(upbeat electronic music)
- Hey, guys, what's going on?
This is Seth from the REtipster blog.
In this video, I want to talk to you
about 5 EPIC drone shots that can do
a great job of making just about any property look amazing.
When you're shooting a video or pictures of a property
with a drone, it doesn't take a genius
to just take the drone, fly back a little ways,
point it at the property and shoot.
I mean, anybody can do that,
there's nothing special about that,
but I have discovered as I've been playing
with my drone for the past several months,
that there are a few shots that look good
on pretty much ANY property, and it has a lot to do
with being able to fly the drone in a certain pattern,
and usually moving it very slowly,
and tilting the camera in certain directions.
If you shoot these shots just right,
they can do an amazing job
at making you look like you're
some kind of Hollywood movie producer,
because they look so smooth
and really show the property in its best possible light.
So in this video, I'm going to show you five of the shots
that I've kind of nailed down as being
standard requirements for every property.
As I think you're going to see, they look pretty great,
and it doesn't take a
professional drone pilot to do this.
With just a little bit of practice,
you can most likely achieve these same kinds of results too,
so stick around and I'll show you
what I've come up with.
So this first shot, I call "The Descent"
because the idea is to just start above the property
and slightly in front of it (or behind it),
and then slowly lower the drone down
while you're tilting the camera up,
so you can track with the property
and get a nice, well-rounded view
of the top and the side.
Anybody can fly over a property
without changing the direction of the camera,
but once you start developing and using your skills
as a cinematographer, it can have a major and lasting effect
on the final presentation of the property.
A nice variation of this shot is to do the exact same thing,
but start from the ground and then move up,
tilting the camera down.
Kind of gives a nice alternative view
of the property that way.
Both of these shots will give your footage
a really nice cinematic and professional look
because it actually requires some coordination to do.
Not much, but a little bit.
This next one is probably the easiest shot in the list
because all you have to do is point the camera directly down
and fly over the property,
and whenever you use the overhead shot, you can start by
hovering low over the focal point of the property,
and then move the drone higher in altitude
while doing a very slow rotation,
and it's very important to do this slowly
if you want it to have that nice, cinematic look.
I like this shot because it introduces new surroundings
and it's an exciting and interesting
visual experience for the viewer.
Another way to shoot the overhead shot
is to simply start at one end of the property
and fly to the other side,
as if you're sort of traveling over it.
This shot isn't necessarily the most informative
because it only shows the property's roof and footprint,
kind of like a survey, but it's a nice way
to add a perspective of the property
that isn't typically seen with other shots
in this type of video.
Probably one of my favorite shots on this list
is what I call the spotlight or the horizontal spotlight.
The objective behind this shot
is to fly horizontally around the house or the lot
or the building, while keeping the camera locked
on the focal point of the property.
And this kind of camera movement,
it actually requires a bit of skill
because you'll have to coordinate the timing
of how fast you move around the property
with how quickly you pan the camera
to stay locked on the property itself.
And I will say that some drones out there
actually have a spotlight tracking feature,
which allows you to lock onto any moving object
like a car or a person, and the camera will stay
locked on that point regardless of where you fly.
In my experience, these systems have a harder time
locking onto objects like buildings
because they don't move, but nevertheless,
if you're able to get your drone camera
to recognize a house or a building
as your focal point of your shot,
this could potentially make the process much easier for you.
This next shot I refer to as the reveal,
and this is a great way to open or close
any real estate video.
In this shot, the idea is to simply approach the property
from a distance and eventually fly over it
while keeping the camera on the property.
And again, this is one that will take
a reasonable amount of coordination,
though with a little bit of practice,
you'll find it's not terribly difficult,
especially if you have the responsiveness of your camera
adjusted to be slower, which will make
the camera movement much less jerky.
I use this one all the time, and every time I see it,
it always makes me sit back and just say, wow,
that looks awesome.
The great thing about this shot is that in many cases,
you can also reverse the clip,
and it's more of a backwards flyover,
which keeps the spotlight on the property.
Whenever I get this shot right, it doesn't really matter
whether I play it forwards or backwards,
it looks awesome all the time.
So this is definitely a good one to include in your videos.
And the last important shot is what I call the slider,
and the idea behind this shot is to put the camera
at a level anywhere from six to 20 feet up in the air,
and just very slowly pan the camera back and forth
around the property, and the effect that we're going for
is to give the viewer a perspective as if they're walking
or driving around the property themselves,
so it kind of gives them that on-site feel
like they're standing right there,
looking at the property with their own eyes.
It's a really nice shot, has a really cool perspective,
and I just think it's a great one
to include in your videos whenever possible.
(upbeat electronic music)
All right, guys, that's it.
Those are five of my favorite drone shots.
I'd say probably the biggest challenge with this
is the sensitivity of the controls on your drone.
Some drones act a little bit differently than others,
and ultimately I think what I struggle the most with
was just going slow enough so that it really gave the camera
a good opportunity to capture every angle of the property
that I was getting as I flew by.
I think that's probably the biggest challenge,
that's probably the biggest thing I still struggle with
when I'm doing this, but if you can pull it off,
it does a pretty amazing job, so hopefully that was helpful,
thanks so much for watching, and I wish you all the best
with your next real estate drone video.
See you.