Earn Extra Cash Using Your Home as a Filming Location

Opportunity.  As a real estate specialist in architectural and historical homes, I discovered many years ago the large demand for homes to be used as locations for filming either movies or advertising spots.

The Victorian which I moved to the North University Park area near the University of Southern California--the photo shows it being moved--became a star on its way to the new site.  In the early 80’s, the local CBS television show Two on the Town filmed the moving of the house.  Of course I wasn’t paid for that filming, but the house got a lot of exposure, as did my house moving seminars, which eventually led to my published how-to manual, Moving Buildings for Profit.

Personal Experience. Later, after I had renovated it, the Victorian was used for several films, one of which paid me a decent fee. It was on-the-job training for me so I had to learn what was reasonable in a filming contract.  The best deal was with Mel Gibson’s filming of What Women Want.  And the filming sequence shot there didn’t end up on the cutter’s floor, as they say.  There, in the film forever, is the house’s interior in all of its glory, except for the redecorating and the rearranging of the use of the rooms, e.g., the entryway became a bathroom! (See shots of the interior below.)

Because I specialized in older, character homes, I constantly received calls from location scouts who were looking for a specific house or neighborhood for their latest film.  Several of my friends who also owned character homes were making a good amount of money repeatedly because their homes were much larger than mine.

Your Chance. I’m sure you’ve driven by and seen filming going on, with the light reflectors outside the windows, trailers and other gear parked up and down the street and wondered what made that house or location so special.  That’s the whole point.  Every director wants their house to be specific to the tone of the movie and it may require a nondescript stucco box or, say, a Craftsman, Victorian or Beaux Arts mansion.  So your home may be an extra opportunity to earn a little extra cash.

Cautions.  Any opportunity has it cautions.  When your home is a filming site, you need to be on top of it all the time.  For many filming crew members, the house is just another stage and are not particular how they treat your floors and other elements of the house.  At the same time, there are those who treat the house with respect and, under most agreements, will return it to its original condition—unless you like what they added or changed.

How to Get Started. Probably the best place for you to start is to go to the state of California’s website on filming locations: http://www.film.ca.gov/pdf/How_to_Market_Your_Property.pdf.  It gives you a pretty basic overview and is a resource for the names of agents who earn a commission for representing you and your home.  It will also tell you where the nearest state filming location office is if you want to take a resume of your house with pictures.  I’m told this is one of the first places the location scouts search for their next shooting site.  This should be true for you wherever you live.  Start with your state filming commission or board.