Five Questions With: Ron Carlstrom

Ron Carlstrom, owner of Reel Big Media, creates and edits aerial video for real estate brokers and other businesses.
Ron Carlstrom, owner of Reel Big Media, creates and edits aerial video for real estate brokers and other businesses.

Ron Carlstrom, owner of Reel Big Media, creates and edits aerial video for real estate brokers and other businesses. The company, based in Lincoln, typically produces one-minute promotional videos using images captured by drones. The videos, which can be seen on its website at www.reelbigmedia.com, are used in land surveying, site inspection, property appraisals, and for marketing and advertising properties.
PBN: Who are some of your clients and how do you structure fees for the drone and video service?
CARLSTROM:
We sign firms for a certain number of videos. Hayes & Sherry [Real Estate Services], for example, we signed for a five-video package. We are working now with a general contractor rebuilding the break wall in Point Judith, by the Point Judith Lighthouse. They contracted out to us to produce aerial videos to show the progress, the “before and after.”
PBN: Is the advantage of using a drone getting a vantage point that is unavailable to traditional videographers?
CARLSTROM:
Wherever you would see aerial footage, it would be using helicopters. Traditionally, commercial real estate brokers would not want to use that because it is expensive. Whatever marketing dollars they spend comes out of their commission. What they had been using, prior to drones, was Google Earth, and using static images. You are not getting a real good visual interpretation of the property, or surrounding area. You are not seeing cars move, or people walking, or traffic patterns, those types of things.
PBN: What is the price range for video taken by drone?
CARLSTROM:
We are all-inclusive. We shoot the drone video, and then … we edit the drone video into a promotional video. The videos you see online have music in the background and text, graphics, all sorts of things. It’s about $1,200 to $1,250 for a fully completed video. If we were to take stills, or take video and give it to someone, which we’ve done in the past, it’s about $500.
PBN: What is the advantage of using a drone for video, for someone trying to lease or sell commercial space?
CARLSTROM:
One of the main things is they can see what we see, and while we’re doing it. They know the property better than us. They know what they want to showcase. For example, we did Cowesett Corners in Warwick. [Hayes & Sherry] wanted to show different anchor stores. [With Northwoods] they wanted to show the campus setting. You can see in the background, the city of Providence. From that angle, you can show any prospective tenants that the city is only five miles away.
PBN: Why go with video, in general? Is it more engaging in selling property?
CARLSTROM:
It’s more of a visual than a static Google Earth image. People are more likely to click and view a video on an email blast or a video on a website. Hayes & Sherry has now put all of their videos on LoopNet for the property listing. It gives the potential tenant a chance to see the surroundings, and the traffic patterns. Some of these folks are investors who are out in California or Florida and may not have the time to come up to Rhode Island and look at these properties. A video gives them more of an in-depth view of a property that static imagery can’t.

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