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Congratulations to Zoltan Present - 2018 PFRE Videographer of the Year

In: 
Published: 19/01/2019

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Congratulations to Zoltan Present from LuxHunters Real Estate Video and Photography Services in Miami, Florida. Zoltan won the October Videographer of the Month contest with this great video and has now been named PFRE Videographer of the Year for 2018.

Here's what Zoltan had to say about the win:

Wow! What a surprise! I am greatly honored! : )
Being recognized by PFRE for the hard work I do at Luxhunters is really wonderful.
It has been 3 years since I have started offering videography to my clients after being bullied into it by one of my dear customers. The first videos I did were drone videos with a slideshow of photos for the interiors. The second step was holding the drone in my hand and walking around the house for filming. It was an obvious choice as the drone had great stabilization and very decent dynamic range (Phantom 3Pro). Then came the A7S (used in PP modes which only gave me headaches for a year) with the CameTV Mini2 gimbal (not a good choice) for a while until I finally found a winning combination (on a recommendation of one PFRE member) of the Panasonic GH4 and Ronin-M combo.

Six months later, I introduced a slider to my workflow and the videos started to look really good. These days I use the GH5, Ronin-S, and Edelkrone motorized slider combo for best results. The GH5 has great colors and decent dynamic range and at this point, the only camera that allows me to film in 4K at 60fps. I like the 60fps as it gives me the possibility to slow down the footage for better smoothness.

Videography has become a key part of real estate marketing and I have been working hard to stay ahead of the ever growing competition.  I know that a lot of photographers are still hesitant to make the jump to start offering videography to their clients but I must say... it is necessary in most cases. One of the benefits of offering video is that it is a format where you can actually put your logo at the end of the film which most MLSs do not allow on still photos. Most realtors don't know where to find me when they look at my world class photos on the MLS or in the client's mailers but they can easily look me up once they see my logo at the end of the film. This way, the realtors become my main sales agents; they are eagerly sending out my marketing materials (my most recent videos) to 10,000 realtors; and they even pay for the mailing! : )

I encourage everyone to start experimenting with this very rewarding segment; you will be grateful you did.

Have a wonderful and extremely successful 2019!!!

PFRE Videographer of the Year Winners:

Brandon Cooper

19 comments on “Congratulations to Zoltan Present - 2018 PFRE Videographer of the Year”

  1. Bravo! So well done! I love the puppy and how you used it as a lifestyle element and as a segue to connect the spaces. Great shots and editing!

  2. Nice work! With these all these high end properties in your portfolio, are you mainly shooting in V Log to see out the windows?

  3. Oh dear. I am out of step again. I want to love the video. Superb production techniques. Love the use of the dog. Immaculate workmanship. Great lighting. But I had to turn off the music or I would go mad. Many too many ramp speed ups, much too long for the subject matter.

    BUT, it began to be all about the photographer trying to be too clever and show off - endlessly. It could be easily cut in half and I think would be far more effective. Made me dizzy at about the end of minute 2 so I stopped it.

    I can see that this would be great for a certain narrow segment of the market who love this sort of thing and it was probably aimed at that market segment. But what a shame to leave out all the rest of the potential market.

    I am all for incorporating new and modern techniques, but not for their own sake or for saying "look how great I am." Yes we want to attract often jaded viewers with something jazzy. But that's tricky since if over done, and its my personal opinion (yes only an opinion) that this video, as well produced, shot and edited as it is, is way over the top and has crossed that line. Very easy to do. We all fall in love with our own footage. But perhaps this needs an editor who is a disinterested party and I think it would gain from that.

  4. @Zoltan - Brilliant work! I've been a fan of yours ever since seeing your video of Hemingway Tower in Rio de Janeiro (https://youtu.be/rZg8q1bKBDU) but this video blows away everything I've seen!! Keep up the awesome work! I love the use of the dog! Well deserved win.

  5. Thank you very much for the kind comments.
    @Adam We do not use V-log, the camera is set at Cine-D. Wherever you have a properly exposed window view on a slider shot it is done in post processing, using and masking 2 differently exposed motorized slides. That is the main reason we use a motorized slider, to be able to cut out windows on a moving picture. If you want to get away with showing view and acceptably exposed interior then you have 2 options. One is shooting at dusk. I filmed a condo yesterday where they wanted day and night footage and during the dusk minutes I was able to capture some really nice footage. Option be is shooting when the sun is shining in the property. For that you need to have large windows and preferably white wall but if those to are given than you will be able to film while both the interior and the exterior is properly exposed. So schedule east facing condos to the am and west facing ones to the afternoon.
    @Larry Thank you for reminding me to the Rio video. 🙂 I love that video too and it give me such great memories.

    @Peter Daprix Thank you very much for your feedback. I guess the video could have been shorter but it is all just a matter of taste. The direction real estate videos are going is not a clear line. I personally believe that videos of the same property should come in different length. A short version meant to gain interest in people but whoever is not interested in the property will not even watch a short version. I know as even I turn of videos after 30 seconds very often. Unless the video is entertaining in one way or another...if you keep people guessing then they will watch the video fully. That's why people put ladies in the videos or other elements like exotic cars, so they might have a better retention of people's interest in the video.
    Longer then 2 minutes video have it's place, many clients of ours have sold properties purely by the videos, site unseen.
    And another version of real estate videos are gaining territory and those are the ones that last 4-5 minutes and include one long narrated take of a walkthrough in the house. All of these has validity and it all depends on each viewer what they prefer. I will definitely keep experimenting with the various segment to find the best for each individual client of hour. Whatever helps them the most, that's what I want to sell them.
    One thing is for sure, video is here to stay because people prefer convenience, they prefer to do one click and see the entire house with a pleasant music (not always the case...this proves to be one of the hardest part of editing) rather than keep clicking and clicking to get to the next photo. We have at least 3 new clients a week who calls with saying that they saw one of our videos somewhere and they want something similar.

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