Drones finally make sense for Casey Neistat
MARCH 21ST, 2016 — POST 077
Anyone who’s watched Casey Neistat’s daily vlogs over the past few months has probably identified the YouTuber’s problem with drones. No matter how he tried, what he did, the advice he sought, Neistat’s most favourite drone destination was the nearest tree, or building, or piece of sidewalk. Everytime that whir of the blades starting up was in the vlog, you could bet the thing was about to eat it. One vlog was actually entirely consumed by his trying to reclaim his Parrot Bebop off of a rooftop after he lost control of it going out of range. Never one to be discouraged, Neistat has ploughed through countless units seemingly attempting to achieve mastery by brute force alone.
But last week was different. The most recent of Neistat’s vlogs (at the time of writing) is his last in Cape Town before heading back to New York. The day he left for Cape Town, a package he’d been expecting showed up at his studio. Inside: a DJI Phantom 4. I was immediately convinced this wouldn’t be the last unboxing of this particular unit we’d be seeing. Whether a bent blade or shattered camera lens would befall this guy, it wouldn’t be long for this world. But not this one. Between the significant updates DJI has made to the Phantom 4 and Neistat’s march toward proficiency, this week has seen some of the most dramatic videography in his nearly year-long series of vlogs. A week later and the drone’s not only survived but has arguably gifted a language of transcendence to these daily uploads.
The final sequence from this most recent vlog is shot during a sunset as Neistat and his partner Candice sit on a rock on the shore. We’re first in Neistat’s shaky hand-held 70D as the two decide on a rock and clambour atop it. Usually, this scene would be followed by a timelapse or two, looking out over the water. These timelapses provide literal colour and figurative illustration. But because of their stasis relative to the close, handheld work, they’ve never felt to me much more than eye candy. They didn’t seem to do much to progress the narrative, or at the very most being a short hand for “not much happened during this time”. But from the self-facing shot of the couple on the rock out of the 70D, we cut into the drone.
If the charge of eye candy can be levelled at timelapses, it can be doubly levelled at drone footage. Across the landscapes of Cape Town and its surrounds, some of this footage is devastating. Yet, Neistat seems to know that it can do some much more. The first drone shot in this final sequence is of him and Candice sitting, watching, as the drone flies away. They go from being the focus to nothing but a speck in a few seconds. This places the protagonists as embedded within their world, a world they are so utterly dwarfed by. The constant close-ups of the dominant footage in these vlogs have the effect to puff up those it features, to make them big. Despite Neistat’s seemingly perpetual loop through the world’s various airports, his dominance of the frame is often at the expense of a sense of space. The inclusion of timelapses, and frankly drone-for-the-sake-of-drone, often works to enforce a disconnect between Neistat and the places he goes: one never appears in the other. With these fly outs, starting close before rapidly backing up, Neistat is saying this whole thing is bigger than any one of us.
Neistat’s drone shots don’t merely add colour or serve as richer illustration. They do work.
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