With the easy availability of drones with cameras you see a LOT more overhead shots and flying panoramic shots.
I am not saying I don’t like it, but it seems like every show or even commercial has at least one.

Just an observation.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

more so in documentaries - it gets tedious fast.

I'm really sick of people flying drones in wilderness areas - nothing brings out the beauty of nature like a high pitched buzz moving around.

The quality of tv shows and movies has greatly increased. We really are enjoying the benefits of that. I do feel that some shows have more visual stimulation than actual story though.

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Ukulele music I couldn't find anywhere else.
[colquhoun.info]

I agree with this observation. Maybe it’s because it’s relatively new & affordable technology right now and will be used less often when people start to get sick of it.

I liiiiike it.

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I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

Quote
RAMd®d
I liiiiike it.

I like MY drone. But it is become kinda annoying. I'd rather have a helicopter shot. The drone shots are too smooth.

I like it, mostly, now that I'm getting used to it, though it is a little strange when it's used indoors. Being a new option for filmmakers, it seems overused, but I suspect that will take care of itself.

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Quote

Being a new option for filmmakers, it seems overused,...

See: Zoom, 1970s

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“Every great and deep difficulty bears in itself its own solution. It forces us to change our thinking in order to find it."

Quote
lost in space
I like it, mostly, now that I'm getting used to it, though it is a little strange when it's used indoors. Being a new option for filmmakers, it seems overused, but I suspect that will take care of itself.

it's like when JJ Abrams created digital lens flare for CGI space shots to make them seem less artificial. They died off and are common and used appropriately now.

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"Defending your own life when in immediate danger to me is a basic right of each person. " Lemon Drop 11/17/2023 03:10 pm

Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia.

"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner." Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1982. Digitized September 30, 2008.

From the NYSRPA v Bruen "Today, we decline to adopt that two-part approach. . . . Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant framework is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment's text, as informed by history."

I want a drone

It's like the overhead shot looking down on city high-rise buildings that seem to be extremely common as well.

I want a drone


That dji Neo is pretty tempting.

It is an entry level drone, but with some decent features for that tier.

I love the overhead shots of cityscapes and traveling over landscapes.

It adds a dimension which aids in immersion.

Sure, anything can be overused, but if it becomes something akin to a trope, there are still far worse that make drone footage innocuous at worst, for me.

When used it moderation with good sense, I don't even notice it, it's just part of the landscape, blending right in.

I suspect were drones not an option, help shots would end up looking just as smooth, except maybe with the shadow of rotors.

Nowadays, most helo footages is meant for us to know it's a helo, as it part of the script.

I'm definitely ok with that.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

Quote
RAMd®d
Sure, anything can be overused....

remember these shots from above in every damned ad in the 90s?

The establishing shot using an overhead wide angle is nothing new. If you are old enough to remember seeing West Side story or any other number of similar openings, you would recognize this style. And before that, it has been traditional to establish the context using a distant wide angle shot and then go to something closer. Routine by the early 1920s at the latest. There are scholarly studies on how Griffith set up plot lines and timed the cuts, going back even earlier.

What is different now is the high quality video that is available cheaply. You can do a high definition video shot using an inexpensive camera on an inexpensive drone, which is probably why you are seeing so much of this technique. It's a lot cheaper than putting an expensive film camera shooting expensive film on an expensive helicopter or airplane.

Then again, the film Paris Qui Dort (Paris sleeps) used film shot from up on the Eiffel Tower, also back in the 1920s. And those of you who remember Endless Summer might take note that a lot was shot using a simple little hand held movie camera -- basically consumer grade -- and the first drafts of the film where shown to surfing clubs and the like in high school auditoriums with the filmmaker doing the narration as the film played. Now that's the way to establish your plot.