Most overland films put the truck front and center. Jon Rock went the other way, saying the mountains and the location were the real interest, and the dark 4runner reads as a small mark on a huge landscape. The route runs roughly 50 miles, starting at Jawbone Canyon, dropping into Kelso Valley, climbing up the Piutes and finishing down at Lake Isabella.
The whole thing was shot on a DJI Mavic Pro with an ND filter fitted, and there was no color correction afterwards. The maker likes that these filters can go on before gimbal calibration. That sounds like a handy detail for anyone flying similar terrain. Registration was handled online with the FAA in a few minutes at a cost of $5, and the paperwork side looks painless.
The stand-out moments for me are the ridge trail, the rocky outcrop and the switchback turns descending into a valley. Opening text reading 'Piute Mountains July 2017' sets the scene simply, and keeping the truck small in frame really sells the scale of the range.
There are two trade-offs worth noting. The air was a little hazy when the shots were taken, and that shows. Also, the Mavic normally warns when flying somewhere restricted and requires a box to be checked to override it, yet no warning appeared at takeoff. How that squares with the terrain flown is an open question for me.
Project by Jon Rock. Watch it on their YouTube channel: