Have you ever run into potential neighbors who were unwilling to talk to you? I was thinking about taking pictures of everything too. Is it worth sending those pictures to the landlord to confirm? Why the top floor? In my experience that's the worst in the summer, though I guess it would be good in the winter.
Definitely take pictures of everything the day before/the day you move in. That's good advice. That's making sure that you have your back if the landlord comes back and says something was damaged through the course of you living there. I wouldn't send those pictures to the landlord to confirm, necessary, but I would make sure they have a time/date stamp. If you send them to the landlord to confirm, you would also have a record of when you took those photos, but it could come off as potentially aggressive? That's just how it feels to me though. It might not be a bad idea to let your landlord know you're on top of your shit and as Jay-Z has said, "know your rights."
Take Video. Walk through each room, narrate and document EVERYTHING. Talk about the outlets, smells, spots on the carpet, stains in the kitchen. Open cabinets, open the stove, turn on fans, flush the toilets. If the video ends up being 40 minutes, so be it. Now, the important part. UPLOAD IT TO A VIDEO HOSTING SITE THE DAY BEFORE YOU MOVE IN. Make it private. If anything comes up, you have a time/date stamp, and video is harder to mess with. This has saved a few of my friends' security deposits when they had to break a lease. As for sharing with the landlord, eh. Definitely mark up concerns on the lease, get everything in writing etc. But I don't think you should share the video, keep that in case things get testy.
My only concern is that pictures can be easily manipulated, so I was sort of toying with the idea of getting photos notarized (can I even do that?) but it might be more expensive than I'd like. I definitely need to brush up on renter's rights in Boston though.