How to Get Your Home in the Movies

by Mary Ann Romans | More from this Blogger

30 Mar 2009 08:11 AM

Do you want to get paid to have your home appear in a movie, television show or commercial? You could earn up to $5,000 a day and have the bragging rights that your home appeared in on the big or small screen. Here is what you need to know!

Location, location, location

First of all, it helps to have your home located in an area where a lot of filming is done. Southern California is a good one, and so is the greater New York City area (I can't count the number of times our New York apartment building, neighborhood or the homes of my friends were filmed over the years). But even if you don't live in one of those area, take heart, location scouts use homes from all over the country and all over the world.

Type of home

Your home is most likely to be rented for filming if it tends to look like it could be a home in any neighborhood. This is especially true for commercials. Stylized houses either inside or out can be a problem. A spanish-style house, for example, may not get rented as often as a standard traditional home. Mid-century, traditional and modern homes are most needed, as are homes with large rooms, especially large kitchens.

The inside matters

How you care for the inside of your house matters a great deal. The rooms in your home should be uncluttered and not too personal. family photographs will need to be taken down for example. The inside of your home should be spotless while still looking as though there are actual people living in it.

Check back for the next post, when I talk about what is actually involved with renting out your home for the movies or television.

Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, creating a home in the Home Blog, caring for little ones in the Baby Blog and now relationships in the Marriage Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here or subscribe to the blog using the subscription box on the right.

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Learn more about Mary Ann Romans

Mary Ann Romans is a freelance writer, wife and mother of three children. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, the kids and a 16-pound cat.

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Cat-Mom-of-3 (180) 30 Mar 2009 11:30 AM

My neighbor recently had a movie being made at his home, and I hope he felt is was worth it because the neighborhood will not forget easily and nobody was happy about it!! We live in an affluent area with many celebrities as residents, who try to get away from all that!!

Mary Ann Romans (26886) 31 Mar 2009 09:46 AM

So there was a lot of disruption when that happened? Did the neighborhood ask him not to do it again?

Cat-Mom-of-3 (180) 02 Apr 2009 09:24 AM

While this was disruptive, it's now over. If people are really interested in doing this I recommend engaging neighbors first and also confirming that proper permits have been pulled as you may end up with the police at you door as our neighbor did!