If you want to film professional-level real estate footage with your drone, you’ll need to master some filming and video editing skills. Here, we’ll go into the details of this so you can get on your way to becoming a pro at filming aerial videos of real estate.

Start Slow and Steady

The goal of filming real estate is to capture the entire property. Therefore, you should focus on moving your drone slowly during filming to make sure that the viewers will be able to see everything they need to. Make sure not to accelerate or decelerate much, as it will make the footage look choppy and unprofessional.

Slow and steady doesn’t just apply to flying your drone either. Do the same when moving your camera, focusing on steady and slow zooms and pans.

Views to Capture

The next thing to focus on is what views you should get from the sky. Many real estate aerial videos will start from the ground level, showcasing the front of the property and working its way up.

Popular shots also include 360 views around the entire property, making sure to get every aspect. Straight above views are common as well and mix up zooming in and out for both of these views.

You should also film the area surrounding the property because people will most likely be curious. They’d be able to see far off in the distance with the vantage point provided by your drone.

Another thing to keep in mind while filming is the sun’s position. You don’t want to have the sun’s glare ruining your shot, so make sure not to film directly at the sun and keep it out of the shot as much as possible. This is your best way to ensure you’ll have consistent lighting throughout the filming process.

Video Editing

How you edit your video is just as important as filming them, and it may be the harder part. Taking 30+ minutes of footage and creating a 1-2 minute video of the property is a lot easier said than done.

Software You’ll Need

You’ll need a basic video editing software to start editing. There is a lot to choose from, and popular paid ones include Adobe Premier or Final Cut Pro X, while good free ones include iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

Editing Skills

You’ll first want to pick music for your video to add a bit of artistic flare to your video. It should be something instrumental that is lightand upbeat.

The video should be about a minute in length, so start out by going through your footage and deleting stuff that is repetitive or not as good. Narrow it down as much as possible while still having a variety of views.

Using the footage, paste it together in the order that makes the most sense to you, cutting to different views frequently. Also, to mix up the pace a little, consider speeding up some parts of the video and slowing others down.

A big aspect of video editing is simply your creativity. Experiment with what looks good and what doesn’t. These are just some tools and guidelines to use when crafting that final video. How you choose to showcase the property and the transitions are completely up to you.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

The best way to get good at these skills is to practice them. You can read about these techniques all you want, but you’ll find real progress with the more you practice. Find what works, what doesn’t work, and make improvements each time you shoot. By keeping these techniques in mind, you should see great improvements in your real estate videos.

If you want to see good examples of what professional aerial video real estate looks like, then check out some of our videos here.