Have You Seen This? Single-shot drone short film is flawless

By Martha Ostergar for KSL.com | Posted - March 13, 2021 at 2:49 p.m.

Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

THE ALLEY — We've all seen "single-shot drone shots" in our time on the internet.

It doesn't seem to be that hard when you know how to fly a drone. You just fly over something pretty, do some post effects to make the colors pop, and voila, you've got something pretty nice that people love watching.

Now try adding a story, a script, humans, and the many moving parts of a bowling alley, and you realize that all that landscape drone footage might be in the "dime a dozen category." (Not an insult; I would crash a drone in two seconds. All you droners are doing great.)

Filmmaker Jay Christensen recently released a drone short film that includes all the unexpected elements above.

The film is called "Right Up Our Alley," and it showcases a typical night at the Bryant Lake Bowl bowling alley and theater in Minneapolis. And it's all done in a single shot.

The sped-up tour of the alley is pretty incredible. It starts outside, comes into the bowling alley, then spends 1 minute and 27 seconds gliding seamlessly through the entire place. The film ends perfectly with a landing in the narrow pin return without a single jostle.

In fact, it's so incredible that it captured the attention of people in Hollywood who know what they're talking about when it comes to film. Lee Unkrich, director of "Toy Story 3," and James Gunn, director of "The Guardians of the Galaxy," were both blown away.

Note: This video may cause motion sickness in some people.