Travel drone filmmaker
I’m Tiago. I film my volcanic island from the air, and I sell colour-grade presets, a flight checklist, a shot list and two video courses.
A new drone is easy to fly and easy to lose. Check the sky, the wind and the battery before the propellers spin, and do it in the same order every time. The checklist puts all of it on three pages.
Check the sky, then the drone.
A slow forward move over the edge, with the sea below. It needs calm air, a steady hand and a little patience. The film shows the settings, the speed and the three tries I make.
Slow is better than fast.
Flat footage is normal straight from the drone. Exposure first, then contrast, then colour, in that order. The course goes through each step on island footage, clip by clip.
Fix the light before the colour.
Thirty shots for one flight, each with a height, a move and the light it needs. Tick them off on the clifftop and you come home with a film instead of a pile of clips.
One list, one flight.
Online course
Video course · 6 lessons
Six lessons on planning, flying and filming a place from above, from the first launch to the last shot.
YouTube
12 min
A launch from the clifftop, a slow push-in over the edge and the settings I use when the wind drops.
14 min
Why the valley fills with cloud, when to launch and how to keep the peaks in the frame.
11 min
A stone water channel under the laurel trees: where I fly and where I leave the drone in the bag.
Downloads, a course and merch
Downloads arrive by email. Merch is printed to order and shipped by Printful.
About
I live on Madeira, a green volcanic island with cliffs, clouds that fill the valleys and old water channels through the laurel forest. I bought a small drone five years ago to film a hike, and I have been flying at dawn ever since.
I film every shot myself, grade it at my desk and post a new film every other Saturday. What I sell is what I wish I had when I started: colour-grade presets, a flight-planning checklist, a shot list and two video courses on filming and editing travel from the air.