What happens when four friends who grew up together graduate from VCU with degrees in Criminal Justice? You guessed it — they form a real estate photography and video production company.
HD Bros has been in business since 2012 and was founded by Chris Smith, Dan Clifton, Nick Kime and Rob Malan. Smith serves as Creative Director; Clifton is Product Engineer; Kime is the company’s Marketing Director; and Malan is General Manager. “We started out shooting photos and videos for pretty much anybody who would hire us,” says Smith. “We had made videos for school projects, of ourselves skateboarding and various other things that made us laugh, so we had some skills and decided to take on freelancing. We kinda figured we didn’t want to work for anybody else.”
The HD Bros outside their new Museum District office.
The friends’ big break came just months later thanks to Smith’s and Clifton’s parents, who worked for the same real estate agency. At that time, real estate videos were not as popular as they are now. “...we gave it a shot and it ended up working in our favor. The timing was right and we knew what we needed to do.”
The volume of work quickly outgrew the co-founders’ capacity, so they established relationships with videographers in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., northern Virginia, Richmond and Los Angeles. HD Bros currently has nine videographers in the field taking pictures and videos of homes for sale; and they’re looking for more. The majority of the HD Bros team works out of their newly leased Museum District office, editing videos, creating new products and marketing the company.
Their services include video tours of homes for sale (including aerials by FAA-certified drone pilots), profile videos of real estate agents and computer-generated 3D “tours” of homes not yet built. They also license video footage of various neighborhoods (Museum District footage is coming soon, they say). The team works quickly, delivering finished videos with music and graphics in as little as 24 hours. During their busy season in the spring, HD Bros can shoot, edit and deliver up to 100 home tours. They were working on almost 50 different projects the week I interviewed them in December.
To learn more about HD Bros and see some of their work, visit www.hdbros.com.