Filming Day With HGTV
Hello all. Filming for HGTV was completed last Thursday, so I thought I'd share the highlights. It was a fun process.
Filming began on Monday afternoon and consisted mainly of me and David walking them through the kitchen, talking to them about the design, details, and what we liked best about the new kitchen. We also were filmed answering some interview questions. Of the 4-person crew, we mostly interacted with the camera man, and the producer. The walkthrough was a bit awkward as they directed to say or not say certain things, say them shorter (usually me!) or differently, or "can you do that again - exactly the same way - without looking at the camera". After a couple hours of that, THEN they tell us that HGTV prefers that they film more "organically" - meaning point the camera at us and capture just our ad-lib comments on film - so they wanted us to edit/condense the previous 2 hours of dialogue into a 5 minute non-stop filming with no direction whatsoever. After giving them blank stares, David and I took the plunge and finally got it in a few takes. During the shooting, we learned more about the premise of the show....the kitchens featured on our episode will be evaluated by design expert Lisa LaPorta (referred to as "the talent") and a real estate expert and one will be selected as adding the most value to the house and therefore named "Best Bang for the Buck".
On Thursday morning at 7 AM, the previous crew was joined by 4 more people and they took over the carport as their staging area - food table, camera equipment, etc. By the time I left for work, the house was a frenzy of doing hair and make up, and setting up equipment. It took them 10 minutes to blow a circuit breaker, so I helped them with that before leaving. They spent the entire day shooting our neighborhood, the front of the house, the approach from the front door to the kitchen, but mostly they focused on "the talent" doing a critique of the kitchen. David and I had to be back home late afternoon for more filming. But this time we were airbrushed with make up (that airbrush just melted away my stress - I want one!). They filmed the final evaluation wrap up of the three kitchens here at our house, so David and I waited outside quite a while until "the talent" got finished - because we couldn't hear the final results. (By the way, "the talent's" black limousine sat out in front of the house - driver at the wheel with the car running....for at least 3 hours. And it was a beautiful day in the 70's. Could NOT figure that out.)
When they brought us in, the scene was a bit of a shock. The furniture in the living room and family room was completely rearranged for them to set up cameras and lighting, and stage the interview segments. We watched them film the "beauty shots" with a huge camera that swung around on a boom, sweeping up, down, and through the kitchen. Very cool.
I also sat in the family room and chatted with Lisa LaPorta and learned that she graduated from UCLA school of architecture and she was a cofounder of the HGTV show "Design to Sell" - as well as this new show that we will be on. Very interesting woman. She said she loved our neighborhood and we had a great house - and I got the impression that we MAY have won "best bang". Won't know until the episode airs.
After Lisa sped off in her black limo, the crew sat me and David down in front of a laptop, filming us while showing us the video of the critique of our kitchen. They wanted us to exaggerate and ham up our responses to their comments - most of which were positive - but especially when they made any criticisms. That was really fun. We had some fun at the expense of these "experts" that seemed to contradict themselves on a few things....which we were all too happy to point out. "So they do they 'get it' or don't they? They can't make up their minds."
And then the crew helped us put all the furniture back in place, cleaned up their mess, and they were off to dinner about 7 PM. They invited us along, and though they were a great bunch, we decided we needed time to decompress over some good sushi! Specifically, I needed to decompress a little because the next day I knew that I had to participate in laying off 8 people at the office.
So that's our big adventure. They believe the show will air in April on Thursdays, but we don't know what order the episodes will be shown - so Tivo the series! Should be a real hoot.
My apologies to our contractor Steve Shinn of Homework Remodels and Shelley Barclay of TDC Cabinetry. They wouldn't let us mention any brand names installed, or companies that participated in the remodel. I was hoping to mention both of you - but please know how much I appreciate your help in making our kitchen a reality.
Brett & David
