In this video I'll show you how to make tilt-shift effect videos with your drone in After Effects (Easy way).

Here are some tips: Pick a busy scene with lots of movement like construction scene, sporting event, crowded street, ships in the bay, etc. Film at mid-day with harsh light from the sun. This will mimic harsh studio lighting on a miniature scale model. Don't follow the 180 degree rule - shoot at a high shutter speed. Using a drone, film from 80-120 foot altitude. Try to make the subject look small like a toy but still recognizable. Pull back so the drone is angled toward the scene - mimic the point of view of a person standing over the scene looking down on it.

We are trying to imitate stop motion animation. This is when you take a picture, move the toys a bit and take another picture then string them together to animate a scale model scene - like Claymation. The edges will be blurred to simulate a tilt-shift lens or macro lens with a shallow depth of field. These clips are generally over saturated so we will mimic that too.

Think about what you are doing, what you want it to look like and then experiment and try it out. Best of luck and questions or comments are welcome.

You can follow me on Instagram: @boyces_images
Here is a fun tilt-shift Instagram page: @tiltshiftclub - they feature many of my tilt-shift clips.

A particularly fun Instagram page is: @sp0_ok - this guy is amazing and often uses a tilt-shift effect.