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Real Estate Aerial Videography: Getting Creative

December 20, 2017 By John Craven

Iris on The Bay is a high-end townhome community. One of the best features is the waterfront property and docks for your boat. We wanted to get creative with our Real Estate Aerial Videography, so we decided to film one-shot that showed every feature of the townhome community. Starting with the most important feature.

The Challenge:

The plan is to have the drone start flying about 5 feet above the water (to get a peaceful water shot) fly backward revealing features of the property until fevealing the whole property at 400 ft above the property.

With a long (1 minute 30 second) aerial video I am at risk of having the video be boring, so when it works out it becomes a great feeling of accomplishment, so the right music and incorporating quotes.

Adding Titles to Real Estate Aerial Videography

The Solution:

We starting at just few feet above the water, and slowly fly within a few feet of the building to reveal the modern architecture, and then quickly fly to just under 400ft revealing the whole property alongside the beautiful bay in less than a minute. It was a difficult aerial shot but I couldn’t have done this without collaborating with Richard Lopez of Lopez Productions who is an amazing drone pilot with the technical skill to pull off such an incredible shot.

Conclusion

The most rewarding part of the creative process is when we have no idea if the concept we’re filming is going to work or fail; a creative leap of faith.

Enjoy the video!

Getting creative real estate aerial videography should tell the “story” of your property and match your brand. Hw do we do this?

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Real Estate Drone Videography: How We Establish The Location

July 19, 2017 By John Craven

Using real estate drone videography to establish the location of a property is pretty standard when it comes to creating real estate videos. This video was different because the location of the property is AMAZING and the actual property needed some work. So how can we create a compelling video?

Luckily, working with Ines of Miamism, who is a visionary with marketing a home, creating a concept is a breeze.

“So story would be about transportation, views, culture” and that would end the part of the email that described the new property for her client.

From there, Ines, left it up to us to fill in the blanks and create a real estate video that told the story.

The Challenge:

Story is a really important aspect when it comes to our real estate videos.
We explore the story by asking ourselves various questions. The main question being;

1) what would the potential buyer be interested in when purchasing this property?

In this case, this property, located on the 29th floor, was all about its surroundings; transportation, views, culture. The challenge came when having to tie these subjects together in a way that was fresh, clear, and concise.

A post shared by Visual Popcorn Films (@vizpop) on Jul 13, 2017 at 11:01am PDT

The Solution:

The drone was the tool that was able to bring the property and transportation, views, and culture together in a way that is fresh and also communicate to the buyer what the lifestyle is like in the center of Miami.

Real estate drone videography can get boring really quickly, so it is important to use it in a way that tells the story of the property. Being creative with the camera angle, height, and movement of the drone is the most important to keep our content staying fresh.

Enjoy the video!

Good real estate drone videography should tell the story and match your brand. How do we do this?

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Video Production in Miami Beach: A Historical Voyage

April 25, 2017 By John Craven

UPDATE: This video won Alban Communications an award for Innovative Marketing at the 5th Annual City National Bank Better Beach Awards!

This video production in Miami Beach brings to light the history of Isle of Normandy & Miami Beach through old photos and stunning aerial landscapes. Alban Communications hired us to cover a boat tour sponsored by Iris On The Bay and is about showing the beauty of the Isle of Normandy in Miami Beach.

Dr. Paul George is known as THE historian on Miami and Miami Beach culture, historical events, and architecture. He was the tour guide for this boat tour.

The Challenge:

Along with Dr. Paul George’s words, we needed to capture this video as a live event, so we couldn’t get any b-roll before and after the boat tour. The footage could only be captured during the event. As with any small video production in Miami Beach, we needed to make it seem like we covered every angle on and around the boat.

The Solution:

Going into the boat tour with a good plan of attack was pivotal to covering every angle. For this shoot, we had two crew members. The cinematographer and the drone operator.

For the cinematographer, we did a little research on the pre-planned area the boat will be sailing. We also focused on the style and content of shots. We made pre-planned decisions like the camera height/angle, how wide, and lens choices.

For the drone operator, we again looked to the pre-planned area where the boat tour would be sailing. We decided what were the most prominent areas of the island and making sure to capture the boat in every shot no matter how wide or close. Taking off and landing from a moving boat is also an added difficulty.

In the edit room, the client and I thought the video needed more emphasis on the history. All the footage came out fantastic, but the video needed an extra push to really capture Dr. Paul George’s words.

Historical photos brought the past into the present, and we used the motion graphics to animate all of the historical photos that really brought the photos to life. The historical photos were curated from Florida Memory and the City of Miami Beach Historical Archives.

Video production in Miami Beach should tell the “story” of your property and match your brand. How do we do this?

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Creative Video Production Services: The Documentary

October 8, 2015 By John Craven

Content is king, so getting creative video production services is a necessity to keep showing fresh content to viewers always looking for something interesting. Depending on the subject, the documentary could be a great tool.

In this case, ‘Ride With Heart’ is the name of a metric and half-metric century cycling event that helps raise awareness for Heart Disease. But ultimately this documentary is the story of 4 inspiring cyclist and their experiences with heart disease.

The Process:

After I decided on the concept of the documentary. Which was about 4 cyclists participating in the event. We began to look for people using a simple questionnaire asking about their experience with heart disease. I assumed the search would be a little tedious, but actually found people who were eager to share their experiences. For me it was really inspiring, because with all of the interviews came a message of hope and perseverance.

The challenge came when organizing the multi-day shoot with the 4 participants, choosing the right locations, and finally the editing. Each interview was about 30-45 minutes long. To piece them together into a 10 minute documentary is like putting together a puzzle without knowing the image you’re putting together. The hardest part was leaving out some great comments that didn’t fit into the overall story.

The biking community in South Florida is filled with positive people who want to give back. One of the ways they do this is by attending charity events like RIDE WITH HEART. From the subtle to the immediate, heart disease affects 49%* of us in some way.

The Conclusion:

I discovered 4 people who are passionate, proactive, and inspiring. Life is short and it is stories like these that remind me to make the most out of every day we have here.

A special thanks to Michael, Melissa, Jorge, Alex, and Kerry whose participation made this film.

Interested in coming up with some creative video production services for your business?

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Classical Piano and Violin | Live Recording Video

August 7, 2015 By John Craven

I was approached by the classical piano and violin duo, Tomas and Tao, to create 4 music videos on Mozart’s sonatas, and a Kickstarter video to raise funds.

Tomas Cotik on the violin and Tao Lin on the piano are some of the best musicians in their field. Their commitment to perfection with each piece is wonderful and very moving to experience in person.

The Problem:

Our goal with a music video like this is to recreate the experience in real life. But for Tomas and Tao this was a unique challenge because we only had were 3 static shots to choose from. So how can we make every edited minute seem fresh and unpredictable?

Filming at All Saints Episcopal Church offered amazing acoustics for the final mix and made for some pretty dramatic lighting options.

The Solution:

While watching Tomas and Tao play the classical piano and violin, sometimes blending and sometimes contrasting their sounds, I began to think of each piece as a story.

I imagined the stories based on the tone of the piece. And imagined that each instrument was a character. The personality of each character and how they dealt with each other was how I made the decision to edit. As a result, I used these “beats” to help me decide what is the best shot to edit to.

What story can you imagine watching this video?