Take an airborne robot minion and a hi-tech camera and what do you have? A "dronie": a new form of self-shot aerial mini-video for online exhibitionists looking to create more drama than the average selfie can supply.
The term was coined by Alexandra Dao while commenting on a video created by internet entrepreneur Amit Gupta. The clip, which went viral, showed Gupta and companions on top of Bernal Heights Hill in San Francisco before a camera pulled back for a breathtaking zoom-out.
Videos on YouTube, plus a dedicated "dronies" channel on Vimeo, show the diversity of the shots. As well as giving a sense of breathtaking weightlessness the videos can contain an eerie sense of foreboding (such as Taylor Scott Mason's cliff-side dronie, complete with dissonant soundtrack), or give you sensory stomach flips (such as the one from Social Print Studio, which splices in imagery from GoogleEarth).
The alchemy behind the perfect dronie seems to hinge upon the "big reveal". A wind-free, wide-open space is vital: the top of Hampstead Heath is better than your bathroom. More prosaically, to create a dronie you need more than just a smartphone and the ability to do duckface. Happily, acquiring a drone is easier than you think: they can be purchased online (both Tesco and Selfridges sell them) for between £55 and £500. It's recommended that you try to get one with a built-in camera; otherwise you'll also need something called a "Gimbal", which holds your iPhone in place when it's whizzing about.
Thus equipped, you'll need to master a few signature moves. In a piece for the New York Times, Gupta suggests two things: practising "in figure-eights" to get a sense of how to control your drone, and having the drone circle you while the camera stays focused on you and your fellow subjects. Easy, when you know how.
