I Faked It: The VEO 3.1 Prompt That Generated a Cinematic NZ Drone Shot

What looked like a breathtaking drone shot of me and my campervan in New Zealand was, in fact, pure AI magic. In my recent DJI Neo 2 unboxing, I teased a sweeping aerial clip: me standing beside a campervan, camera rising to reveal Mt. Cook’s snow-capped peaks. The truth? I hadn’t even left for New Zealand yet.  

Instead, I turned to Google VEO 3.1, uploading a selfie and crafting one detailed cinematic prompt. The result was a hyper-realistic drone-style video that looked authentic enough to pass as real footage.  

Here’s the full prompt I used:  

"A real drone-style cinematic shot. Begin with a close, steady view of the person from the uploaded photo standing beside a white campervan parked on a gravel pull-off at New Zealand’s Mt. Cook region. The scenery features snow-capped mountains, turquoise glacial lakes, and dramatic valleys. The drone hovers at eye level, locked onto the person, capturing natural sunlight, crisp shadows, and ultra-clean realism. Then the drone ascends smoothly upward, rising higher and higher while maintaining focus on the person and campervan. As it climbs, the landscape widens: winding mountain roads, alpine terrain, and the vast openness of Mt. Cook National Park come into view. Keep the camera motion stable, slow, and cinematic — gentle lift, no jerky movement. Use realistic depth-of-field, natural wind ambience, and subtle exposure transitions as the drone rises. Color tone: true-to-life New Zealand blues, greens, and snow whites. Final framing: a high-altitude perspective showing the tiny campervan against the massive Mt. Cook landscape, still centered on the person."

This experiment shows how powerful AI video tools have become — letting creators preview cinematic shots before even stepping foot on location.  

If you’d like to explore further, here are the resources mentioned:  

- VEO 3 AI Video JSON Prompt Generator: https://videolane.com/introducing-the-veo-3-ai-video-json-prompt-generator  

- Free AI Video Guide: https://videolane.com/aivideo/  

~ Adrian Lee