Often when we look at a Real Estate Video or any video for that matter its very easy to see whether we like or dislike it.
However it is often useful for us to learn what went into the making of the video in terms of gear used, challenges, pricing and so on. I recently did the video below for a client and thought it would useful to break it down to show you gear used, issues, pricing and so on.
The Video
The Client brief
To me this is often the most critical part of your video production process and can make or break the success of your video.
As I often preach in my Real Estate Video Bootcamp course I always ask my client (usually the Realty agent) “What are we selling?”
In this case it was the views to the mountains and the modern architectural style of the home.
It is then simply your job as the videographer to show that in your video and you should come away with a happy client!
I also asked the client whether they wanted a more formal or modern pacey style to the video and they wanted a upbeat pacey style. This led me to shooting it exclusively on the handheld gimbal.
Equipment Used
Panasonic GH5
Panasonic Leica 8-18mm lens
Panasonic Leica 12-60mm lens
Moza Air Gimbal
DJI Inspire 2 with X5S running the Olympus 12mm lens
Shot in NTSC 1080 60p using the Natural Picture profile with Contrast, Sharpness & Saturation dialed back.
Music from Artlist.io
The biggest change for me in this shoot is I actually shot the whole job in the NTSC video format and not my usual Pal format which is the native format to New Zealand.
I did this as I wanted to shoot in 1080 60p on my GH5 on the gimbal and edit it on a 24p timeline. This would enable me to use a 2.5 slow motion effect 60p/24p = 2.5
If I was shooting in my native Pal 50p format on a 1080 25p timeline I can only get a 2 X slow motion effect. That sounds all very techy I know.
The risk was thou shooting in a NTSC frame rate in a Pal country is that you can sometimes get light flicker in your shots due to our different power (50hz power).
However I didn’t get any light flicker or problems when shooting.
Shooting & Editing Time
It took me approximately 1.5 hours to shoot and 1.5 hours to edit and upload for client approval.
Issues
We are in mid winter here in New Zealand at the time of shooting this video which means we get a very low but soft sun. This leads to very contrasty light inside the house with bright sunlight and shadow areas which can be tricky to expose correctly for.
The other problem with shooting at this time of year here is that the south side of the properties is very dark and often covered with frost which is not what the client want to see in the video.
I concentrated my drone shots pretty much exclusively to the North sunny side of the property.
Another issue I had here was that this property was situated near a skydiving operation and drone permissions were only granted when the skydiving plane wasn’t airborne. I had to liaise with both the local airport and the skydiving operation and only had a 1 hour window when they weren’t flying at 12:30pm!!
Price
This job I did for a new reduced post COVID19 pricing structure and did it for NZ$650 (approx US$420) including the drone stills.
Client Happy?
I had to do one small change in the video and add in an extra view shot but the client appeared to be happy with the result and signed it off.
I have been losing work from this client to a competitor who charges almost half of what I do and includes the stills pictures as well and he actually does a good job. I don’t wish to get into a price competition with this competitor so I am sticking to my guns with my pricing and product and will see how it pans out.
Was I happy?
As I mentioned above it was a bit of an experiment shooting in the NTSC format so I could get the 2.5 slow motion effect. To my eye it was ok but I can see a little bit of jitter or not as smooth slow motion as I’m use to getting when shooting in my normal frame rates.
This could be the result of stretching the slow motion 2.5 times and playing it back on a 24p timeline!
At the end of the day I was satisfied with the video but not thrilled about it.
I find the craft and art of video production is one of those things where we are never fully satisfied with our results and the job is never really finished. There is always something we could tweak when editing or do differently next time but that is the nature of the beast and I believe we just have to accept that and move on.
As always if you have any comments or thoughts leave them below.
Happy Shooting.
Hi Grant, I thought the overall video was great. I really didn’t notice the slow motion lag until you mentioned it. It’s not easily discernible. Truth be told, I wasn’t a big fan of the music starting and stopping but that is just my opinion. Overall great job!
Thank you.
I know what you mean about never being fully satisfied, I call it the Creators Curse.
Very impressed you’re able to edit that in 1.5 hours, I’m still learning the intricacies of editing video so this would have taken me a solid 6 hours minimum.
Did the extra fps using NTFS vs PAL really make that much of a difference to your slow-mo smoothness?
I love the extra close up reveal of the wine storage behind the stairwell, clever!
Your price seems on point, maybe even a little cheap considering the quality end result you deliver.
Yes overall I really don’t think there was much in it between shooting 50p or 60p with the intention of slowing it done when editing. Cheers
Hi Grant
You did an awesome job with this video. The angles are fresh and creative, the light is great and the details fabulous. Some of your transitions were impressive as well. But the one thing that bothered me, that I get in my own footage when I slow it down, is that it seems to jump from frame to frame. I really thought you had shot in 30 frames and then slowed it down. I’m shocked that you shot in 60 frames and the footage still isn’t smooth. It really shouldn’t be like that then. I think the solution here is to not slow down the footage! Just go slowly and steadily through scene after scene. Your price is very low, I think. Your work is worth so much more. Especially on an expensive house like this. Continue your great work. When I grow up, I’ll try to be as good as you! (I’m only 60 now…)
Yes I think you are right and footage played back at the same frame rate it was shot at should always look the nicest! And yes working on getting the price back up! Cheers
You may find your shutter speed is causing 60 dropped to 30 or 50 to 24 is causing the ‘jumps’, I always opts to “interpret as” in premiere and if I tweak the speeds any other way I’d use ‘optical flow’ to prevent the stuttering
HI Grant, Tack sharp. Admirable edit though you know I’m no fan of speed ramps (probably cos I have no skill there), and the music is a bold choice (again, I’m superannuated). I didn’t even notice any lag as I was imagining how to adapt to living is a glass house. I liked your summary of work flow. When I was an independent in tourism, I always held out for the suggested fee as prescribed by our union; others worked for less, usually ending up with the cheap jobs. Experience shows, and Quality sells itself.
Hi Alan – yes I tried to match the music and style for the agents as both were young guys who like the speed ramp rock n roll style for want of a better description! Cheers
Grant, the more I watch your videos the more I’m falling in love with New Zealand! Such nice work… I just noticed you didn’t turn on things like the fan or the hot tub. Any reason for this?
Ha – I normally try and turn the hot tubs on but couldn’t find the power switch to turn this one on and there was no one around to find it for me!
Grant, great wee video. Cant believe the price, waaay too cheap @ $650. Put your prices up and do less videos & become super exclusive. If you dont mind, who pays you, the Vendor or the Agent?
PS. I noticed a messy power lead under the bed
PPS. Please share more of these breakdowns.
I’m working on getting those rates up and the messy power leads around beds always seem to escape my notice!
Hey Grant, great job on the video…didn’t notice the shakiness that much in the video. I’m also dealing with that issue… I think which is due to a very old computer! Ran into a couple of friends of yours from your home town when we were in New Zealand. They thought you were platinum for what you do…just passing the local love. Best to ya!
Thanks Alan
Grant, Loved the video and I bought the course too.
Love the properties you shoot and i’m also in love with New Zealand.
The only thing is the music. Maybe i’m too old but the jerky stop start is a bit stressful.
I’d still buy the house though.
Yes, super job as always.
Cheers
Hello grant – thank you for sharing. I think the upbeat style matched the contemporary house. I love the way you shoot and compose/edit your video – transitions were great. Quite magical to this novice eye. Your local realtors are too lucky to receive such masterpieces. I hope your competition sees the light and starts to charge a fair service fee.
Thanks Jim – I’ll keep working on my local realtors. Cheers
Hi Grant – your video is really good and really appreciate your openess with all the information relating to this video. The pricing, the equipment used, the equipment settings etc. I have been a silent follower for a number of years and have always appreciated your learned opinions, techniques, equipment reviews etc.
This video has many interesting aspects, shooting in NTSC, viewpoints etc. I didnt notice any lag but have a question for you, several editing programs have “smoothing” adjustment abilities/settings. You dont mention using these in post – be interested to hear your comments.
Keep up the “great work” – I mention your website to many people in the industry (a lot are already followers)
Thanks Neill – appreciate the comment. I haven’t had a whole lot of luck with the smoothing adjustments except for when I need to stabilise the video footage and FCPX and Premiere Pro can both do that well. Making sure you match your frame rates with your project frame rate seems to be the best rule of thumb I have found. Cheers
Thanks Grant for your reply. Yes matching frame rates is pretty important.
Hey Grant, great video. It’s your artistic shots that I especially notice and it reminds me to think outside the box and incorporate more of those on my shoots…it turns an average vid into something special. Just a question on your GH5…does a camera’s low light performance help balance the inside/outside exposure or is that more to do with the strength of sunlight outside like you mentioned in this video? Most of my vids are shot between 11am and 3pm, mostly so that the colours in the landscape have more depth with the overhead sun, but unfortunately it also ramps the contrast. Thanks.
Hi Liz – no a cameras low light performance won’t generally help high contrast shots such as those between light and dark spaces. Thats more a function of the cameras latitude capabilities or dynamic range. You hear camera manufacturers talking about a cameras ability to capture 12 or 14 stops of dynamic range but in my experience althou it can definitely help they still have a ways to go before they can capture a shot with bright sun and dark interiors. Cheers
Ok thanks Grant, that’s good to know.
Hey Grant, in the middle of your course. Great stuff!. Your work is always great and I learn a lot from viewing your vids. Question; Unless I missed it there looks to be no front door entrance shot. This seems to me to be a key shot. Is it not needed?
I don’t always do front doors and in this case this properties front door was a large dark door in the shade so choose not to shoot it. Cheers
I agree with most of the comments above. The video shows as all your work does, that you are a master craftsman of video especially RE video. And you are so able to modify your shooting style to suit the requirements of your clients from the more traditional and relaxing to the more jazzy, modern style without giving in to gimmicks for the sake of gimmicks. It is tricky to separate our personal preferences from those job specifications we have to provide whether we personally like them or not. You manage that perfectly. I do not. My own preferences get in my way of removing myself from the way I am shooting. My failing. So your use of fast cuts, short clips, speed ramps, jarring music and all are executed to perfection. What you also always do which is not that common I have found, is communicating a whole bunch of information as well as ambience and setting of the property. We know what it looks like, we know what it feels like to be there, we know what the architecture is and the interior design along with how bathrooms connect with bedrooms etc. And we can appreciate just how well you succeeded since you laid out the job requirements here in advance and identified the problems you were dealing with. Frankly I really liked the mirror surface of the hot tub where you could easily see the jets inside as well as the environment reflected in that mirror surface as a second reading. And what a great use of a TV as a design element in the shot when it would otherwise be a big, black rectangular hole on a wall. I had no problem at all with the effect of frame rates, slowed down clips and other technical issues you pointed out. These make a big difference to those perfectionists of us, but we also have to remember that the target market are not other videographers, but people wanting to know what the property looks and feels like and our clients who want their selling/marketing points well covered.
As far as your pricing goes, for your quality and professionalism, I think you under charge. But I know also that the market can determine pricing. Something is only as valuable as a buyer considers it to be. What really has affected and bothers me is the cut-throat under cutting of many of the new players in the field of RE video and stills. I have been constantly under cut here in my market and I am only holding on to a few clients who are willing to pay for what they like about how I shoot that in their minds is worth paying more for especially for my stills work. So with Covid having cut into everyone’s work flow, I am finding many or most clients simply have no choice but to buy video/photography on price as long as the quality is good enough. Depressing. But since I put a lot of time into my post production, shooting for less is not an option. So this is moving me into semi-retirement a bit before when I wanted to buy way past most people’s retirement age. Such is life.
Thanks Peter – pricing is a tricky one and I still advocate sticking to your guns on that one. I have found also in the past if I drop my price not only am I earning less but I get dissatisfied I am not earning what I think the job is worth and end up feeling resentful about the job!! Life’s too short for that!