The Psychology Behind Why We Love Aerial Shots
Look to any modern film or TV production and you’ll see it. Impossibly high vistas, overhead rotations and elevated side-follows will set the butterflies free in your tummy. At least that’s the hope.
Drone footage is adding sparkle to most of what’s seen on Netflix these days, but with a licensed UAV pilot, smaller media houses (inclusive of mine) are making the same sorts of impact for their clients on a tighter budget.
But why do audiences love drone shots so much?
A few psychological principles are responsible for the theories behind the popularity of aerial footage.
The impact of an unusual point-of-view is powerful
Some would say it’s an evolutionary holdover and others would just say it’s an aesthetic preference, but the ability to see a long way has been thrilling humans since the beginning. Whether it’s the identification of threats such as thunderstorms or predatory tribes, or it’s simply an opportunity to locate oneself in 2 or even 3 dimensions, people are drawn to being small in a big place.
An equally important psychological connection might be explained using the concept of mirror neurons. These cell clusters in our brains give us a heightened sense of empathy when watching something happen to someone else. Fans of suspenseful movies know this well. It’s one of the few ways to make your heart rate soar while sitting stock still on your couch.
One final reason that drones are so popular in filmmaking is that they allow a completely different perspective on familiar objects or settings. All of us maintain what psychologists call a “prototype” inventory. These are what you recall the instant that someone says “elephant”. Chances are you have just produced a mental image of a large gray mammal with an articulating trunk and large flappy ears. As well, you probably imagined it facing either left or right and you likely constructed the image to appear as it would at eye level.
This is where drone footage will give you a thrill. A savvy filmmaker when presented with an elephant would (if permitted) fly a drone directly overhead offering a slight rotation for a standing animal. Or maybe they would fly along ahead of moving elephants while facing the camera back toward the herd. These novel angles will stimulate the part of your brain that is responsible for maintaining your prototype of an elephant and you’ll get a little jolt of endorphins thrown in to the bargain.
And it works for wedding tents, church steeples and kissy scenes in front of vintage cars.
While our fondness for drone footage has its roots in psychology, audiences enjoy it simply for its unacademic “wow” factor.
Experience a variety of drone usages in this short collection from my recent projects:
