Project link: http://www.DesMoinesRegister.com/milliondollarhomes
Google Earth Video Production: Michael Corey
Data analysis: James E. Wilkerson
Voiceover: Doug Peterson
Reporting: Dave Elbert
We used the MovieMaker functionality of Google Earth Professional to create a virtual tour of the 10 homes with the highest assessed values in the Des Moines metro area.
This was our first attempt at Google Earth moviemaking, and we kept things pretty basic.
I made individual video clips of the Google Earth flyover effect between each property, and combined those clips with still images in FinalCut Express.
For most homes, we only had publicly available county assessor photos of the properties, so we were limited in the angles we could use. If we had the opportunity to take new photos we might have tried to transition a little more seamlessly between the Google and still images, but the effect works well enough as is.
The project also included a Javascript Google Maps API map of every property in the metro area with an assessed value over $1 million, a photo gallery showing the interior of one of the homes, and a story about the increasing numbers of homes with assessed values over $1 million.
After much discussion about the potential privacy issues involved in showing the homes, we limited the zoom level of the Google Map so people wouldn’t so easily be able to hone in on exactly where the homes were on each block.
Michael Corey is the digital innovations editor at the