I always find making real estate videos of bare land the toughest to do. This is usually because you don’t have a beautiful house as a centre of interest for your video. After all bare land is bare land!
Essentially I find you have to sell the features or benefits of buying this land for the potential purchaser. For example location and views from the land and if possible other features of the area whether it be lifestyle or perhaps proximity to shops or highways for commuting. I could just be price for example!
This particular video was for a developer who is selling large lots on a private gated sub-division and obviously (hopefully obviously or else I didn’t do my job very well!) its main selling points is the beautiful views to mountains and lake and its alpine setting.
I was commissioned to do approximately 9 short videos of the lots for sale which are then embedded on the developers website for the sub-division so as the potential buyers can click on a video link for each of the lots that are for sale. This then gives the potential purchaser a feel for the views from each particular lot and the contours of the land.
Equipment used
All the aerial video was shot on my DJI Inspire 2 with the 12mm lens and Polarpro ND8 filter.
Ground shots were shot on my Panasonic GH5 on a tripod and and slider.
The Client is always right!
The finished video you see here was the 5th iteration of the edit. The client was very particular with what they were after including choosing the music after rejecting my first two attempts, and adding dissolves as my first versions were cuts only.
Also you may have noticed a small grey dot that appears briefly to indicate the building platform which was also the clients choice after again rejecting my more obvious marker I used in the first version! He wanted a very subtle marker that appears briefly.
In the end the client was very happy and I would have done it a little different if I had been left to my own devices but as the saying goes….”The client is alright right”
I think the imagry is fantastic.
The music does not work for me.
The grey dot?
I’m not sure how much of the land is for sale. But, it looks like a great location.
Yes it wouldn’t have been my pick either or the grey dot!
Do you compress your videos for smoother playback?
I just use a standard compression for uploading to the web from Final Cut Pro X, that file size was approx 86mb.
Hi, Grant! Thank you for sharing. I myself originate from real estate & land development so I understand the Customer’s requests. Mainly developers are not so good explaining what they want visually. But finally in many cases it is only after several options and rejections that they become quite clear how they want their land or building to be presented. They say “Yes thats it” and become quite happy.
Love the way you shoot and teach.
Cheers from Moscow
I always find it a bit of a back and forth between what I like and what the client wants and I do like it when the client has a strong vision of what they want. Cheers
Beautifully done as always Grant. And you have such fabulous views to work with; the snow covered mountains, lots of nice reflective water. I notice that winter sort of browns out the native grasses, a problem we have here in California when the first heat of summer or early summer these days starts to hit. Winter is our green time if we get rains so most sellers of land only, try to market (shoot) their bare land during this time of the year. And I think you have nailed it on the head about the “Life Style you will enjoy if you buy/build here” approach. Thank God for drones or those fabulous views would be much harder to capture in such a short time. I am long past the days when I could hike up hill and mountain sides to get those great shots.
Am I right that you have a video out on how to create property lines that move with the video as you fly by, across or toward a parcel? I get the feeling that your client would not have been happy with that approach but many of my clients would. In a world of Attention Deficit Syndrome, they realize that you have to use a cricket bat to get the idea across quickly while keeping the high end photo quality. Communication speed is vital in this day and age.
Thanks for this, it is an inspiration as always.
Thanks Peter and yes I agree “thank god for drones”
I assume this is New Zealand? It would be helpful to mention the location.
Yes it is in New Zealand, in the South Island near a small town called Glenorchy.
“The customer is ALWAYS right.” (You do need someone to proofread your stuff. There are other errors.) HOWEVER…The better saying is, “The customer always comes FIRST”, since the customer is NOT always right.
Awesome result you ended up with after droning that piece of land. Amazing nature…
Wait, I didn’t notice a McDonalds. Perhaps a blue dot? (So how much are they asking for that lot and what does it cost to build a cozy little home with all-weather deck in NZ?)
I’d be guessing but I don’t think you would be getting much change out of $1.5 million just for the lot!