I watch a lot of movies, and one thing I have come to notice, particularly in reference to smaller productions, is that drones – the small robots that when equipped with a camera can give shots from heights and angles open only to larger productions in the past – are becoming fairly ubiquitous.

And I believe that they’re ruining movies.

This is the case because they typically add little if any value to the production (though ironically enough, it doesn’t appear to be the case for higher-end productions).

The problem as I see it is that smaller productions often use drone footage not to add value to the narrative, but to fill space.

In other words the footage appears to be used as a transitional device (a way to take viewers from one scene to another) but the problem is that movies have narratives, and what’s the point of a transition that takes viewers out of that narrative?

For instance, imagine a movie where bunch of people are hiking in a forest and you’re likely to numerous shots from a perspective above the trees, revealing miles of forest.

I can understand if such a shot is used initially to establish the vastness of the forest or maybe for purposes of atmosphere though my problem is if it’s used MORE than once, what is it trying to say to viewers?

I don’t want to see that view again because it’s already been established and I’m not at all sure of the purpose of it being used a second time, never mind multiple times.

The video above is the opening of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which makes great use of an aerial shot (though this likely is a helicopter, not a drone though the reasoning is the same) that is used to not only make the car carrying the Torrence family appear smaller, as if it were being engulfed by the landscape, but to create a sense of doom, of inevitability in that they could drive anywhere, but instead they’re moving inexorably toward the Overlook Hotel and their doom.

And you’ll notice that this shot only appears in the opening of the movie.

Once they arrive, this view goes away because it’s served its purpose, never mind virtually the entire movie that follows takes place indoors.

The opening shot is necessary for the narrative that follows (because as a viewer in a sense we’re riding along with the Torrance family, and we’re as trapped as they are) so why would you knowingly take people out of it?

There ought to be a test before a single shot of drone footage is used for smaller productions, asking questions like does it add value to the narrative?

That it looks nice is irrelevant if it doesn’t pass that test.

And sure, that might mean that we see a lot less drone footage in smaller productions, but I get the feeling that we might end up with better, more narratively-cohesive movies as a result.