Years ago, our first series of walkthrough apartment videos were shot with a handheld video recorder by leasing agents who weren't quite professional media experts. Though our industry-changing idea of allowing potential residents to tour apartment communities without needing to drive anywhere proved successful, we learned early on that video quality had to be spectacular in order to be a reliable resource during their search.
Since then, we’ve grown an in-house team of professional photographers, videographers, and editors, to produce beautiful, compelling floorplan-specific photos and walkthrough videos for our clients.
In this week's blog, hear directly from Lauren, a RentVision Media Producer, to learn more about what it's like to work with the media team and the experience of shoots.
Lauren also explains how the media team has made it possible to resume traveling to communities across the U.S. during the Coronavirus pandemic. We postponed many of our scheduled photo and video shoots when the virus outbreak began. While this service plays a pivotal role in our business, we believed that protecting the health of our client communities was, and is, the right decision.
Now, months after those initial quarantine restrictions were put in place due to the virus, we've redeveloped how our media team schedules and conducts photo and video shoots so they can still highlight communities in a safe and socially-distant manner.
Q: What does RentVision's media team do to feature a community?
"We get as much (visual content) as possible to really make the website full. We make sure there's all the information a potential resident needs to see on the website. That could be a variety of exteriors of the buildings, interior amenities, pool shots, gyms or fitness centers, and of course, the units where they will be living.
"Our goal is to make renting apartments easier, and by having that visual content on the website, it really helps prospective residents to not have to drive anywhere. They can get the full view of the community from the comfort of their own home."
Q: Tell us about a typical media shoot?
"I generally arrive on site and I communicate with the leasing staff to make sure that everything is good to go and that the units are ready for me. We verify unit numbers and everything. At that point, they've been in touch with our travel coordinator. From there, I get keys and go to the units to make sure they're prepared and ready. Then I do photos and video walkthrough tours of those units, and if it's available, I'll also do exteriors and amenities.
"If there's anything unique (the leasing staff) would love for us to highlight, we definitely try to capture that."
Q: How has the media team's procedures changed in light of new safety measures, and how will that impact clients?
"There's been a lot of measures put in place to not only protect the on-site staff but the media producers as well. So we now do a contactless shoot, where the media producer arrives on site and they call the leasing office rather than going in. We also have a lot of documentation that goes out to the on-site staff before the media producer arrives so they're truly prepared.
"You can either leave the keys in one unit, and we will wipe them down and sanitize them and place them back in that unit when we're done with everything. Or, the staff can unlock all the units and amenities. We're able to customize it to what each client is comfortable with.
"Since we are traveling from Lincoln, Nebraska, whether it be by driving or flying, we're really putting these measures in place to protect both parties."
Q: What else should clients know about the media team?
"This is a group of well-rounded people who are really passionate about all things media. We have our media producers who are always on the road, visiting clients and capturing all the content that goes on the websites.
"We also have full-time media editors who live and breathe Photoshop. They know how to replace your sky and make your grass look great, like it's a bright and beautiful sunny day. They just truly make the media sparkle on the website.
"On top of that, we even have a marketing media producer and media developer."
Conclusion
RentVision's media team provides a level of service that sets us apart amongst other apartment marketing vendors. They travel to your community so they can work directly with you and create visuals that reflect what makes your apartments stand out. They truly fulfill our company's purpose of considering others as more important than ourselves by conducting photo shoots in a safe and socially-distant manner.
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