How to make Simple & Professional Real Estate Videos, by Taylor Brown

So today we are doing a real estate shoot and I wanted to show y ‘all my tricks to doing these things really, really efficiently. So the most efficient way possible, the most simple way possible and most consistent way possible.

So no matter what skill level you’re at, this is going to be helpful for you. And of course, if you know me, towards the end of the video, we’re going to do some more advanced fun creative stuff too.

So make sure to stick around for that now. Thanks so much for joining. Now let’s get into it. So this video is sponsored by Epidemic Sound, which is the best place in my favorite place to get your soundtracks for your real estate videos and your sound effects for your real estate videos.

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So really great way to try it out, level up your videos and not spend any money, no risk to you. Anyways, we’ll talk more about them later, show you some of the cool features, but let’s get into the gear.

So simply put, got a gimbal, got a camera with an ultra wide 16 to 35 lens, full frame equivalent, and that’s it. So just got to load this up here and then should be good to go. I’ve got this always on pan follow mode.

That way it stays straight and keeps the horizon locked. Pan tilt follow is also great for more creative shots but pan follow is all I really need. So I’m gonna be using the gimbal like this, like this, under slung mode to get some lower shots and we’re good to go.

Alright so here’s how I’ve got my settings set so we’re gonna go to 59 frames per second. We’re shooting in log and as you can see the waveform looks like that so that’s about how I want it to look when we’re outside so never getting all the way to 100.

If you just got a histogram that’d be all the way to the right side it’ll look like it’s too far to the right and it would be clipping. We’re at our native ISO 800, switch to 5600 Kelvin for the white balance, we’re in C log.

I’m gonna add some ND like that to change the exposure. Once we’re outside, it’s gonna be a lot brighter than it is in here. That’s it. If your camera doesn’t have built -in NDs, you need a variable ND for your outside shots.

So got one of those in here. So I got one of these like this. This Polar Pro one’s really good. Two to five stops right here. And that’s pretty much it. So let’s go get some shots because apparently it’s supposed to thunderstorm in an hour, even though right now it’s nice and sunny.

All right, so before we start getting these outside shots, what we got to do is get our essential coverage. So that’s the whole point of this video. Keep things essential. Keep things minimal and simple and streamlined.

So all we’re gonna do is divide the whole house inside and outside into sections. So label each room as a section. So front house, back house, backyard, back of house, patio, interior rooms that like this that are open, divide it up into sections.

So living area, kitchen, dining area, and then obviously bedrooms, bathrooms, and view from above the stairs. So for this house, that’s all the sections we need. And what we’re gonna do is work our way through all of them getting a push and shot.

So pretend like you’re doing a virtual tour and you’re walking into that area. Keep the camera focused. Keep the viewer focused. That’s it. 10 to 15 second clips per shot. If it’s a big enough area or if it justifies this, we’re gonna get a shot from a corner doing either a panning shot if you’re very, very new or we’re gonna do a parallax shot.

So moving the gimbal side to side while keeping it centered on the same subject in the same part of the frame. That’s the gist of this video. Keep things really, really simple. keep things really really watchable and smooth and where they make sense you’re gonna be making good real estate videos in no time.

Check out that view though. Super cool spot. Somebody’s mowing right over there so hopefully that doesn’t mess up our audio but man very very pretty scenic little spot. Alright so we’re I’m in four stops of ND and I am going to just do a easy easy push -in shot.

We’re just going back as far as we can getting as long of a shot as we can. Center it on the house. Okay that looks great. It’s easy. Now we’re gonna go over and get some shots of this. Hangout area overlooking the field then we’re going to get some of the balcony area And that’s about it We could go really far away and zoom in on the backside of the house But I think we’ll probably be able to get that with the drone and there’s some tractor guy Mowing all that right now.

So kind of looks crazy so That’s that I’m just gonna stick to the wide shots right now Just focusing on the most important part Nice so we can frame this up with these trees nicely Just kind of glide into there Nice might be a little bit bright because the Sun popped out.

I’m gonna try that one more time With a little more indie added. All right, let’s go I’m gonna get shot from over here looking back at the house too. I always like to get some stuff both ways so just gonna do a Nice parallax shot just like We did on the front of the house I Switch into 24 millimeters feel a little bit more control over the You get a push -in shot from this corner too Also from here I can block some of that truck Which is very good now at 3 .5 so This is gonna look really good.

I’m just gonna do a parallax slight slow shot slider shot we can use this These rock turning into cut around element that’s moving as I move in the frame That looked great. Okay, now I’m just going to go straight towards the house.

So we’ll have options in the edit. Trying to be careful walking. This looks really good. So I’m going back to 24. So I’m just going to do another simple shot. Sun came back out so I’m going down to 4.

Aperture looks really good. I’m just kind of sintering it and then popping up. This is like a cool, slow rise shot. So still a push -in shot but add a little bit of a rise. That can make it look really good.

Same composition, just doing a parallax. Alright, so more or less a lot of… pushing shots into different areas every single area and then a parallax shot from the opposite view or the same view if it can add something to the video and That’s all you really need.

So Might get a few more shots real quick while it’s still sunny and Then we’re gonna do all the same stuff on the inside now. I’m gonna get a few shots of this nice seating area and Might even go back down there and get a shot looking down at the house just in case it rains But pretty simple There’s a bunch of stuff over here by the door.

So I’m not gonna get a shot of the doorway. It’s not that important Or nice on this listing Also another thing to keep in mind If you’re wearing sunglasses while you’re looking at other screens and stuff kind of messes up the brightness So you got to always check your histogram so for this area, I’m going back down to my two stops of Indy and we are still at F4 so we should get lots of detail And it should look nice.

So I’m just gonna do a straight shot Walking through this area Nicely framed and centered On those posts We keep going through this almost like an FPV drone Okay Think that was good Now I’m just gonna come around this corner Watching the window making sure I don’t show up in it I’ll come around the corner Show this patio area It’s not that great of a shot so I think I’m just gonna do a panning shot instead.

So just gonna start towards the right, go to the left pretty slowly, show some of the view. We always cut from that to drone shot or a view shot that we might get later. Alright so what you can do to get a little bit more in your shots is zoom in.

So I tried to get a shot of this couch but it didn’t really look that great because too many of the same colors. So I’m gonna go back and get a shot of this bench just kind of going up and down a little bit.

Really really simple camera movements. Might add a little bit of parallax painting left to right but should be pretty good. We can get some of the blue ridge in the background. Just a simple little thing like that.

It’s too big, it’s not sunny. Oh well, I’m gonna get a few more shots from down there looking back to the house just in case it starts raining and I’m not able to do the drone. Once we do the interior, we’ll see.

Okay, actually found a cool shot on my way down. Always be keeping an eye out. So we’re just getting a shot walking down this walking path. Oh man, this almost twisted my ankle. If you can hear that, I think it was still good.

Hey guys, down here now. So here we go. Wow, this side of the house is really pretty. I think I realize how cool looking this would be. All right, so typical plan. Use trees as foreground elements. I’m gonna zoom into 24.

I always feel like that looks more, you know, picturesque, accurate. I’m starting to point it up a little bit and we’re just doing a nice slow push in. Okay, that was pretty good. Same thing. Just got to fly towards the house.

A little bit better, more controlled. Staying centered on that door area, keeping that looking pretty good. Now we’re good for the basics for the exterior. All right, so since we’re talking about essentials, we’re only getting what we need.

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I use this stuff for all my client work, all my YouTube videos, and I think you’re going to like it too. Alright, I’m changing up my order a little bit because it’s supposed to be raining in 30 minutes.

And after that, it might be stuck with zero opportunities. So got my drone out, got an ND number 4 on it so I can use a low aperture. Get a little more cinematic looking shots. We should be good to go and get this stuff knocked out real quick.

So the whole goal for the drone shots, we’re going to do the same thing. We’re going to get push -in shots straight towards the house, the front and the back. Then we’re going to get each corner, so right left on each side, and be doing a parallax shot kind of orbiting around the whole property.

So you can see all the property lines and all that stuff. And then we’re going to also look around and see if there’s any mountain views or anything interesting that we can get to add to the video to give some context to the listing.

So I think we’re doing okay. All right, so I’m just going to set up from here. Pretty decent spot. When I’m doing the front of the house, I’ll walk around there so I can keep the line of sight on it from there, of course, and be safe.

Number one priority. Okay, so for this drone, I’m going to go 4K 30fps, white balance 5500, pretty much all the same settings as the other camera. I’m just doing video, so I’m going to stick to 2 .8 if I can, aperture ISO 100, cleanest image, shutter 150th of a second, and should be good.

A little bit bright. Actually, 160th of a second. Go with 7 .1 to get that exposure proper. So I’m going to go back as close as I can to this tree. And push in to the house. you I got hide inside. The weird school shot.

Alright, so we’re hiding over here. I can see the drone. You’re already seeing me through the window. Alright, just real simple push in, just like we did on the inside shot. Okay, so that was what we wanted.

So now, stop the sensor, jeez. We’re above the trees, so we’re safe. Make sure my car’s not in there. Alright, let’s see, there we go. Real simple shot. I’m just doing a parallax from the corner to show that outside areas.

Nice, that looks good. Nice and steady. Okay, save, save, save. Alright, that was good enough. Always scoping out the tree line before I move at all, because I do not want to lose my room. Okay, we’re good right there.

Okay. Just parallax, keeping the house in the center. And… Doing a corner shot. Okay. I’m gonna get a shot going towards these mountains that are close to the house. There we are, nice. Looks like a good view, because I can see the rain coming in now.

Geez. Always get unlucky with these behind the scenes videos. Alright, simple, simple, just push away, push towards the mountains and elevate the drone a little bit. Another parallax shot from higher up.

Keeping an eye on it. Much better way to show the whole yard than what we did from the ground level. Alright, now I’m gonna get a shot flying towards the house from the trees. There we go. This should be cool.

And I forgot, I need to go into cinematic mode, that always makes my shots better. Alright, here we go. So I’m just gonna do a push in. Try not to hit the trees, obviously. Flying in. We’re gonna go a little bit lower.

Okay great. I think that was good. Going back up. Wait from the house. I’m just gonna check if there’s a good scenic view. Alright here’s just a shot of the area, the road. Nice little country area. Just a push in.

Nothing complicated. Let’s do kind of a parallax shot showing the top of the house. So just simple. We got the top of the house. You see the driveway a little bit. These usually look pretty good. Cut into the edit.

Just doing a parallax showing the front yard and the top of the house. Simple simple. And not showing my car. Usually I park down the street but there’s no option for this place. Alright, other corner, a little bit.

It looks pretty cool with the trees all blowing. Even though it’s not sunny, other things can end up looking really cool in video. you All right, drum retrieved. So now we’re done with this guy. So just got to pack this up.

Maybe if the weather is better later or tomorrow morning while I’m still here I’ll get some more shots to add into the video. But I got some really cool stuff. All right, so back in the Pelican case for these guys.

See if I’ve got my other NDs from PolarPro. Could have gone with 8 or 16 probably. With that amount of ambient light. But that’s why it’s good to have the options. Back into hiding. Stay hydrated. All right.

I don’t think this is going to get old. Come back to life. All right, onto the interiors. I have a circular polarizer I forgot to mention. I was using it on the outside shots because it helps you get a little more saturated colors because it cuts down the glares on plants and stuff or on the house.

But for the inside, since we are in some low light territory right here, I’m going to go ahead and take it off because it takes away a little bit of the light and we are going to adjust our settings for the inside.

So the main difference is going to be going to switch to 30 frames per second just because it’s a lot easier to get cleaner shots. 30 frames per second because you can have a slower shutter speed. and lighted more light, etc.

It’s looking like I’m gonna have to switch my ISO… might go with 1600. Oh, just kidding. I’ve got two stops of ND on. Alright, so we got that. And I’m going to switch my Y balance to 4650. So we got mixed lighting.

That usually works pretty well. 46 to 4800. And I’m just sticking with 2 .8 aperture. Because I like how it looks. You can go sharper if you want to with a higher number. But for me, I like it. We’re gonna do the exact same strategy as before, where we are gonna get literally a push -in shot or a parallax shot for each section of the house.

So we got dining, we got kitchen, we got living, we got a bedroom, bathroom, upstairs. Those are all sections of the house. So if it’s an open floor plan like this, I like to Think about it in sections and divide it up so that you make sure you get enough shots to show Each area at its best for bigger areas like this I’ll get a shot from the other corner doing a parallax shot showing the view looking back as well Really helps show the floor plan and it’s just a good practical useful shot.

So Yes, also, I’ve been sick so if my voice sounds, you know a little weird, that’s why so Not sure where I can put the camera to hide it while I do this but We’ll see and we’re in action Another thing you could do to stream like a process even more is while you’re shooting if you want to you could Shoot everything in order how you want to edit it then That’s just gonna make your editing even easier doing it chronologically as opposed to having to you know Reorganize it re -remember things when you’re on your computer or if you have an editor but for me I make bins and organize everything before I edit so Doesn’t really matter that much, but just a little tip you might like So here we go I’m just watching out for my car in that window.

So obviously I could move it too, but For this sake, I’m just gonna start here. So I’m just doing a parallax shot Pushing the shot and actually it’s not that good. So this is all uneven the window is not lined up with the table That’s what I’m talking about.

So this is a lot better a lot more symmetrical I’m just gonna match these chairs up. So I’m just gonna do a push and shot straight towards this. This is much better actually You can see the window super nice Super nice shot.

So we’re just going flashlight mode going Okay, nice. Backwards, always do it backwards just in case it looks better. Okay, this gimbal makes it easy. I’m just going to do a side or shot back and forth, holding the button on my gimbal so that it doesn’t move.

And that’s all. Now, onto the kitchen. So same thing, push and shot, center everything up, get all your verticals nice and straight looking. And this one’s a lot easier to do starting here. So I’m going to do that.

Holding the button so that it stays perfectly straight. We can also get a parallax shot from here. Okay. The exposure is all the same for all these shots. So I’m not having to change anything by the way.

All right, so I’m just doing a parallax to show the bar and everything. Maybe I’ll start in, I’ll do a push out and parallax. So a little more complex, but it makes for a cooler edit. All right, so that works, that works, that works.

Now, it’s not bad. So I’m just going to do a focus on the appliances. And I’m just going to do a side to side slider shot. We’re going to get a push in shot from here. For all the other rooms, I’m not going to do this many, but kitchens and…

kitchens and living areas are basically the selling point for houses. So got to get them really, really well covered. Now we’re going to get this side. So same thing, we’re just going to go ahead and get a push in entry to the room.

So probably this is a good one right here. Get in as far as we can and keep that straight as we can the whole time. That looks really cool. That looks good. So we can get one from this side too, because that’s kind of how you enter the house.

I always want to show that experience as you walk in and look up and amazement of the house, how cool it is. So I’m actually going to curve a little bit on this one. So centering it. There you go. The reason I panned a little bit while I was doing that push in is in order to keep it composed, keep your viewer focused on the room that we’re actually trying to show off.

If I went in straight, it would have looked like this or something and that’s just kind of not really leading you anywhere. So keeping you lead this way to the center of the room and showing those stairs and the windows.

I think that works better. Could have also gone up a little bit to show that high ceiling, but I think we could show that from the other corner. So now you’re going to get one from these stairs. I’m just going to leave this.

Ha, bird outside. So stairs, elevated corners like this are a rare thing that happens sometimes. But it’s always a cool perspective because you can use this as a little bit of foreground to add some interest to the shot.

This gives you a really neat perspective to be able to open up that shot and show how big the room is. So I’m just going to do a parallax shot like that. And I’m kind of going down a tiny bit too to keep it just like we were saying a second ago focused on the room.

If it’s too high, sometimes it’s like, what is this shot showing? But if you keep it lower, it focuses it on that room. So we’re going for simple and that’s all the simple stuff. I think one more must is doing a push in straight towards the fireplace.

Always, always do that if you can. Line it up, make sure your verticals look good and all that stuff. I’m going to go back down into, I don’t know, this is called briefcase under slug mode or something.

So just straighten it out and having the second handle makes it so much easier. So just keeping that fireplace centered on the X on my screen. Pushing in. And while I was moving this around, it looked like it’d be cool to do this too, slider shot.

Throwing that in there too. Bedrooms. All right, so our settings are staying pretty much the same. These are a lot darker though. So I’m going to go ahead and turn off this light so that the contrast with this hallway and the inside of the room is not so bad color wise.

Exposure looks really good on the histogram and I really like how it actually looks, everything looks daylight. colored and pretty. So gotta go into tiny mode. So for bedrooms, same thing as the living room I was explaining.

If you go in and have it like turn towards the windows, that’s kind of confusing. What is this room? What is this shot about? I really like to keep it centered on the bed as much as possible and that way you’re leading the viewer through what you want him to see.

And I like to do these lower so that you’re not way higher than the bed and you can see some of the floor. Alright once again, gotta redo it one more time. So starting out straight. It’s a lot easier to do it with this gimbal and keep it like this.

Now that I’m getting more used to it as opposed to being so low to the ground. This thing is really cool So the same thing here. We’re just gonna go Yeah, my bathroom this one’s looking really dark so I think we can Open up the blind And It’s gonna be fine with this Light on we can just change our white balance to 30 237 hundred somewhere in there.

This will be the same if you’re shooting at night You just have Darker green windows kind of cool looking I Can’t tell if I’m in there. So what we can do is just do this same slider shot on Pan tilt follow So we can go from You know this normal view to up here Just a simple pan right to left while tilting up pan until pretty cool simple way to do the transition But now we’re going up We are just gonna go Around this corner get this room change up my settings a little bit 3 .5 Because it’s a little bit brighter stay in focus in the middle of the room All right, so I’m gonna start further back Go straight and then I’m panning into this room Keeping it centered just like always Okay, I’m just gonna do a slider shot like here, so I’m gonna hold the button and Like that looks nice or this.

So you can pretend like you’re living there on the couch. And then we definitely want to make sure to get some shots looking down as well. You can do one just another push -in kind of shot just straight like that.

Like a harsh angle so it’s mostly a top -down shot. It’s a pretty cool shot and then we got the primary bedroom right behind you guys. So I’m gonna do a push -in shot in there. Make sure we show everything.

So I’m gonna have to readjust the settings again because it’s another bedroom that’s darker. So I’m probably going to 2 .8 and then we should be good to go. But going down low again, just so much easier.

So much easier. If you don’t have one of these gimbals or one of these handles like this, it does a game changer and it’s super lightweight too. Definitely worth it for the upgrade. Okay, so this room is actually bigger.

I’ll catch y ‘all in here. Don’t worry. Okay, so this is a weird layout, but basically, you know, we got this area, whole another area over there, and we got a whole sitting area and the bathrooms right there.

So I’m going to get a shot that shows the connection of all of that just to make sure we cover everything. Another thing that would actually work if we’re trying to go really, really simple and swoop in here because that would show the connection to the bathroom, the connection to the upstairs loft area, the window, the giant closet.

Showing connections is definitely important. So opening these doors, opening that kind of stuff up really, really changes the shot. And I’m going to get this window too. I missed it earlier. So it’s got much darker outside since we started shooting.

So we got to wrap this up pretty soon. Decent angle. So it’s literally going to get down into the corner. Make sure we’re at 16. Make sure the settings are good. And just a normal pan shot. This is how I started doing video, was doing pan shots with just a tripod.

So that’s it. Obviously I’m redoing this for the real shot because the camera is right there. But that’s fine. Next, start low, frame it with these walls, fly in, come up a little bit and show that connection.

That’s it. So that’s a wrap on all of the essential shots that you need to get. And this is how I would recommend starting because you can get really, really professional -looking, really consistent -looking results.

And you’re not going to have way too many shots to deal with in editing. You’re not going to be trying too hard to make a cool video. You’re just going to have a simple and effective real estate video.

And that’s essentially the function of all of these. So whether they are more high -tech and complicated and… trendy or if they are super simple and effective, they’re all still serving that function no matter what.

No matter how complicated your moves are, no matter how many different lenses you have, no matter how many different time lapses you do or whatever. The first thing you want to make sure you do is serve the function first.

So if you’re doing that, your client’s probably going to be happy. The other stuff is just when you get bored doing this and you want to level it up, you want to show off to your friends, you want to charge more and so on and so forth.

So at this point, I would normally personally go back and get some more creative shots. So I would switch lenses, get like a 50 millimeter or tighter, maybe 70. If you have a 24 or 70, you could use it for this.

And just go back and get some details honed in on some really, really important selling features like appliances or the house number, the front door area, the patio zoomed in a little bit more would look cool.

And just some kind of magical, fancy looking details. If there’s anything super, super unique about the house, that can work really, really well with the tighter lens. So if you’re still here, thanks so much for watching the video.

And if you’ve been around for a while, your support, obviously you guys know means a ton to me and keeps the channel going. And just want to say once again, big thanks to Epidemic Sound for sponsoring this video, working with them has been great the last year that I’ve been working with them on this behind the scenes series specifically.

So if you haven’t checked out Epidemic Sound already, make sure to check them out. And you can start using that free trial for either the personal plan or the commercial plan for 30 days. But anyways, let me know if you have any questions about any of this stuff and I’ll get back to you ASAP.

So thanks so much for being here. And I look forward to seeing the next one. Peace. Jack out. They’ve got a security camera here so this is probably pretty hilarious to watch. Yeah, I can feel it starting to rain too.

Thank you. Cross the street now. The camera angle is bad I guess. Where I ended up. Yeah, I think so. Waste of time. Not waste any time.