“The Noor” is a non-narrative short drone film shot entirely on DJI Mini 2 in beautiful landscapes of frozen Baikal lake in the Eastern Siberia region of Russia by filmmaker Vadim Sherbakov and required flying the little drone in some extremely low temperatures, which is amazingly was able to handle.
Sherbakov writes that “Noor” is a Buryat word for lake, and Buryat is a people who have populated this particular area of Russia for many years. As such, Sherbakov says he thought it was appropriate to use their word for the title of his film.
“The region of Baykal Lake is famous for winter travels due to fact that this world’s largest pure water lake gets frozen and became one of the most beautiful sites in the world,” he says. “Rocky clips froze during the storms and get white lower parts together with dark blue see-through ice make it amazing to photograph.”
Sherbakov says that his main goal with this film was to portray Baykal lake from a bit of a different perspective. Most of the videos he has seen of the area have a happy or lively vibe to them, as this is normally a tourist attraction.
“Nowadays it’s a fun and lively place with many tourists and photographers, but I want to show how it would feel for a people who lived there many years ago. A single traveler trapped in a frozen environment stood against the harsh condition, witness the raw beauty of this place. I tried to translate that in a way of sound, cinematography, and color,” he says.
Sherbakov tells PetaPixel that the temperatures he was experiencing while shooting this film varied from as low as -18 to -25 degrees Celcius (-.04 to
-13 degrees Fahrenheit) with a chilling wind.
“Sometimes the wind was so fast that I would place the drone out on the surface of the ice and it would start to slide away before it could take off, maybe 10 to 15 meters from me,” he recalls.
Shockingly, Sherbakov reports that the drone behaved “bravely,” and held its battery to its full potential of about 28 minutes.
“I was really impressed by it,” he says.
Low temperatures have historically been a major sticking point for lithium-ion batteries, and drones, in particular, suffered from rapid power loss when temps dipped too low. DJI actually specifically addressed this issue on the Inspire 2 when it made special batteries that were designed specifically to combat low temperatures. It seems that over time, this problem has become less of an issue.
For more from Vadim Sherbakov, take a look at some of his time-blended photos of Moscow as well as his macro photos of ink he captured on a DJI Pocket 2. You can also follow him on Vimeo and Instagram.
Image credits: Photos by Vadim Sherbakov and used with permission.