Aerial Cinematography in Salt Lake City, Utah

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

The Wasatch, the canyons and the salt flats are why productions come to Utah, and all three are subjects that only really work from the air. The craft question here is scale: finding the frame that communicates how big the landscape actually is, which is harder than it sounds.

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 Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City International sets Class B over the valley, and terrain does the rest. Mountain flying brings density altitude, sudden wind and canyon effects that meaningfully change what a drone can lift and how long it can stay up. This is the market where aircraft selection matters most.

The Salt Lake City production market

Utah Film Studios in Park City anchors a market that runs on features, series and a heavy commercial slate drawn by the landscape. Sundance brings its own annual surge.

We shoot the Wasatch range, the salt flats, the canyons, and the valley — and we travel. CineDrones works nationwide, so if your production is basing in Salt Lake City and shooting somewhere else entirely, that is a normal week for us.

What a Salt Lake City 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 Salt Lake City — 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 Salt Lake City 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.