nothing, Resolve wouldn’t run.
Restarted the computer and tried again. Checked the frame rates of the clips against what I had set the render to and all was the same, tried again and the same result. Restarted the computer and checked all again, failed again but this time got an error message Failed to encode video frame, so looked it up on YouTube and found the issue.
The default Project Settings had a 24fps rate and my clips were all 29.97fps, hence the problem. So to render the video I had to set all the frame rates for rendering down to 24fps, then it rendered fine.
On my MP I have the video size set to 1080p at 30fps but when I look at the properties of the mp4 files the frame rate is 29.97fps, can anyone explain why?
In the mean time I have set the default frame rate to 29.97fps thanks to another YouTube video that showed me how. So future editing jobs shouldn’t have the same problems.
@SkyJumper nice job! It’s not easy is it? 
but on each video you learn more and more for the next!
I think you did a good job there!
I noticed you doing a few things that I also used to do when I started, hope you don’t mind a bit of constructive advice?
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Panning shots
It’s tricky flying manually doing both a pan and a rotate around the subject. I notice you speed up and slow down the yaw to correct as you fly. My tip would be start the circle around subject find the right controller stick points for a smooth point of interest circle and then don’t move a muscle! Even if the subject slides out of view because you’re not flying a perfect circle it’ll look much smoother and you can cut away in the edit. -
Avoid changing direction
For the viewer it can be a bit jarring if the drone changes direction in same clip. Like when you descend into grave yard then fly out over it a bit. I’d recommend cutting the clip and putting a diff clip between them. I thought the top down shot of the spire looked amazing, but at the top you then drift off centre along the roof. Personally I’d cut away at the top of spire to keep it clean.
But genuinely, I think you did a great job on putting that together!
What did you learn from it looking back? Anything you’d do different? These are the experiences that you’ll remember on your next flight and you’ll really hone your skills!
Keep em coming! Well done!
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@Longstride
Hi Glenn
I am totally open to constructive criticism and advice, so don’t stop dishing it out.
The opening shot wasn’t what I had planned but I couldn’t waste that sunrise, it would have been nice to try flying through window to reveal the sunrise, it may have been a bit risky and also I wouldn’t have got the bird sitting on top of the chimney.
My original intention was to fly up from in the Norman House, I had trouble the lightit was only just getting light so there was not much light in the house but it was much brighter outside so going from one to the other didn’t really work.
Yeah the panning shots were not briliant but it was my first real attempt at it. The DJI app is supposed to be able to do it for you so I need to spend a bit of time working that out. Yeah I get the point about getting a smooth pan, it was there for a bit but then the subject was going out of shot so I tried to correct for that, so I get just letting it go and do another one if you need to.
I totally get the point about cutting the vertical shot over the tower before I drifted off. One big thing I realised is that I kept recording the whole time rather than just recording the clips I wanted, so that is a big lesson for the next time, plus it would make the editing much easier, is that the way you do it? Maybe keeping recording all the time may give some unexpected good clips, not sure.
What did I learn, the panning is an obvious one, try to keep it all smoother, I could certainly have been even more brutal with the cutting. Another thing is to plan even more, this time I planned what I wanted to get but not down to the detail of the clips themselves, panning round things I planned, but other clips were not planned in detail. Even where I took off and landed for the Priory part wasn’t planned, it was a convenient point a bit out of the way. I only saw two or three people during the whole shoot so I probably could have picked a better place to take off from, the front of the tower maybe.
It was certainly the best I have done yet but I think more time planning, go to the site without the drone and work out what you want to get on the SD card. But don’t be so rigid if some other idea comes when you are filming, do it and if it is no good then don’t put it in.
I wasn’t really sure about the music, it was maybe a bit somber, what did you think?
I’m planning on being able to get out and about moreonce I reach official retirement age in about 18 months, thinking to get a caravan so I can go off for a few weeks when I feel like it.
Thanks a lot for your feedback, keep it coming.
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Nice video, as I live in Christchurch have been thinking of doing a sunrise and sunset but never had the time as yet plus I’ve no doubt permissions would have to be sought.
Have done one from the old golf course at tworiversmeet.
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Hi James
I went to start filming at about 5:00am and was all done by 7:00am, only saw one other person jogging the whole time, i was on my mobility scooter. It probably didn’t fully comply with the Drone Code, but is anyone going to stop a 65 year old bloke on a mobility scooter at 5am on a cold but sunny morning. I wouldn’t dream of doing the same thing at 10am. I think its a bit of using ones common sense.
Phil
Great effort @SkyJumper keep at it practice makes perfect as they say 
well done
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@Mungmeister
Thanks Mark, I think that was probably my best up to that point, don’t know if any of the more recent ones have been any better.
Hi Phil,
Thought so, I was a bit dubious of doing it at that time incase I woke people up 
On the one I done I actually had a guy from the council approach me stating I couldn’t fly a drone there. Landed the drone, Packed it away and as the council office is 200 yards from where I was paid them a visit.
On explaining what the guy told me they made quite a few phone calls and it transpired this guy had no authority to pull me for it as long as I was following the Drone Code in accordance to CAA guide lines.
Will eventually get around to doing a sunset.
James
Head to Mudeford for that sunset. I did some stuff there last week I need to process but with the water , beach huts , yachts etc there’s a lot of colour to capture …
I sent my drone off from the car park next to the sea fish place …
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Do you mean taking off from nearly right at the end near where the ferry goes from, wasn’t it busy?
Can’t wait to see your footage, what do you use for editing.
Reasonably quiet at that time if you avoid the week-ends. I used to use Da Vinci but felt it was overly complicated for me so now just use Imovie on the Mac which does most of what I want .
Apart from Mudeford the other places would be Sandbanks at Chain Ferry and Evening Hill on the way into Poole .
And today you want to get the drone out to the bay to see the cruise liner