Case Study: Recording for a Surfing Brand
- Erick Giovanni
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Shooting video for a surfing brand can be an exciting endeavor! In my own experience, it was a process of learning what would work best in order to capture the needed footage. I started shooting for the brand DFW Surf a few years back.
When we first started, I first recorded drone footage using the DJI MIni 2, a lightweight drone produced by the company DJI. They have since come out with a variety of other drones, the newest of which I have linked below (Although they are not available for purchase in the United States at the moment.) Using my DJI Mini 2, I shot some beautiful footage of their paddleboard during the sunset hours, and was able to produce a stunning video for them. This was just one of the services that DFW Surf wanted to highlight, however.
DFW Surf focuses on educating individuals on how to surf on a variety of craft, whether it be Foil, paddleboard, or wakeboarding, among others! As a result, I found myself producing a number of their videos advertising said services. This came with its own set of challenges, however.
As time went on, I started combining footage from a video camera, as well as drone footage. The first challenge came with the camera: Salt Water, even as a mist, can cause internal water damage to the camera’s mechanics. Having a weather-resistant camera, as well as employing a zoom lens to stay as far away from the water as possible was my go-to move for a while. Whether I was on shore or on one of the boats, this allowed me to capture great footage of the surfers while keeping my camera as safe as possible. The second challenge came with capturing drone footage.
One of the challenges we faced was the drone’s range of use. Each drone has a limit on how far it can travel from its remote. The DJI Mini 2’s range was about 700m, or just under half a mile. To try to remedy this issue, we attempted to launch the drone from the boat. This proved difficult, as the boat was never stationary enough to land the drone. Since each of the batteries of the drone lasted about 20 minutes, we had to find another way to get the drone footage. We opted for launching the drone from the shore and educating our pilots on the path and designated areas the surfers would compete in. This allowed us to understand where we can fly the drone to get the footage we needed. The third challenge was making sure that the drone operators we hired were skilled enough to react to the performance of each of the surfers. We needed to get a variety of angles, from above, from an angle (at distance), but by far the shot we wanted was as close to the water and as close to the surfers as we could. Luckily, our licensed drone pilots were able to get the job done, and we were able to get the footage we needed.
Now, we have a library of footage that we’ve collected over the years with DFW Surf so that we can create content as needed, and they have already put the content to good use.
Here are some links to different aspects referenced in this article.
Thanks for reading!
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