Every good film maker from Chaplain to Tarantino started off with a single camera – and look what happened.

That is not to say anyone with a hand-held video camera or i-Phone can produce a timeless classic. But a growing number of FSBOs are marketing their homes, along with a growing number of agents, using simple but effective videos.

Stephen Schweickart is the founder and CEO of VScreen, the leading video content provider within the real estate industry recently blogged multiple tips for shooting videos for real estate marketing.

Schweickart says make a plan dependent on the type of video you’re producing. Doing a simple project like a blog video, he says with controlled lighting and usually a single camera, you can easily fix your settings and go.

Some of Schweickart’s other tips include:

• First, check your resolution and frame rate. Schweickart says if you’re shooting with more than one camera, make sure the settings are the same on each one. If they’re not, editing will be difficult, and the shots will have an inconsistent look and feel.
• Next, look at the white balance. Schweickart says shooting in different locations will require multiple white balance settings — especially when moving from inside a home to outside and then back in again.
• Choosing the right scene profile (or picture profile) mode can make or break your image. Schweickart says the standard setting will save you some work in post-production, but the neutral setting gives you more control over your images, such as with contrast or color saturation.

Then, take a deep breath and… focus!. If just one shot is out of focus, it can blow up the entire project. If your camera has a focus-assist feature, Schweickart says use it.