Drone
Spring 2020
Sensing
New Media Writing
“Each of these flying robots, more than anything else,
changes your perspective.”
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, “Drones and Everything
After”
Introduction
Collaboratively, we purposefully yet promptly
brainstorm and execute a video research
project composed with and through the Compass
Lab’s DJI Phantom Pro 4 drone. The speed we
move at is designed to pilot (pun obviously
intended) an approach to using new, digital media
to develop or cultivate new ways of sensing—of
becoming sensitive.
Production Teams
To make this project work—to make it possible—
we work in production crews that break the
process down into manageable parts. Small
crews of students work to accomplish their specific
tasks in concert with other crews. This distributed
approach almost means that there is a fair amount
of creative collaboration.
Each move across the production of the video
feeds forwards and backwards into the others.
Location scouts necessarily shape the script, and
locations are revised by the film crew—just as
voice recording might involve tweaking the script
and editing might entail reordering the storyboards.
Pre-Production
1. Location/Issue Scouting. This crew
scouts in and around the environs of
Saint Louis University. The trick here is
navigating the tension between selecting a
location that both lends itself well to the
sensing capacities of the drone and that offers
up a compelling issue or story to tell.
2. Script Writing. Closely following, if not
overlapping with, the scouts, the script
writing crew composes a compelling
story to weave through and around the video
footage shot. This involves some research into
the location/issue.
3. Storyboarding. Working in concert with
the first two crews, the storyboard crew
plans the shots the film crew needs to
get. Storyboards begin to tell the story by
directing the drone operator in order to
sensitize viewers to this location and issue.
Production
1. Filming. This crew works to execute
the storyboard. Filming also entails
working and experiment with the
capacities of DJI Phantom and Mavic drones.
How can it move and where? What lenses
need to be employed? The storyboard crew
might be brought back in early in the process.
2. Voice Recording. Working from the
script as well as the atmospheres of the
footage, this crew provides the voice
talent for the story. Working in the recording
studio in Des Peres Hall, this crew explores the
capacities of the recording equipment as well
as their own voices.
Post-Production
1. Editing. Working with the drone
footage and voice narration (as well as
the script and storyboard), this crew
cobbles together the video itself. This cobbling
is necessarily creative as editing choices
impact the pace and feel of the video.
2. P r o d u c t i o n D e s i g n . T h i s c r e w
determines the overall look of the
video. What typefaces and colors are
used for title cards and other textual
elements? What filters and effects can be used
to heighten the impact of the final video?
3. Sound Design/Scoring. Last but not
least (and maybe not really last) is the
sound of the video. How and what kind
of music is woven through the film? What, if
any, sound effects are utilized? How do sound
and music resonate with the script and drone
footage—how do they augment both? This
crew arranges the sonic sensibilities of the
video.
Rivers | ENGL 4010