Most people commissioning drone filming in Daejeon for the first time open with a question about price. That is understandable, but the rate depends heavily on location, timing and deliverable format — and before any of that, on whether flying at your chosen site is permitted at all. Until those conditions are fixed, no accurate figure can be given. This is particularly worth understanding if you are an international company, a foreign-run business or an institution in Daejeon commissioning aerial work in Korea for the first time, since the approval process here has no exact equivalent elsewhere. Below is what to prepare so that the quote and the project both move quickly.
Information worth preparing before you enquire
- Purpose: a company promotional film, an architectural record, event coverage or a property listing each call for different shooting approaches and aircraft configurations.
- Location and coordinates: an address alone is enough to begin the airspace check. Tell us whether it is indoors or outdoors, and how many people are likely to gather nearby.
- Preferred dates: where approvals are required they take time, so leave margin. Night shoots in particular need a long lead.
- Deliverable format: whether you need raw footage only, an edited cut, or stills included changes the workload substantially.
- Intended use: online publication, broadcast or advertising each carry different resolution and format requirements. Say so if the footage will be used outside Korea.
- Site contact: having a named person who can arrange access and crowd control makes the shooting day run far more smoothly, especially where the crew and the client are working across a language gap.
The paperwork that must happen before filming
Drone filming is, before it is a camera job, an aviation job. The procedures that precede the shoot determine whether the schedule holds. You will not have to handle these yourself, but understanding why they take time makes scheduling discussions much easier.
- Airspace check and 비행승인 (bihaeng seungin, flight approval): required if the site falls within controlled or prohibited airspace, or if the aircraft must climb above 150 m above ground level. Queries and applications are handled through the Drone One-Stop Civil Service (drone.onestop.go.kr).
- Aerial photography permit: permission to record images is administered by the Ministry of National Defense and is a separate process from flight approval. Both must be obtained independently.
- Night and beyond-visual-line-of-sight filming: subject to 특별비행승인 (teukbyeol bihaeng seungin, special flight approval) from the head of the Regional Aviation Administration. Processing normally takes 30 days and up to 90 days in special cases, so night cityscapes or evening events must be raised at least a month in advance.
- 기체 신고 (gichae singo, device registration) and insurance: any aircraft used for commercial filming must be registered regardless of weight, and commercial operation requires insurance of at least KRW 150 million bodily injury cover per person and KRW 20 million property damage cover per incident.
Daejeon contains controlled airspace and other restricted zones. Rather than declaring in advance that a particular location is or is not usable, the correct order is for you to supply the coordinates so we can advise precisely on the basis of the actual query result.
How a typical project runs
Drone filming in Daejeon generally follows this sequence.
- Enquiry, confirmation of conditions and an outline quote
- Airspace check for the filming point, then the flight approval and aerial photography permit procedures
- Date confirmation, site survey, and agreement on take-off and landing points and the control perimeter
- Weather assessment on the day followed by the flight, moving to a reserve date if conditions are poor
- Editing, review, revisions and final delivery
The two stages with the greatest variance are approvals and weather. Some zones require a longer preparation period, and flights cannot proceed safely in strong wind or rain. We recommend agreeing a reserve date at the outset rather than compressing the schedule.
What drives the quote
- Shooting duration and travel distance
- The aircraft and equipment configuration required, including any specialised sensors
- The complexity of the approval process and whether night filming is involved
- The volume of editing and the number of revision rounds
- Crew size and the level of on-site safety control needed
Two projects both described as a single day of filming can differ substantially in price on these grounds. When collecting quotes from several providers, align the scope on the same basis before comparing. Whether handling of approvals and editing are included has a particularly large effect on the number.
Getting the footage you actually wanted
Disappointment after a shoot almost always traces back to insufficient agreement beforehand. Sharing reference clips or sketches of the shots you have in mind prevents time being wasted on site, and it bridges any language gap far more reliably than a written brief. Settle the delivery format, file sizes, storage medium and the number of permitted revisions before the contract. Agreeing the scope and duration of usage rights for the footage also prevents disputes later, which matters if the material will be reused across regions or by a parent company abroad.
Light Beyond Drones is a drone academy based in Seo-gu, Daejeon, and also a provider of aerial filming and industrial drone solutions. Because we run licence training alongside live field work, we can handle the airspace check, flight approval, aerial photography permit and on-site safety management in one place. Tell us the purpose and the location and we will start by advising whether it is feasible and how the project would proceed — you are welcome to enquire in English.
References
This article draws on the following government and public-agency sources. Laws and examination standards can be revised, so please check the original pages before you apply.
