Plan a drone shoot

What this is about

Around the legal core — operator registration, pilot certificates, category limits, geo zones, insurance — sits ordinary production planning that often gets skipped because the legal part absorbed all the attention. In the EU, most commercial camera drones fly in the open category, where distances from uninvolved people decide what is legal, not what looks good. The production half needs an air shotlist with specific moves, weather minimums agreed with the pilot, ground control for bystanders, and a backup window in the schedule — because no forecast owes you a calm evening.

The order matters more than the tools. Skip a step and you usually notice two steps later — by which point the fix costs several times as much.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• Distances from uninvolved people, not aesthetics, decide what is legal in the open category.
• Drone liability insurance is its own cover — standard production liability often excludes flight operations, and authorities ask for the certificate.
• An air shotlist with named moves — reveal, track, orbit, top-down — replaces 'get some aerials' and saves batteries and light.
• Weather minimums and a decision time are agreed with the pilot in prep, so the cancel call is a plan, not a set debate.

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Check the legal frame first: operator registration, the pilot certificate the category requires, and the concrete rules where you fly — EU open-category subrules or the local equivalent.
2. Map airspace and geo zones for the exact location: control zones, no-fly areas, altitude caps. Official maps and apps answer this in minutes — before the location is promised to a client.
3. Confirm insurance that explicitly covers drone operations, and carry the certificate — locations, authorities and some clients ask for it.
4. Write an air shotlist with specific moves — reveal, tracking, orbit, top-down — each with a start and end frame. Vague aerial wishes burn batteries and light.
5. Plan the ground operation: takeoff and landing zone, a spotter, distances from uninvolved people, and how the set keeps bystanders out of the operating area.
6. Agree weather minimums with the pilot in advance — wind, gusts, rain, temperature — plus a decision time, so the go or no-go is calm and early.
7. Hold a backup window in the schedule for the aerials, because wind is the one crew member that never negotiates.
8. Brief the crew on flight blocks: when the drone is up, who talks to the pilot, and what pauses on the ground while it flies.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Booking a pilot before checking the geo zone — the location sits in a control zone and the shot dies at the briefing.
• Scheduling aerials as the last item of the day, when wind and light have both moved on.
• No spotter and no zone control, with a public that walks freely under the flight path.

With TillyGen

In TillyGen, drone shots are flagged in the shotlist and scheduled as their own weather-dependent block — with the backup window visible instead of hoped for.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.