a carseat ad being shot on our driveway. the ‘talent’ for the day were a couple of sleepy cooperative babies and a couple of less cooperative toddlers 😉

One of the many and varied perks of living in a Midcentury Modern home is that from time to time you may be asked to host location shoots.  Over the past few years, we’ve had crews shoot pharmaceutical ads, knitting catalogs, and stylized food in our house.  Our house has appeared on HGTV Pro and HGTV’s What you Get for the Money.  This Spring, two short films destined for film festivals shot scenes here. This Summer, we hosted a still photography shoot for *namebrand* Carseats, and just yesterday a full on video shoot for Walmart’s Grocery Home Delivery service.

loading in the gear for the walmart shoot

If the harsh reality is that a midcentury modern person such as myself is no one’s demographic, at least it’s consolation that my 62 year old house is hip, cool and in demand to showcase a variety of products!

what to expect if you pimp your house:

•  be flexible.  shoots are usually planned with very short notice
• the crews often start very early in the morning and bring an unbelievable amount of gear (lighting, props, wardrobe, cameras)
• there are always more people than you expect (producers, director, camera operators, stylist, interns, assistants, hair, makeup, wardrobe, kid wranglers, and the ‘talent’), so you have to have plenty of parking.
• they need space to spread out and places to do hair & makeup, and for the ‘talent’ to change clothes.  you also need space where people can sit and wait, and room for kids to play (if kids are in the shoot).
• a group of people also comes with Craft Service – from coffee and donuts to full on meals – for the entire crew.  so they need space for that as well, which can be tricky if they are shooting in your kitchen and or dining room.
• it is possible that they will come in and remove your furniture/artwork and replace with whatever they want for the shoot.  For the Walmart shoot, they removed all of our classic MCM furniture and Harper prints from the shots and replaced them with toys and more generic ‘artwork.’  They also put pink/burgundy sheers on the windows (light control is a HUGE issue for them and modern houses tend to be very bright). Sometimes they even put auxiliary lighting outside the windows to keep the light constant throughout the day.
• the location fee varies from $400/ half day to $1,000 and up per day.  If you have great spaces to work with and are accommodating to the crew, they may want to use your house again.
• you must keep pets in a separate room/area or board them for the day.
• most importantly, you have to stay out of the way and let them do their thing, but be nearby in case they need anything.  And get your cars out of the way (but accessible) so you can run out if needed.
• when finished, a good crew will leave your house as close to as it was as possible.  you will hardly know they had been there.

exterior lighting for the living room shoot

our living room stripped of our Harper artwork and midcentury furniture and redressed as a playroom. the curtains were added to control incoming light – we would never think of covering these windows!

out go the harpers and in comes the #walmartcowart

our garage full of their equipment. lots of equipment!

So how do they find us?  A quick ‘google’ of Midcentury Modern in Cincinnati always leads location scouts to our website.  So if a house is on here (either for sale or already sold), chances are the scouts have looked at the photos.  They often call with a laundry list of what they are looking for, sometimes with very specific needs.  One of our (then active) listings was used for a location shoot and is featured prominently in the Gotti movie that was filmed in multiple Cincinnati locations in 2016.  If you are interested in having your house used for location shoots, shoot us an email (info@cincinnatimodern.com) with your house specifics and a few photos and we will be happy to pass the info along when asked.

how we spent the day of the shoot working in the bedroom. notice our noguchi table against the wall to get it out of the shoot.