What does the editing look for in your footage?
CastMyListing scores every second of your walkthrough for blur, shake, fast motion and light, and labels every second by room. Videos are cut from the clean stretches: no fast motion, no blur. A slightly wobbly but slow walk can still be used. A whip pan or a blurred frame cannot.
Here is what happened on one real 1:04 walkthrough, shown in full on our How it works page. 8.1 seconds were thrown out, and no video used them:
- The front door swinging open (blur 1.00)
- Whip pans between rooms (shake 0.81, 0.93 and 0.64)
- Turning past a door (shake 0.85)
- A blank wall (blur 0.85)
Every one of those is a filming habit you can avoid. The rest of this guide is how.
What order should you walk the home in?
Walk it the way a buyer sees it on a showing: the outside, the entry, the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the bonus spaces, then any outdoor space. The YouTube and MLS tours follow the home in this order, so footage filmed in this order makes them easy to cut. The short vertical videos open on the best shot instead. YouTube Shorts then follows the walk; TikTok and Instagram Reels pick from the rest.
One long take works, and so does one clip per room. You can add more clips to a listing later; the rooms you already named are kept.
How fast should you move?
About half your normal walking pace. The analysis treats a fast sweep across a room as a whip pan and drops it. When you look around a room, turn your whole body slowly instead of flicking your wrist.
- Hold the phone with both hands, close to your chest, elbows in.
- Stay on one lens. Don't zoom while you walk: zooming in makes every wobble bigger.
- Walk through doorways straight on, and stop for a second before you turn.
The YouTube and MLS tours play your footage at close to real speed, so your pace is the pace the buyer sees. The short vertical videos for TikTok, Reels and Shorts play walking footage faster, which also hides some handheld wobble.
How long should you stop in each room?
Stop and hold still for about 6 seconds in each main room, then do one slow pan. The calm widescreen tours use shots of 3 to 6 seconds, and each narrated line has to fit the clean footage of the room it talks about. A room with only two clean seconds can only get a two-second mention.
Halls and closets need less: one short, steady look is enough.
How much footage do you need?
More than your longest video. The MLS tour aims for 90 seconds and a YouTube walkthrough for 75, and each video avoids using the same footage twice. Since some footage is always cut, film well beyond 90 seconds of steady rooms. A large home needs more. With too little clean footage, the videos have to be shorter.
How do you get the light right?
Turn on every light, open the blinds and curtains, and film in daylight. The analysis flags frames that are too dark and frames where a large part of the picture is blown out to white, and it ranks them lower. Don't point the camera straight at a bright window for long. Film across the room with the window to one side.
What should you leave out?
- Fast turns between rooms. Stop, turn slowly, then walk on.
- Doors swinging open in front of the lens. Open every door before you start.
- Close-ups of blank walls, floors or ceilings while you turn.
- People, family photos, mail and screens. The AI is told to skip them, but the surest way is to put them away before you film.
- Anything else you'd rather not show. After upload you can mark any part of a clip, and no video will use it.
Should you hold the phone upright or sideways?
Upright, unless the MLS or YouTube tour matters most to you. 6 of the 8 platforms CastMyListing makes videos for are vertical or nearly so: Instagram Reels, Facebook, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Rednote and WeChat. Upright footage fills those videos. In the YouTube and MLS & Zillow videos, it sits on a blurred background instead of being cropped. Sideways footage fills the widescreen tours but is cropped to its middle for the vertical ones.
Your camera's default settings are fine. Every video is made at 30 frames per second. A video's long side is at most 1920 pixels, so 1080p is enough. 4K works, but the files take longer to upload.
Can you mix in drone clips and photos, or talk while you film?
Yes to both. Drone clips and photos can go into the same listing as the phone walkthrough. And talking helps: say the price, size, floor and fees out loud as you walk. The sound from your shoot is not used in the videos. The AI listens to it to fill in the listing details, which you check on the Details step.
Questions
What is the best way to film a house tour on a phone?
Walk the home once in the order a buyer would see it, slowly, with the phone steady in both hands. Stop and hold each main room for a few seconds, turn every light on, and avoid fast turns between rooms. Steady, sharp seconds in every room are what a listing video is cut from.
Should I film a listing walkthrough vertical or horizontal?
Vertical, unless the MLS or YouTube tour matters most to you. Most of the platforms CastMyListing makes videos for are vertical or nearly so, and upright footage fills them. In the YouTube and MLS & Zillow videos, it sits on a blurred background instead of being cropped. Sideways footage fills the widescreen tours but is cropped to its middle for the vertical ones.
How much footage should I film?
More than your longest video. The MLS tour aims for 90 seconds and a YouTube walkthrough for 75, and CastMyListing avoids using the same footage twice in one video. Shaky, blurry and blank stretches are cut, so film well beyond that.
Do I need a gimbal to film a listing?
No. A phone held steady in both hands is enough. The footage analysis skips whip pans and blurry frames on its own, and the short vertical videos play walking footage faster, which hides some wobble. Slow, steady movement matters more than gear.
Next
See the whole process on a real shoot on the How it works page, or see how each platform's video is cut.