A Drone Shot is aerial footage captured using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a camera, typically a consumer or professional quadcopter drone. Drones have democratized aerial cinematography, making sweeping overhead shots, flyovers, and dynamic aerial tracking movements accessible to creators at all budget levels without requiring helicopters or cranes.

Modern camera drones range from compact consumer models capable of capturing stable 4K footage to professional cinema drones that can carry full-size cinema cameras and execute complex programmed flight paths. Advanced drones include features such as GPS waypoint navigation, object tracking, automated flight modes for specific shot types like orbits and reveals, and gimbal-stabilized cameras that produce smooth, cinematic footage even in windy conditions. Drone shots have become ubiquitous in modern filmmaking, advertising, real estate, travel content, and any production where revealing scale, geography, or environmental context from above adds value.

In AI video generation, specifying a drone shot in a prompt communicates that the desired camera perspective should be aerial with the smooth, floating quality characteristic of drone footage. As AI video models improve their handling of aerial perspectives and movement, understanding the visual language of drone cinematography helps creators direct generation toward specific aerial aesthetics.