RENT YOUR HOUSE FOR A TV SHOOT

To rent your house for a TV shoot was never something I had imagined myself doing. When we finished renovating our kitchen and living room last year, I never thought that it would get featured on a TV show, I was just aiming for a feature in a magazine!

HOW DO YOU RENT YOUR HOUSE FOR A TV SHOOT?

To be honest, we got contacted because we are Airbnb hosts. The location spotter contacted me through our Airbnb post for our private room. She asked us if we would be open to renting our house for a TV shoot. Intrigued by this I sure was, so of course, I said yes! They came to visit to see if it would work with what they were looking for and oddly enough it did!

They came back for another visit with all the different technicians (a dozen people all at once!) to see what rooms they could use to set up make-up, wardrobe, office etc…

After that, it was all about signing the contract and that is about it. As we are the homeowners, we didn’t need to ask permission for anything.

The day of the shoot had to be changed because of the weather, so instead of being on a Thursday, it was a Saturday. Therefore, we had a little hiccup. Our Airbnb room was booked, we had guests! The TV shoot scout contacted our guests directly and relocated them at no cost to them nor us. Luckily it was just a 1-night reservation.

TIP: Make sure to ask them if they have a fallback date in case the first date set falls through. They had forgotten to tell me and I never thought about asking since they were filming indoors. Turns out, they also were filming in our back alley.

HOW TO PREPARE YOUR HOUSE FOR A TV SHOOT

Honestly, there isn’t much that needs to be done. Takedown all the personal photos, tidy up, put things away that you care about and hope for the best.

If you are renting your house for a TV shoot, now is not the time to start home renovations and changing things up. It needs to look the same as when you signed the contract.

THE DAY OF THE TV SHOOT

All this sounds like fun, right?

Well, the downside of renting your house for a TV shoot is that you will have to get up early (try 5:30 am) and won’t be able to access your house until the end of the day (6pm minimum).

They show up on time, so be ready! If you have kids, maybe having them sleep over somebody’s house the night before will make your life easier and for less grumpy children.

Don’t worry! They come prepared! As they are after all professionals, they cover your floors with rugs, walls with cardboard, and beds with blankets. They really protect everything! They even bring their own toilet paper and hand soap!

Where do YOU go when you rent your house for a TV shoot?

So after handing over your house, you leave and are homeless for the day. We left our home at 7:30 am, only to return to it late at night. It was such an odd feeling knowing that we didn’t have a home to go back to.

If it’s a workweek, you just go to work, right? But what about your kids who finish school at 3:30 pm or your dog who can’t stay in the house because members of the crew have allergies and, well, our Nouki does take up space.

The dog part was the hardest to solve. Not everyone likes dogs, especially big ones that lose huge amounts of hair and drools!

Luckily, we had 2 sets of friends who were willing to take us in! I don’t know what we would have done without them. We had thought about leaving the city for the day but Nouki gets car sick and we didn’t want to get stuck in traffic on the way home (lots of traffic and construction problems in Montreal right now). We didn’t want to get back home too late to make sure everything was ok. Besides, Junior was hosting a dinner at home so we needed to be home for that!

Tip: If the dog problem isn’t an issue, you can always have your kids go to the local library to wait after school and meet up with them there (pending on their age).

THE AFTERMATH OF THE TV SHOOT

When we came home, it was sparkling clean. First of all, I had cleaned my home before the shoot. Since they covered everything, I can only assume that there wasn’t much to clean. Nonetheless, they did send a cleaning crew and covered all the areas used, which was pretty much every single room in the house!

I have OCD, so I know where things go and are set up. A couple things weren’t put back in their appropriate place, but only I noticed!

IS IT WORTH IT?

Ah Ha! I’m sure you are asking yourself: ‘ that’s all great, but HOW MUCH DO YOU GET PAID?’

Well, the minimum you can get per day is $500 (you have to declare it as income though on your taxes). But you could get up to $1500 per day or even more depending on the type of house you have and the location.

Is it worth it? Is it worth the hassle? Frankly, I don’t know. Luckily, I also work from home. Therefore, schedule-wise it was ok for me. Had it been during the week, I would have been able to deal with Nouki. But when you have kids, it takes a lot more preparation. You need friends or family you can rely on, who can take you in bright and early in the morning if it’s on the week-end. Had we known it would be on a Saturday, maybe we would have just gone away for the week-end. That would have been the easiest option.

If you don’t have an Airbnb home to rely on to showcase your home, you can register your house on the Quebec Film website for FREE.