I have been going through the multitudes of footage I shot on the recent Broome trip and amazed even myself how much there is. And not just one camera either as I employed a bunch of different ones for different purposes – Canon Legria GH4 camcorder (still my favourite genuine camcorder by far), a DJI Action 6, DJI 360, DJI AVATA 360, DJI Flip and a DJI Pocket 2.
The footage from the Canon, Flip, Action 6 and Pocket 2 are easy to deal with being basically 1080P MP4 straight from the camera, but as the AVATA 360 and DJI 360 are both obviously 360 formats, the footage from these has to be transcoded into MP4 from its native OSV format, and this means pre-editing in DJI Studio.
Anyway, in all the clips I have made using the footage so far, I have needed to explain where Broome is considering the audience is not just Australia wide but potentially global. So, I thought, why not preface the finished Broome clip containing all of the edited footage with a Google Earth zoom in like you often see in news broadcasts.
This will allow the viewer to be able to visually pinpoint exactly where Broome is.
Google Earth Studio
I did a bit of research, and it turns out the best way to create this zoom in footage is using Google Earth Studio. This is a browser-based app that is free, but you do have to register and the majority of stuff is all done online. The final rendered movie link is emailed to you when complete, and is made available for a periuod of time to download so you have a permanent copy. “Projects” you create are however stored online for later usage.
Creating A Zoom
The basic principles of creating a clip is straightforward; choose a start point to zoom in from, the length of the clip you want (in frames per second or time) and the endpoint of the zoom.
In my case for example, I wanted to start the zoom from space clearly showing Australia, and finishing next to the Broome port jetty where I was actually fishing. Later animations could then jump to Broome’s main street, the resort’s location, Cable Beach and so on.
What surprised me was the amount of flexibility and tools Google gives you inside the app in order to fine tune the animation. As well as keyframes for the locations (altitude, latitude, longitude), you can also keyframe pan, tilt, roll, camera rotation, camera target, field of view, time of day, clouds and ocean overlays.
Other facilities you get are safe area markers, grid lines, split views between Google Earth and Google Maps to fine tune locations, Bezier curves on motion, “ease” functions on keyframes and viewport direction(s).
One thing to be aware of, you MUST use what Google calls the attribute function which is basically a water mark giving credit to Google and any companies that actual own the mapping / visual footage.
Conclusion
Google Earth Studio is very easy to use and a useful tool indeed. It does take a bit of time to explore all the tools available to you inside the app, and this can cause a little bit of, shall we call it a lack of discipline, while you investigate just what will happen if you “add this” or “tweak that”.
The end result is worth the effort though and adds another dimension to travel and holiday footage in particular. It’s bloody good fun too!
Check it out at https://earth.google.com/studio/
PS: if you are not a native earthling, instead coming from either the Moon or Mars, or been on holiday there for example, you can also switch planets.
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[…] I was thinking the other day though, wouldn’t it be cool if you could start your drone footage video with a map showing the location of your flight – something like I did the other week with the Broome video where I used Google Earth Studio to zoom into the Broome Jetty from space. […]