Capturing Spectacular Long Takes with a Drone
This guide provides you with the keys to successfully shooting a long take with an FPV drone: equipment selection, piloting techniques, post-production, and lessons learned from the best examples—from the viral Minneapolis bowling video to the stunts in *Ambulance*.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Drones Have Changed the Rules of the Long Take
Why FPV Has Changed Everything
Equipment: Which drone for which long take?
Flying Techniques for a Successful Long Take
Post-production: the key to success
Three drone long takes that left a lasting impression
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Pre-flight Checklist
FAQ
Conclusion
1. Drones have changed the rules of the long take
In 1980, Stanley Kubrick opened *The Shining* with an aerial tracking shot over the forests of Montana—Jack Torrance’s car, tiny, swallowed up by the landscape. This shot required a helicopter, an experienced cinematographer, and a substantial budget. The result: one of the most iconic opening shots in cinema.
Today, an FPV (First Person View) drone costing just a few hundred euros can do even better. It can not only fly over a landscape but also enter a building, cross a room, weave through obstacles, follow a person at ground level, and then shoot up into the sky—all in a single, continuous shot.
In 2021, an 87-second video shot at a bowling alley in Minneapolis proved to the whole world that the drone long take was a new cinematic language. In 2022, Michael Bay deployed FPV drones on the streets of Los Angeles for *Ambulance*. In 2026, at the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, 25 FPV drones tracked the athletes live. The cinematic drone market surged by 340% between 2023 and 2025, with creative applications (film, TV, advertising) now accounting for 31% of commercial flight hours in the United States.
The drone long take is no longer just a technical curiosity. It’s a storytelling tool in its own right. This article is for anyone who wants to master it—videographers, independent filmmakers, and film enthusiasts who want to put it into practice.
2. Why FPV Has Turned Everything Upside Down
Before FPV, film drones shot “from above.” Wide, majestic shots, often static or captured with slow tracking shots. Think of the aerial shots in *Skyfall* (Mendes, 2012) or the aerial shots in *The Revenant* (Iñárritu, 2015). Beautiful, but predictable.
FPV (First Person View) drones have been a game-changer for three reasons.
Freedom of movement. An FPV drone flies in all three axes with an agility that no Steadicam, dolly, or crane can match. It flies under a table, through an open window, and follows a character down a spiral staircase. When a commercial director in Scottsdale needed to fly through the atrium of an office building with tight turns and sharp angles, a conventional stabilized drone couldn’t keep up. An FPV drone captured a 45-second interior long take that eliminated three days of crane and dolly rentals. The long take is no longer limited to the ground—it’s three-dimensional.
Speed. An FPV drone can go from 0 to 100 km/h in a matter of seconds, then come to a sudden stop. This dynamic creates sensations that the viewer physically feels—the acceleration, the sharp turn, the vertical dive. In *Ambulance*, Michael Bay’s drone dives from the top of a building, passes under a police car mid-jump, and rises back up in a single motion. Try doing that with a helicopter.
The cost. An FPV drone equipped with a GoPro Hero costs a few hundred euros. With a RED Komodo, it’s a few thousand. For *Ambulance*, pilot Alex Vanover (DRL world champion at age 19) captured shots that a helicopter could never have achieved—all for a fraction of the budget. The value for money is unparalleled in the history of filming equipment.
Pro tip: FPV doesn't replace traditional techniques—it complements them. A long take that starts with a Steadicam and continues with a drone (using an invisible cut as the camera rises) is a powerful combination. Think in terms of transition, not replacement.
3. Equipment: Which drone for which long take?
The Cinewhoop, the drone from "Right Up Our Alley"
Jay Christensen flew through a crowded bowling alley with a Cinewhoop—a small, 3- to 5-inch drone equipped with propeller guards that is stable and relatively quiet. This drone is designed to fly close to people and objects without endangering them. It skims past customers’ heads, weaves between the lanes, and dives into the pin-setting machine. No other size would have allowed this to be done safely.
Typical setup for similar results: 3-inch Cinewhoop frame, GoPro Hero 12 Black or DJI O3 Air Unit, flight controller with Betaflight. If you want to get started without building a custom drone, the DJI Avata 2 is a solid entry-level option, featuring built-in stabilization, intuitive controls, and sufficient quality for the web and social media.
The 5-inch Ambulance Drone
This is the format that allowed Alex Vanover to dive from the top of a Los Angeles high-rise with a RED Komodo mounted on it. It’s more powerful, faster, and capable of carrying a cinema camera. But it’s also more dangerous and more demanding to fly. It’s the gold standard for professional outdoor FPV filmmaking.
The trade-off is clear: cinema-quality imagery (LOG, high resolution, large sensors), but high risks to the equipment. During a commercial shoot in South Africa, a pilot accidentally sent a 5-inch camera—equipped with the first-ever RED Komodo—plum into the ocean as he skimmed the waves at high speed. The camera didn’t survive. Neither did the budget for the long take.
Stabilized drones: Kubrick's legacy
The DJI Inspire 3 and the Freefly Alta X remain the gold standard for wide aerial shots with a stabilized gimbal, landscape flyovers à la *The Shining*, and slow aerial tracking shots like those in *Skyfall*. Less spectacular than FPV, but indispensable when stability and framing precision take precedence over agility.
Pro tip: Use a LOG profile (D-Log, Flat) on your on-board camera. Drone long takes are subject to sudden changes in lighting—such as transitions between indoor and outdoor scenes, shadows and sunlight, and backlighting. The LOG profile gives you the necessary latitude during color grading to ensure consistent lighting throughout the entire shot. Without it, you’ll end up with irreparably blown-out sections.
4. Flight Techniques for a Successful Long Take
Fluidity Before Speed
The beginner's trap: flying too fast. A drone long take isn't an FPV freestyle race. Stick movements should be smooth and gradual—no jerks, no sudden corrections. The viewer should never feel the drone. They should feel as though the camera is floating.
Set your rates (rotation speed) lower than for freestyle. In Betaflight, lower the RC Rate and increase the Expo to achieve smoother movements in the center of the stick. Watch the footage from “Right Up Our Alley ”: despite the tight turns between the runways, the movement remains smooth and easy to follow. It’s the settings that make this happen—not just the pilot’s skill.
Navigation: Flying blind is not an option
Jay Christensen completed five practice flights at the Minneapolis bowling alley before filming with the actors in place. In total, 10 handheld camera takes were shot, but only one was kept. Pilot Gabriel Kocher (Gab707), who specializes in fly-throughs of casinos and hotels in Las Vegas, always conducts on-foot reconnaissance before each flight, photographing narrow passages and areas where lighting changes.
For indoor flights: Be aware of doors, cables, ceiling fans, and mirrors (which reflect the drone and interfere with FPV piloting). For outdoor flights: Be aware of wind, power lines, and changes in elevation. In the city center, be aware of electromagnetic interference. During the filming of “Believe Chicago,” buildings and radio equipment in the city center created interference that disrupted the FPV signal. The team had to conduct dozens of preliminary tests to ensure each flight path was safe.
Coordination with stakeholders
A drone long take with people in the frame requires precise choreography, just like a Steadicam long take. The bowler in "Right Up Our Alley" had to throw his ball at the exact moment the drone reached his line of sight. A one-second delay, and the shot is ruined.
Helpful tip: Assign an assistant who communicates via earpiece with the actors and the pilot. The pilot cannot give instructions; he is focused on the flight, with his eyes glued to the screen in his helmet. On *Ambulance*, the crew had more than 20 assistant directors coordinating the cars, stunt performers, and drones simultaneously.
Battery Management
A Cinewhoop has a flight time of 3 to 5 minutes. A 5-inch drone lasts 4 to 7 minutes, depending on the battery charge. Your long take must fit within this energy budget. Plan your flight path with a safety margin: if the shot lasts 90 seconds, allow at least 3 minutes of battery life for the return flight and any unforeseen issues. And plan on using one battery per take: if Christensen needed 10 takes, that’s 10 batteries.
Pro tip: Record the video feed from your FPV headset alongside the GoPro. Jay Christensen used a digital VTx system as the main feed and the GoPro for a separate recording; if the VTx signal glitches, the GoPro continues to capture footage cleanly. And in post-production, the FPV feed helps you identify transitions for potential invisible cuts.
5. Post-production: the key to success
Raw drone footage straight from a GoPro is rarely ready for publication as-is. The camera shakes, the horizon wobbles, and the colors shift between indoor and outdoor scenes. It’s in post-production that the magic happens, and this is a step that many beginners underestimate.
Gyroscopic stabilization
FPV drones do not have a stabilized gimbal. Stabilization is performed after filming, using data from the gyroscope built into the camera or the flight controller.
Two tools dominate the market:
GyroFlow (free, open source) Became the industry standard in 2026. It reads the camera’s gyroscopic data and recalculates each frame to smooth out the motion. Compatible with most action cameras and flight controllers. The result transforms a shaky shot into smooth motion, as if the drone had a gimbal.
ReelSteady GO (paid, GoPro only) The original tool, specifically designed for GoPros. It uses the gyroscopic metadata built into GoPro Hero cameras for near-perfect stabilization. It remains the gold standard for GoPro users, but GyroFlow has caught up in terms of quality and surpasses it in compatibility.
Important note: Image stabilization crops the image (it "trims" the edges to compensate for movement). Shoot in at least 4K if your final output is 1080p, or in 5.3K if you're aiming for a 4K final product. Without this margin, you'll lose too much resolution.
Color Calibration
If you shot in LOG (and you should), color grading is essential. The specific challenge with drone long takes: changes in lighting. In 90 seconds, your drone can go from a neon-lit interior to a bright outdoor scene. Use power windows in DaVinci Resolve to adjust the white balance and exposure zone by zone, without cutting the shot.
Occasional touch-ups
Removing a drone's shadow on the ground, eliminating a propeller reflection in a mirror, correcting a tilted horizon in just 2 seconds—these minor adjustments are what set an amateur shot apart from a professional one. Tools like After Effects (Content-Aware Fill) or DaVinci Resolve (Object Removal) handle these tasks without breaking continuity.
Pro tip: Set up your post-production workflow in this order: 1) Stabilization (GyroFlow/ReelSteady), 2) Horizon correction, 3) Color grading, 4) Spot retouching. Never do color grading before stabilization—cropping changes the perceived exposure and would force you to redo everything.
6. Three drone long takes that left a lasting impression
"Right Up Our Alley" - Jay Christensen & Anthony Jaska (2021)
87 seconds. A Cinewhoop flies through the door of a Minneapolis bowling alley, hovers over the lanes, dives into the pin-setting machinery in the back room, crosses the bar, returns to the lanes, and ends with a strike as the drone crashes into the pins. Filmed in 10 takes using a GoPro and a digital VTx system. Five practice flights without actors, followed by 10 handheld camera takes. The video has been viewed millions of times. James Gunn shared it. Todd Vaziri (ILM, VFX artist on Star Wars and Marvel) said that this type of innovation enriches the vocabulary of cinema. Jay Christensen was subsequently invited to film a fly-through of the White House for the 2024 holiday season.
Key takeaway: A successful drone long take tells a story. The bowling alley isn’t just a setting—it’s a character. The drone explores it with a curious eye, from the front door all the way to the inner workings of the machine.
Ambulance - Michael Bay (2022)
Michael Bay wanted action shots that no existing technology could capture. He recruited Alex Vanover, a 19-year-old DRL (Drone Racing League) world champion, and gave him a 5-inch drone equipped with a RED Komodo. The result: the drone dives from the top of a Los Angeles skyscraper, passes under a police car mid-jump, follows an ambulance through traffic just inches above the pavement, and shoots back up into the sky. No helicopters, no cranes, no cables. For one scene, Bay had entire streets in downtown L.A. closed off so the drone could fly between buildings at full speed. The result is raw and organic—the polar opposite of computer-generated imagery.
Key takeaway: FPV drones can fly along paths that would be physically impossible for any other technology. But it requires an exceptional pilot and action-movie-level logistics.
"Believe Chicago" - Urban fly-through in downtown
One of the most complex urban FPV shoots. The drone dives along the Chicago Board of Trade Building, catches up to a car chase just a few meters above the ground, turns the corner of a block, flies through a film set tent, and emerges through a cloud of smoke. The main challenge: electromagnetic interference in downtown Chicago—radio antennas, Wi-Fi, and communication equipment in buildings—which disrupted the FPV signal. The team had to conduct dozens of tests and R&D efforts to ensure the safety of each section of the flight.
Key takeaway: In urban areas, the biggest enemy of a drone long take isn't a physical obstacle—it's the signal. Test your FPV connection before you start filming.
7. Common Mistakes to Avoid
Flying without a location scout. That's the surest way to crash your drone and ruin your shoot. Christensen: 5 practice flights. Kocher: on-foot location scouting + photos. Do the same. At least 2–3 fly-throughs before filming.
Don't overlook the sound. A drone makes noise—a lot of noise. Plan to record audio separately (ambient mic, off-camera boom mic) or be prepared to work on the sound design in post-production. Dialogue in drone long takes is virtually impossible.
Shooting in direct sunlight without an ND filter. The changes in light within a single shot can be extreme. Without an ND filter, parts of your image will be overexposed. Bring along filters of various densities (ND8, ND16, ND32) and choose the right one based on the current lighting conditions.
Forget about the regulations. In Europe, indoor flights (in enclosed spaces, not accessible to the public) are not subject to drone regulations. Outdoor flights, however, are. They fall under the Open, Specific, or Certified categories, depending on the context. Check BEFORE filming.
Don't overlook post-production. Raw footage from a GoPro FPV camera isn't a final product. Stabilization, color grading, and retouching—that's where the sequence takes its final form. Set aside as much time for post-production as you do for shooting.
Trying to get everything right in one take. Christensen: 10 takes in 87 seconds. Vanover: dozens of takes on *Ambulance*. Bring extra batteries (one per attempt), allow plenty of time, and accept that the first few attempts will essentially be a way to get a feel for the scene.
Don't underestimate interference. Indoors, neon lights and electrical equipment can disrupt the signal. Outdoors in urban areas, it's even worse—antennas, Wi-Fi, and communication equipment. Test your FPV connection in the actual environment before the big day.
8. Pre-flight checklist
Reconnaissance completed (at least 2–3 training flights, photos of critical sections)
Planned route with waypoints and actor timings
Charged batteries (one per attempt, at least 5)
Camera set up (LOG profile, minimum 4K resolution, frame rate, appropriate ND filter)
FPV stream recording enabled as a backup
Communication between the pilot and on-site personnel (earpieces, dedicated assistant)
FPV Connection Test in a Real-World Environment (Interference?)
Identified and secured obstacles (cables, fans, mirrors, power lines)
Regulatory compliance verified (permits, flight zone, category)
Current Insurance
Verified weather conditions (wind, rain, light)
Planned post-production workflow (GyroFlow/ReelSteady installed, sufficient disk space)
FAQ
Do you need a pilot's license to film a long take with a drone?
Outdoors—yes, in Europe—you need at least the Open category (A1/A3) certification for drones weighing less than 250g, and an A2 license to fly near people. Indoors (in enclosed spaces not accessible to the public), drone regulations do not apply. However, you remain responsible for safety; if your Cinewhoop hits someone, that’s your problem.
What's the budget for getting started with FPV drone long takes?
Three price tiers. Entry-level (500–800 euros): DJI Avata 2 or a custom Cinewhoop with a GoPro—sufficient for indoor long takes and web/social media content. Intermediate (1,500–3,000 euros): Custom 5-inch Cinewhoop + GoPro Hero 12 + DJI goggles + remote controller—sufficient quality for advertising and corporate videos. Professional film (5,000–15,000 euros): Custom 5-inch Cinewhoop + RED Komodo or Blackmagic—the “Ambulance” setup. For each tier, add ~200 euros for ND filters and ~100 euros for additional batteries.
Is it possible to shoot a drone long take that's longer than 5 minutes?
This is the natural limit for FPV batteries (3–7 minutes, depending on the model). To exceed this limit, you can use a tethered drone (powered by a cable, used for certain sports broadcasts), a relay system between two drones with an invisible connection, or a stabilized drone like the Inspire, which has a flight time of 20+ minutes but is less agile.
GyroFlow or ReelSteady GO?
GyroFlow: If you use any camera (not just GoPro), it’s free, open source, and has become the industry standard in 2026. ReelSteady GO: If you use GoPro exclusively, the integration is native and the results are excellent. In both cases, shoot at a higher resolution than your final output to allow for cropping.
Can a drone long take replace a Steadicam?
No, they are two different styles. The Steadicam has a human presence—it’s at eye level and moves at a walking pace. It stays close to the character. The drone offers three-dimensional freedom and speed. It hovers, dives, and soars. The best long takes combine the two with a seamless transition: the Steadicam starts on the ground, the shot rises, and the drone takes over.
Conclusion
The drone sequence shot isn't just a gimmick. It's a new visual alphabet, just waiting to be put to use.
Jay Christensen pioneered a new genre with 87 Seconds, using a bowling alley and a GoPro. Michael Bay pushed the boundaries of action cinema by entrusting a RED Komodo to a 19-year-old drone racing champion. The Milan-Cortina Olympics brought live FPV long takes to millions of viewers.
The technique is accessible. The equipment is affordable. What sets an ordinary drone long take apart from a breathtaking one is what has always made the difference in the art of the long take: obsessive preparation, meticulous choreography with people on the ground, and the ability to let go of the controls at just the right moment, allowing the drone to glide, float, and breathe in space.
The drone hasn't replaced the camera operator. It has given him wings.
On plan-sequences.com, find detailed analyses of iconic long takes and film-by-film technical profiles.
