Aerial Cinematography in Austin, Texas

An aerial shot either tells the audience something the ground cannot, or it is a postcard the editor eventually cuts.

Austin's value on screen is the transition from city to landscape — the river, the bridges, and then Hill Country within twenty minutes. Aerials are how a production sells that geography in a single move rather than three scenes.

We work with directors and DPs the way any other camera department does — in prep, on the shot list, and on set as part of the plan rather than a novelty parked to one side. That means matching the look of your A camera, hitting the same marks take after take, and knowing which moves read on screen and which just show off the aircraft.

Flying Austin

Austin-Bergstrom anchors Class C airspace southeast of downtown, which keeps much of the city workable with LAANC authorization while the approach corridors stay tight. The Hill Country west of town opens up quickly, which is part of why productions base here and shoot outward.

The Austin production market

Austin has grown from a festival town into a working production market, with Austin Studios anchoring a crew base that has deepened considerably. Texas incentives keep pulling features and series in, and aerial demand has followed.

We shoot downtown, the river, the Hill Country, and the Texas landscape — and we travel. CineDrones works nationwide, so if your production is basing in Austin and shooting somewhere else entirely, that is a normal week for us.

What a Austin booking includes

Prep with the director and DP, on the shot list rather than beside it
Color pipeline matched to your A camera
Repeatable moves, take after take
Log or raw capture as your post workflow requires
On-set data wrangling and same-day handoff

Cinema payloads carrying the sensor your show is already shooting, so the aerial cuts against the ground unit without a fight.

Selected credits

Our aerial units have worked on Ozark, Jack Ryan, Bosch, Mayans M.C., SEAL Team, NCIS: New Orleans, Fear the Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Modern Family, 9-1-1, Goliath, The Resident, Raising Dion, Castle Rock, Doctor Sleep and Chef's Table, for Netflix, Amazon, Apple, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, Sony, CBS, AMC, MTV and Bravo. See the work →

Aerial Cinematography in Austin — questions we get

Can your aerial footage match our A camera?

That is most of the job. We shoot to match your capture format and color pipeline so the aerial cuts in without a grade fight. If your show is on a specific body, tell us in prep and we will build around it.

What can a drone do in Austin that a helicopter cannot?

Fly low, fly close, fly inside, and cost a fraction. A helicopter still wins on altitude, endurance and long lens work over open ground. Any vendor who tells you drones replaced helicopters entirely is selling you something.

Do you work as part of the camera department?

Yes, and it matters. An aerial unit parked to one side as a novelty produces novelty shots. One that sits inside the camera department produces coverage the editor can actually cut with.