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Shooting, Recording A Real Estate Video Tip 35.

By
Real Estate Agent with MOOERS REALTY ME Broker License 106759

You went over the top in investment with real estate video equipment.

Have all the doo dads, loaded down with arms over flowing leaving the store with the latest gagets. You went all this time, got the A-Z bells and whistle features. Not sure how to use it all but have the receipts and hoping to quickly get knee deep in to real estate video. And whip up some local community productions to deliver information using the eyeballs and the ears.

Tip number 35 for using real full motion video in your real estate operation. Don't think you charge up the video camera, hit the record button to start the blinking red light mode and just race, hand gallop through a property. You can not make a real estate production with continuous running video. Fact. Why?

You remember Jurassic Park when they cleverly show a water filled very large foot print?

In the background louder and louder thud sounds heard and ripples in the water intensify as something very big and bad approaches from out of the field of vision? Vibration, and with a close up shot amplified to the point where your real estate buyer viewing the video panics. Reaches for something, anything to hang on to. Knowing this is going to get bumpy, better belt up.

Real estate buying, selling is an emotional experience, but terror, fear and feeling disoriented is not the roller coaster ride unsettling feeling you want to create in a simple open house cyber tour. A ten second loop of a local event like parade float with little leaguers rolling by is one thing. But the real estate video you are embarking on needs to have a story board of what you are attempting to do. Not a hit record, run through and done operation. You edit the shots, individual loops you set up. You think of the person watching and do the scenes logically flow from outside to inside, room to room? Your start to finish is a series of starts and off camera stops, scene set ups. Or should be.

Not continuous because as they say, the video camera never blinks.

You threw in, captured all the mechanics, the stuff that should never make it to the screen, final production. You want the good, not the bad and ugly to be part of each and every video you broadcast.

So park those feet, pan that scene, stop the camera recording and move to your next shot. You do not want to waste 40 seconds clod hopping up the front walk and fiddling with the front door to open it with your free hand. It is beaucoup awkward.

The viewer feels badly and squirms. Looks around, checks for exits.

You also are chewing up their time. This will be the first and last video you produce that they will ever sit through. Take out the steps between shot set up. Don't walk up stairs either. Pan up the steps from the first floor, resume the next shot with the flow slow and easy so the viewer, listener knows what's up. Hold their hand and guide them from room to room. Talk to them one on one, not scripted or continuously like a Chatty Cathy doll.

Real estate video tip 36 is about spins. When you herky jerky up, down, around, that hokey pokey usuallly makes the real estate buyer back out of the video and high tail it. Or reach for a Dramamine and stick it out maybe for the three stooges entertainment factor of it all. On and off, setting up the scenes in succession for the editing process, then rendering, uploading. Not jumping out of your car, hitting record on the run and racing through a property. Those real estate video productions would be better left undone because they hurt, not help. And embarrass the sellers too.

Comments(9)

Ginny Gorman
RI Real Estate Services ~ 401-529-7849~ RI Waterfront Real Estate - North Kingstown, RI
Homes for Sale in Southern RI and beyond
Andrew, so right...i've seen a number on YouTube for my town on real estate & the only thing you can focus on is the hallway!
Feb 10, 2011 10:45 PM
Cindy Edwards
RE/MAX Checkmate - Johnson City, TN
CRS, GRI, PMN - Northeast Tennessee 423-677-6677

Hi Andy,

I appreciate the tips.  The one thing that hit home with me is the , jerking up and down, that will send my head into a tailspin and have to turn the video off.  Not because I'm not interested, but because I really can't handle it!

Feb 10, 2011 10:55 PM
Andrew Mooers | 207.532.6573
MOOERS REALTY - Houlton, ME
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker

Ginny ... In defense, it is easier to arm chair critique and like anything there is a learning curve. But the sooner real estate agents, brokers, REALTORS embrace real full motion video, the better and better the productions become when the training wheels come off, and you can leave the back yard so to speak! www.youtube.com/mooersrealty is the home of 452 videos of real estate and community glimpses on events like this IBU World Cup Biathlon in Presque Isle Maine, north of me last weekend. The Biathlon continues in Fort Kent Maine through the weekend so come on up. Pretty exciting to hear, see, feel the competition of the world's best cross country, rifle target shooting biathlon atheletes.

Feb 10, 2011 11:00 PM
Andrew Mooers | 207.532.6573
MOOERS REALTY - Houlton, ME
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker

Cindy ... Thanks for popping in for coffee this morning. Black right? There is a 180 degree axis to never cross too. If you shoot across a living room to capture the sliders to the open deck, big yard, your next shot can not be from the other side of the living room looking back, even if explained with the audio. It disorients, Pull them around the room with successful clips. Shorter is better for attention span but leave "handles" going in and out to edit with. Like material cut too short, you can not tack on more without it looking Frankenstein, crude stitches showing. You hide, remove what you don't want to leave in the final cut.

Feb 10, 2011 11:05 PM
Gabe Sanders
Real Estate of Florida specializing in Martin County Residential Homes, Condos and Land Sales - Stuart, FL
Stuart Florida Real Estate

Thanks Andrew.  Some great tips that we can use when and if we finally get into doing videos.  

Feb 10, 2011 11:06 PM
Andrew Mooers | 207.532.6573
MOOERS REALTY - Houlton, ME
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker

Gabe ... The sooner you do, the better they get. Not just for real estate, think of your buyer who has never been to your home town. Knows diddly about it. Wouldn't a video on this, this and this done simply, short and showing the flavor, the spark, the people be powerful? It is not just the sticks and bricks. This video done 3 years ago but has 15500+ views. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wg9x2eKnuQ

Folks need and watch them. Don't think slick 40 million dollar Hollywood production. Think simple, easy, you and your properties, hometown on tour. Not fancy smancy or hoity toity. Home made like food your Grandmother made.

Feb 10, 2011 11:19 PM
Liz and Bill Spear
Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH
Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Andy, Great advice as many of us transition into video.  Listen to the master grasshoppers :)

Feb 11, 2011 02:21 AM
Andrew Mooers | 207.532.6573
MOOERS REALTY - Houlton, ME
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker

L and B ... Grasshopper not so smart, just has more miles of video under his belt. Warning - As you venture in to video your early dog paddle productions will be critiqued the hardest by folks not even doing video. Because if they were, they would feel the pain, know the learning curve. So tune them out. 2nd Warning - Your early videos will be hokey, primitive but so were your dating skills and flirting, courting and sparking when you took your first girl to the movies. 

Feb 11, 2011 02:53 AM
Andrew Mooers | 207.532.6573
MOOERS REALTY - Houlton, ME
Northern Maine Real Estate-Aroostook County Broker

Another video editing tid bit if you have the bug, need a helping hand.

Feb 12, 2011 06:22 AM