First Detroit, now Mare Island. As hobbyists and cinematographers alike continue taking to small-fry, remotely-flown aircraft with equal aplomb, they're breathing fresh life into the undying phenomenon known as ruin porn. For better or worse, the decay and promise of a Motor City or of a crumbling shipyard peninsula near Vallejo, California, is just that much more stunning when surveyed from 400-feet up.3rd Eyd Productions got the job done here with a tricopter optimized for FPV, or first-person viewing. And this is how it should be done. Sure, the company admits that the reel comes off a bit tame--it was windy, apparently. Even still, it's not everyday that you see FPV visuals spliced and paced in a way that subtly shows the hand of an editor who, like, actually understands how to edit. I'm typically a staunch opponent of doing any sort of stylization to already-quality FPV footage. Shit is gorgeous as is--quit fixing what isn't broken. But the color correction here is just enough to push this thing beyond the ruins of ruin porn and up into the stratosphere of art-as-utility.If that wasn't enough, talk about being in the right place at the time. See that security guard driving away in the opening moments? Apparently he confronted the 3EP crew, who shot the shit with the veteran as they prepared to spin up. Turns out the guard served in Afghanistan, where he flew drones.
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