Filming a Flat Where Someone Still Lives

Furnished flats film better than empty ones and sell faster on video. The complication is that the furniture belongs to somebody, and so does the life arranged around it. Getting this right is half technique and half manners.

Getting the access

Ask for thirty minutes alone in the flat before you film. Not because the owner is difficult, but because you will move things, and moving somebody's belongings while they watch is uncomfortable for both of you.

If the flat is tenanted, get the tenant's permission in writing. The owner can authorise a sale; only the tenant can authorise you filming their possessions. This is the single most common way agents create a dispute they did not need.

Tell the occupant what you will move and put it back. A photograph turned face down and left that way is how you lose a client relationship over a cheap picture frame.

Three categories come off camera every time: photographs of people, religious items, and anything carrying a name or a number. Post, prescription labels, school bags, delivery boxes, the nameplate on the door.

What comes off camera

Also remove the things that date the footage — a festival decoration or a calendar pins your video to a month, and you may still be marketing this flat in March.

Clear surfaces, do not clear rooms. A kitchen counter with nothing on it reads as a showroom nobody cooks in. The same counter with one bowl of fruit reads as a home. Aim for the second.

Shoot furniture at the height it sits. A sofa filmed from standing looks like an object in a catalogue; filmed from seated height it looks like somewhere a person would sit, which is the entire point.

Overcast days are better for furnished flats. Direct sun through a window blows out the glass and forces the camera to underexpose everything else, which is how you end up with a dark room and a white rectangle.

Shooting it well

Switch on the lamps even in daylight. Warm pools of light give a furnished room depth and stop the camera flattening it into one even wash.

Film around the occupant's routine, not through it. Mid-morning on a weekday is usually clear; evenings and weekends are when you will be filming somebody's dinner.

Send the finished video to the occupant before it goes public. It costs you nothing, it catches the object you did not notice, and it turns a person who tolerated you into someone who recommends you.