Twitter’s official “Dronie” is at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year, taking the robot-powered zoom out selfies first popularized by the NYT’s Nick Bilton and Photojojo founder Amit Gupta. The Dronie is a UAV with a camera mount that records dronies to post to its official Twitter account using a camera mounted to its undercarriage, and Twitter’s six-second video service Vine as the publication method. The first dronie captured by the account features Sir Patrick Stewart, whose selfie game is famously tight.
https://twitter.com/dronie/status/478170048306364416
The account was created by Twitter Advertising, and Twitter VP of Brand Strategy Joel Lunenfeld co-stars in the Patrick Stewart inaugural edition. The project is part of a larger push by Twitter’s advertising department to showcase the importance of live coverage at the annual awards show, which is designed to honor creative communications professionals. It’s a smart way to highlight two Twitter products (the main network and Vine) with a modern trend and a robotics hobbyist angle thrown in for good measure.
Only time will tell whether the Dronie becomes a regular fixture even at more star-studded events, but that will likely depend on how quickly the public grows tired of UAVs shooting video while flying away from their subjects in reverse.