Nadir shot
Also known as: straight down shot, 90 degree shot
An aerial frame with the camera pointed straight down, flattening the world into a graphic pattern with no horizon to orient the viewer.
Updated
What it means
Nadir is the gimbal at ninety degrees. Everything below becomes a plan view, and the result reads as design rather than as landscape. Nothing in frame tells a viewer which way is up.
It is the same geometry as a Top-down shot from any other camera, with altitude doing the work a crane would otherwise do. From the air it is one wheel movement; from the ground it is a rig.
What makes it useful is abstraction. A surf break, a vineyard or a roundabout become shapes, and a rider crossing the frame becomes a moving point inside a pattern, which is a different kind of shot from anything filmed at eye level.
How it works in practice
Height sets the subject. Low nadir shows texture and a single rider, while higher up the subject becomes the pattern itself and the rider is incidental. Choosing which one you want happens before takeoff.
Movement is what keeps it alive. A static nadir is a photograph, so most usable versions travel in a straight line or rotate slowly, which is where a Point of interest orbit works unusually well.
Framing follows graphic rules rather than cinematic ones. Rule of thirds matters less than symmetry, and a line running corner to corner usually beats one running down the middle.
What to watch out for
Without a horizon there is no sense of scale. A nadir clip can be stunning and still tell a viewer nothing about where it was, which is why it rarely opens a sequence alone.
It also hides motion. A rider moving quickly across flat ground looks slow from directly above, so the shot undersells exactly the thing a Highlight reel is trying to show.
Exposure is awkward too. Pointing down removes the sky from the frame, and a camera metering on dark ground will brighten everything, so Exposure lock before the tilt saves the clip.
How RawClip handles it
Overhead clips are read as texture rather than as action, so they tend to be placed around the riding instead of inside it. Their steadiness makes them easy to hold for longer than a mounted camera shot, which is useful between two fast sections.