Shoot 2 - Light, Composition and Movement: Four Directions and Two Qualities of Light, Six Natural Conditions, Ten Composition Rules, Six Steps to Cinematic Movement, the Move Vocabulary, and Spotlight + Cruise Control

Front lighting (sun behind the drone) gives shadowless, flat images - step a few degrees off axis for depth. Back lighting (sun behind the subject) gives rim light and huge dynamic range; three handlings - expose for the sky (silhouette), expose for the ground (keep sky out of frame), or expose in the middle and blend with masks in post, 'even though it is more work' his preference - and it makes fog and mist 'light up and glow.' Side lighting, roughly 45 degrees either side of the sun line, is 'my most common approach': visible shadows, manageable range. Top lighting is midday and 'usually not desirable.' Quality: hard light from a small source (the sun) makes hard-edged shadows; soft light from a large relative source wraps and flatters. Fully overcast is 'too soft' - no direction, no depth; the target is soft and directional, like a half-lit sky at sunrise.

Blue hour - sun below the horizon, cool and fairly directional; NDs off, ISO up; small-sensor drones get 10-15 usable minutes, one-inch drones 15-20 more. Golden hour - his favourite; soft, warm, diffuse; split into the sunrise/sunset phase (balance sky and ground with masks, or shoot away from the sun) and the later phase (front/side, or back with the sun out of frame); low sun makes long shadows. Early morning / late afternoon - still workable front or side; back light gets washed out and hard to grade. Midday - harsh, avoided; polariser and grading if forced. Light clouds - the other favourite: soft yet directional, good 'from basically any direction.' Heavy clouds - flat, even, from everywhere; shoot from any angle, push contrast back in post; still better than midday, and dramatic cloud patterns can help. The Golden Hour Finder (goldenhour.flyingfilmmakerpro.com) gives blue hour, golden hour, sunrise/sunset and solar noon for any location and date - demoed on Fairmont, WV (evening golden hour 54 minutes) and Vik, Iceland in June (golden hour 3 h 14 min, blue hour to nearly sunrise: 'I'm going to have to be sleeping during the day').

Composition is 'arranging the visual elements in the frame for maximum aesthetics and impact'; the rules 'are made to be broken.' 1 Rule of thirds - horizon and subject on the lines, a moving subject on the third behind it with room to travel. 2 Symmetry - dead centre, for reflections, using the centre marker. 3 Leading lines - roads, piers, rivers, shorelines that converge on the subject. 4 Diagonal balance - a subject on one intersection wants something on the opposite one. 5 Shapes and patterns the drone reveals that the ground can't see. 6 A clear subject - or add one: a friend in a bright jacket, or yourself. 7 Framing - don't leave things half cut off; exclude or recompose or widen. 8 Get close - subjects fill the frame and 'feel real instead of tiny dots'; foreground speed adds depth. 9 Create depth - foreground/mid/background layers and movement between them: parallax and the reveal. 10 Choose the angle - from above makes the subject small, subject-level connects, low looking up gives grandeur, high looking down weakens, straight down shows patterns.

1 Smooth - hold one move for seconds without a jerk; thumbs only on the sticks so the index fingers can hit record and the gimbal wheel; EXP in Control > Advanced slows the stick near centre (he uses 0.3), and yaw/gimbal speed and smoothness come down. 2 The right speed - Cine/Tripod, Normal or Sport; slow reads grand, fast reads intense; perceived speed rises near the ground, so slow down low and consider Sport a couple of hundred feet up. 3 Parallax - fly one way, pan the other; learn it on the sticks, because Spotlight/POI 'is limited and can't combine with other movement.' 4 Fly close - proximity sells speed and immersion; plan the path first. 5 Multiple axes - up/down, left/right, forward/back, yaw, gimbal tilt: 'the more axes combined, the more dynamic the shot'; add one axis at a time. 6 Story - a reveal builds anticipation, flying into a scene builds tension (openings), flying out releases it (endings).

From the two moves lessons, merged: Parallax / orbit - right stick sideways, left stick gently opposite to hold the subject; all the way round is an orbit. Push-in tilt-down - forward over the subject, wheel down faster as you pass. Pull-back tilt-up - backward and away, wheel up to hold it, horizon appears. Pull-back tilt-up orbit - the last two plus a parallax turn, all three at once (or Spotlight). Sideways reveal - fly sideways from behind a foreground object. Fly-by / fly-over reveal - forward over a ridge, roofline or tree line, faster and lower for drama, or backward past the subject. Rise reveal - straight up from behind a tree or building, slowly enough to watch it. Rising parallax / rising orbit - orbit while climbing, tilting down to compensate. The rocket - camera straight down, full throttle up, slow yaw for a twist; between tall subjects for speed. Flying low and fast - skim ground, trees, water; obstacle avoidance off with care (or Sport with avoidance left on in Normal), scout the line, ND and the 180 rule for motion blur. Push-in tilt-up - forward with the wheel rising above horizontal for scale; most gimbals cap around 30 degrees up before props appear. Push-in parallax - forward and sideways on the right stick, opposite turn on the left. Push-and-turn - forward with a slow yaw, never a spin. Tilt-up reveal - start at -45/-50, Sport full forward, wheel slowly up to the horizon. Follow shot - behind a car or runner on the lower third, or ActiveTrack. He crashed on location during the ten-moves lesson believing obstacle avoidance was on.

Spotlight: drag a box round anything (or tap a FocusTrack marker for a moving car) and the default mode is Spotlight - the camera stays pointed at the subject while you fly in any direction: sideways is an orbit, up/down a vertical parallax, forward/back a push, and they combine. Track a static subject long enough and it converts from optical to a GPS point, 'smoother, more consistent.' It works on moving subjects too, including filming yourself. Cruise Control (Air 3, Mavic 3, Mavic 3 Pro): map it in Settings > Control > Button Customization, start a move, press, and the drone continues that exact path hands-free until pressed again; further stick input modifies it and a re-press relocks; the gimbal wheel is never automated; a tiny yaw input may not register - give it a real turn. Uses: long smooth moves, speed-ramp candidates, complex multi-axis shots, and filming yourself moving. Together: Spotlight holds the frame, Cruise Control holds the path, your hands work the gimbal - provided Cruise Control lives on Custom 2.