Drone Footage without a Drone

A drone can give you unique and epic shots for your projects. However there are times when using a drone just isn't possible or practical. The area you are filming in might have laws preventing you from using a drone.

​Other places, such as dense woods might make it impossible to fly a drone safely. Then there are events with large crowds where flying a drone presents safety and even legal issues. If you are filming near airports, you will likely be in a no-fly zone for drones. So how can you get smooth overhead shots in these situations? Today we'll look at an alternative to drones which can come in very handy on your projects.

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We captured the shots in the video above without using a drone. To do this we used a neat little device we heard about only recently. Using this device, along with some other gear, we've put together a great camera motion system that can be used where drones cannot.

Meet the Wiral LITE

Wiral LITE Cable Camera System

The Wiral LITE is one of the latest additions to our studio's production arsenal. It is a remote controlled cable-cam system which can hold a camera payload of up to 3.3 pounds. It moves along a zip line you mount between two anchor points. Setting up is very easy. It comes with over 150 feet of line on a self deploying reel that unwinds as you walk with it.

​The Wiral LITE has three modes: Normal, sport, and timelapse. Normal mode is best for most situations and moves at a smooth, steady pace. Sport mode is great for fast moving subjects, and can easily keep pace with a fast moving bicycle. Just be careful, this mode is really fast. In timelapse mode, the device moves at a snails pace on its own. See an example of timelapse mode in action below.

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Wiral LITE Rental

Wiral LITE's timelapse mode. Timelapse shot on a GoPro HERO 7 Black.

Wiral with GoPro

The height of your shot is limited to the height of anchor points available, so no, you can't get a shot flying high over a city, but you can get much higher and smoother footage than you would typically be able to. As a rule, you want to be fairly close in on your subject anyways so that the audience knows who or what the subject is. The Wiral will let you get great, smooth overhead shots while still remaining close to your subject. It can take your camera through tree tops where no other system can go.

​The Wiral LITE can also be useful for more than just overhead shots. You can use it for doing long slider shots across a great distance. You could use it in sport mode for something like getting a smooth profile shot while keeping up with a bicycle or runner, especially on narrow trails where it wouldn't be practical to run along beside them. As with any motion system, you can find tons of creative uses for it when you use your imagination.

The Wiral LITE comes with a swivel head which can be used for mounting the camera of your choice and positioning it to capture your shot. With the 3.3 pound payload it can carry, the Wiral can accommodate lighter DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, in addition to GoPros, 360 cameras, and smartphones. You might not have a need to pan, tilt, or roll your camera in every situation, but being able to do so while the Wiral is in motion lets you get way more creative with your shots.  With the Wiral by itself, there isn't a way to control the camera remotely. However, with the system we've put together, we are able to remotely control the pan, tilt, and roll of the camera while the Wiral is in motion, as seen in a few shots during the video above. So how can you do this?

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Using a Gimbal with the Wiral

Our Wiral LITE setup using a gimbal

Zhiyun Smooth-Q Gimbal

To allow us to control the shot remotely while the Wiral is moving, we use an inexpensive smartphone gimbal. The gimbal we use is the Zhiyun Smooth Q. We control it remotely using the ZY Play app on an iPad with the app switched to the "Phone Control" option. You can also use another smartphone to control the gimbal if you don't have an iPad.

The Wiral LITE remote is a one handed remote, so it is easy for one person to control both the Wiral and the gimbal on their own. Modern smartphones have great video quality and can produce even better video using camera apps which provide more control over your camera settings. We use a free app called Open Camera which provides fully manual control for your phone's camera, plus the ability to record in 4K with any modern smartphone which supports 4K video capture.

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Filming a motorcycle with the Wiral mounted with a gimbal.

Smartphone cameras may not give you a wide enough field of view to suit your needs on their own though. This is where a set of smartphone universal lenses can come in handy. We use an inexpensive set of universal smartphone clip-on lenses when we need a different look or field of view in our Wiral shots. You can get more expensive and elaborate smartphone lenses if you want as well.

Smartphone 9-in-1 Lens Kit

This is the smartphone lens kit we use. It provides you with a number of different options to enhance your smartphone footage. The lenses attach to a clip which simply clips onto your phone over the camera. Just be sure to adjust it so that the lens is centered over the camera.

Using lenses on your phone's camera will often cause the footage to have black edges, or vignette, since the lens is external and not directly attached to the camera itself. The wide-angle lenses don't usually have this issue though, as long as they are centered over the camera well. The telephoto and fish eye lenses do cause a heavy amount of vignette in most shots, but it is easily fixed in post-production. Just scale your footage to crop out the edges.

If you are using a phone lens that causes vignette, it is a good idea to film in 4K so that you retain more detail when scaling the footage in post. We don't use smartphone lenses every time we film with the Wiral LITE, but they are a nice tool to have when you need them!

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You can also use the Wiral LITE with a 360 camera which would let you reframe your shot to face any direction in post-production. If you're not familiar with it, 360 footage can be difficult to work with though. Using a gimbal may be the easiest route to take, depending on your personal preference. If you do want to use the Wiral LITE with a 360 camera, we recommend using the GoPro MAX.

The Wiral LITE is a great alternative to a drone for getting smooth overhead motion shots. It may not be able to reach the massive heights a drone can, but it will help you capture shots well above the height you could otherwise reach in situations where using a drone isn't an option. Using your imagination and other accessories like a gimbal, you can find many other creative uses for the Wiral as well.

If you are in the Middle Georgia or surrounding areas, you can rent our Wiral LITE for your productions!

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