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Arts & Entertainment

Soar Over Venice Beach At Sunrise With This Entrancing Drone Video

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A new drone video takes us on an enchanting flight over Venice Beach with a single, continuous shot just as the sun begins to rise.

The hypnotic video, shot by cameraman Robert McIntosh, takes us on an early morning tour of some familiar Venice sights devoid of the crowds that have yet to gather. The soundtrack to the video features the soothing melody "Deep Blue Day" by Brian Eno, which you might recognize from a certain underwater scene in Trainspotting.

To get the shot, McIntosh used a GoPro Hero 4 Black and a mini Quadcopter. "I had been eyeballing this line for a while because I thought it would be a great way to show how far you can push the smallest and cheapest gear to make a high quality film that people would notice," he tells LAist. "The combination of these miniature copters and cameras with ReelSteady stabilization software opens up a whole new world of possibilities to make super smooth footage in places you would never be able to go with more expensive, bulkier gear.

In the video, the drone glides smoothly over the streets of Venice, narrowly dodging the "Venice" sign and cresting over the buildings of Windward Ave., then dips under the arches of Danny's Restaurant before heading out to the beach. Too early for the crowds and chaos that we usually see along the boardwalk, we see only a few people walking as the camera hovers above then drops beneath a park bench, and then flies through artist Mark Di Suvero's 60-foot "Declaration" sculpture. We then swoop over the Venice Public Art Walls and through palm trees, before soaring just above the skatepark, then up above the beach, where we see the sun rising.

You can see another entrancing video by McIntosh of the Santa Monica Pier here.

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