Listing photos that make better property films: a shot checklist

A property film is only as good as the photographs it starts from. When listing photos are animated, every photo becomes a moving camera shot, and the photo set becomes your storyboard: what is in it, what is missing and the order it runs in. This checklist covers what to shoot and what to leave out, so the film looks as good as the home.

Photos earn their keep before any film exists. In the National Association of Realtors' 2025 Profile of Home Staging, 73% of buyers' agents rated photos as highly important to their clients, against 48% for videos; that is a survey of US agents' opinions, not measured buyer behaviour. Zillow's 2025 Consumer Housing Trends Report for Agents found 78% of US sellers were more likely to hire an agent who offers high-resolution photography. Good photos pay twice: once on the portal, once in the film.

Why does motion expose photo flaws?

Because a moving camera changes how lines, edges and detail relate to each other, and viewers are very good at spotting things that move wrongly. A flaw a buyer scrolls past in a still becomes obvious when it drifts across the screen for four seconds.

Four flaws show up most:

• Softness. A push-in enlarges the centre of the frame. A photo that looked fine as a thumbnail turns to mush as the camera moves closer.
• Leaning verticals. Tilted door frames read as "a slightly off photo" in a still. In a pan, they make the room look as if it is tipping over.
• Fisheye distortion. Curved walls are a lens artefact, not architecture. A faithful animation keeps what the photo shows, so a bent wall stays bent, now in motion.
• Blown windows and crushed shadows. Clipped highlights hold no detail, so a window becomes a flat white panel that the camera glides past.

A still is judged once; a film shot is judged in every frame. Check each photo at full size before it goes into a film. For more on what animation can and cannot do with a photo, read Can AI animate listing photos without changing the property?

What resolution do listing photos need for video?

At least 800 px wide, and ideally 2,000 px or more on the long edge. Anything under 512 px wide is too small to use.

The reasoning is arithmetic. A Full HD frame is 1,920 x 1,080 px, so a photo narrower than 1,920 px is enlarged before the camera moves, and a push-in enlarges it further. Most current cameras and phones shoot 4,000 px or more on the long edge, so small files usually come from a website export, not the camera. Feed the film the original files, not images saved from a listing page.

Shoot landscape for landscape films. A portrait photo has to be heavily cropped or extended to fill a 16:9 frame, and either way you lose control of what the buyer sees.

The shot checklist: shot, why it matters, common mistake

Aim for one strong photo per room type, plus the outside and the context. The table lists each shot, why it earns a place in the film and the mistake that most often spoils it.

Four rules sit underneath the table:

1. Keep verticals vertical. Hold the camera level at roughly chest height and correct converging lines when you edit.
2. Go wide, not fisheye. A rectilinear lens of roughly 16 to 24 mm full-frame equivalent covers most rooms. If straight lines curve, the lens is too wide.
3. Light the room. Lamps on, curtains open, and exposure balanced so the view through the window survives.
4. Keep people out. No people, no pets, no family photos, no post with names on it, no readable number plates.

How many photos should a film use, and in what order?

For a 60-second film, plan 8 to 15 room shots, one per room type, in the order a buyer would walk through the home. Fewer than 8 and shots repeat or linger; more than 15 and each shot gets about 4 seconds or less, too short for a camera move to register.

A running order that suits most houses:

1. Front exterior
2. Entrance or hallway
3. Main living room
4. Kitchen
5. Dining area or kitchen-diner
6. Signature feature
7. Principal bedroom
8. Second bedroom
9. Main bathroom
10. Garden, terrace or balcony
11. View or neighbourhood
12. Dusk exterior

For an apartment, swap the garden for the balcony or terrace, add one shared amenity if the listing includes it, and drop a plain building exterior in favour of the entrance or the view. Put your strongest photo first on the listing: it is the hero shot buyers see first, and Echoflicks, for one, prefers hero photos when it selects shots. The order also shapes the narration; see How to structure a property video script.

Which photos should you leave out?

Leave out anything that repeats, misleads or distracts. A shorter, cleaner set makes a better film than a complete but padded one.

• Near-duplicates. Two angles of the same bedroom add length, not information. Decide yourself which one survives.
• People and pets. Beyond privacy and consent, animating a real person creates movement that never happened.
• Text and graphics. Watermarks, "Sold" banners, collages and captions animate badly and cannot be cropped out cleanly.
• Edits that change the property. A replacement sky or virtually furnished room shows a buyer something they will not find, and motion makes it more convincing, not less. See Enhancement or misrepresentation?
• Area shots that are not the area. A stock photo of the nearest beach is not the view from the terrace.

How Echoflicks uses your photo set

Echoflicks reads the listing page at the URL you paste in, including the photos, facts, description, and the brochure PDF and floor plan when present. It considers up to 60 photos, removes exact and near-duplicates, needs at least 3 usable photos, and typically builds a tour from 8 to 15 room shots, one per room type, preferring the listing's hero photos. Photos under 512 px wide are rejected, and those under 800 px wide are flagged as low resolution.

Felix, the AI film director, gives each photo one camera move matched to the room: push-ins and crane moves outside, drifts and pans through living spaces, gentle moves in bedrooms. Every shot is instructed to keep architecture, layout, fixtures and furniture as photographed. AI adds content in two places, and you should know both. Vertical 9:16 films extend each photo at the top and bottom with AI outpainting, so a level photo with some ceiling and floor gives the extension less to guess (more on vertical films). For houses with exterior photos, an aerial orbit is AI-generated from those photos: a new viewpoint, not drone footage.

When a portal blocks automated reading, paste mode takes the listing text and at least 3 JPG, PNG or WebP photos of up to 15 MB each. That is the moment to upload the photographer's originals. If a shot disappoints, a free re-cut lets you swap the photo and pick a camera style (push in, pull out, pan left or pan right). Your agency's first film is free, and you can try it on a listing you have already photographed.