Euan Cherry/WENN.com
Lights, drone swarm, action! Future movies may not be shot by lumbering cameras on rails, but drones that automatically fly around a scene, grabbing the best possible angles, without the need for human intervention.
One project that aims to make this happen is by cinematography firm Technicolor and the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation. In recent experiments, the team began by scanning a mock film set in 3D using infrared sensors. This data was then fed to algorithms that told the drones the position of any obstacles. Physical markers on the actors, which can be edited out later, allowed the drones to visually recognise when they had them in their sights.
The director could then simply draw a route for them to follow on a digital map of the set. The drones are smart enough so that if the path