How To Shoot A Room Tour
One type of video that we shoot quite often are room tours. These are mostly seen in the real estate world but the techniques we use can be transferred over into other videos as well such as weddings!
The first thing you’ll obviously need is the camera. The Sony A7s3 is my preferred choice, however, as long as you have a camera that can shoot video, you’re good to go. The next thing you need is a gimbal. Unless you have extremely steady hands, your footage is going to be too shaky without a gimbal. I still use the original DJI Ronin-S and it’s been through it all, but it still works so I haven’t switched yet!
I’ll admit this is something I forget to do a lot of the time, but make sure you raise your F stop when shooting room tours. The point of these videos is to show off the entire room, so you want as much of it to be in focus as possible. Somewhere around F5.6 or F8 should be good! Some super obvious things to remember are a memory card, and camera batteries. Make sure you have enough available space on the card especially if you’re filming an entire house. Fortunately, it’s only happened once or twice when my memory card fills up or my battery is dead. That’s why it’s always good to have extras!
When doing a guided room tour, you’re going to need audio. Shotgun mics may sound great but they’re a little impractical for this situation. For starters, trying to balance that on the gimbal is a nightmare. Wireless microphones are the way to go! We use the Tascam DR-10L and the RODE Wireless GO II’s. They both give great audio quality and are perfect for when the subject isn’t super close to the camera. Now before you even start filming, you need to do a quick scan of the room. Find the angles that will look the best, and make sure to fix anything such as wrinkles in the carpet, fluff the pillows, and move away any clutter.
Once you start filming, it is extremely tempting to start panning the camera away from the speaker and point it at the thing they’re talking about. For example, if a real estate agent is talking about the beautiful brick fireplace, fight the urge to turn the camera toward the fireplace and keep it on the agent. The trick is to keep mental notes of the specific features they mention and once all the dialogue is said, go back through the house or room and film the associating b-roll to then be inserted when you edit. The last tip I have is to shoot the b-roll at 60fps. This allows you to slow it down in post for a nice cinematic look!