Video production for real estate
Light sells space, and light follows the clock. A property shoot is a schedule problem disguised as a walkthrough.
What this is about
An east-facing kitchen and a west-facing terrace cannot both look their best at the same hour, so the room order of the shoot is a light calculation before it is a story. Occupied properties add people: tenants must agree to the shoot, personal belongings and photos have to leave the frame under the GDPR, and appointment windows follow their lives, not the sales calendar. Vacant units need staging — furniture delivery, cleaning, window washing — timed against handover dates. Exteriors depend on drone rules over built-up areas and on neighbors whose windows and gardens end up in the establishing shot. Every delay collides with a sales timeline someone promised.
Sector routine beats general experience: knowing the field's approval paths and constraints produces more realistic plans than more shoot days without that context.
What runs differently here
In planning terms, that means:
- Room orientation dictates the shoot order — the light plan decides when the kitchen, terrace and stairwell get their window
- Tenants in occupied units agree voluntarily; their belongings, mail and photos must be cleared from frame or the footage is unusable
- Drone flights over built-up plots face altitude, distance and privacy limits — neighboring gardens are not free b-roll
- Staging is a logistics chain: furniture, cleaning and window washing land in a fixed order before the first shot
- Keys, alarm codes and access permissions often sit with property management, not with the agent who booked you
What the plan has to deliver
A production plan is useful to this role when it provides the following:
- A room-by-room schedule derived from window orientation and sun position
- A tenant communication and consent step planned days before the shoot
- A staging and cleaning timeline that finishes before golden hour, not during it
Common pitfalls
What most often goes wrong in practice:
- Shooting rooms in corridor order instead of light order
- Discovering on arrival that the tenant was never told about the shoot
- Framing neighbors' windows and license plates into the establishing drone orbit
With TillyGen
TillyGen sequences the shot list by light windows per room and puts staging, cleaning and tenant appointments on the same timeline, so the walkthrough lands when the property looks its best.
Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.
Frequently asked
Can we film an occupied apartment?
Yes, with the tenant's agreement and enough notice to clear personal items from frame. Plan the appointment around the tenant and keep identifiable belongings, mail and photos out of shot.
Are drone shots allowed over residential areas?
Within limits — altitude, distances and the privacy of neighbors constrain the flight, and some zones need extra clearance. Plan the orbit so neighboring windows and gardens stay incidental, not featured.
How long does a property video shoot really take?
As long as the light demands. A well-planned single unit is often a day once staging, room order by orientation and an exterior window are counted — half-day estimates usually ignore the sun.
How long does it take to get started with TillyGen?
A first project takes under an hour to set up. There is no configuration phase in which templates and fields have to be defined before the tool produces anything.
Can the results be exported?
Yes — as PDF for the crew, CSV for downstream systems and through the API for anything automated. The plan stays the source; the exports are views of it.