While you might have missed director Ravi Kiran Raju's first Introduction to Drones for Film and Photography workshop, don't fret. The next one, due this month, will be conducted at the Phoenix Arena, HITEC City. A personal experience of losing his drone when shooting a documentary at Leh and Ladakh and requiring a military chopper to retrieve it, alerted the Hyderabad-based director to spread more awareness about how to operate drones and what its concerns are.
"Sometimes, amateurs crash drones or hurt people. There could be genuine safety issues. Pilots get confused and so do civilians. Young filmmakers should be aware of all the protocols when it comes to using a drone for shooting," says the director of travelogues like Magical Nepal and Mystic Himalayan Ride. "While people were excited for my first workshop, I found them to be very serious and focused during it," he says. And following the success of the first edition of the hands-on workshop, he decided to conduct the second one because of the number of calls he was getting from enthusiasts in Chittoor, Kadapa and Khammam, requesting for an encore.
Not only will he be teaching the basics, but he will also be facilitating the purchasing of the drones by the Chinese brand, DJI. "But India must start manufacturing our own drones," he says. But one fact has been established — drones are a blessing to filmmakers. "Twenty years ago, if you wanted to take an aerial shot, you had to hire a chopper and apply for permissions, which was as costly an affair as it is even today," he explains. One can't even do away with such shots because even the audience wants to see magnificence and grandeur, and drones are the objects that have found the middle ground for filmmakers all over the world.