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We’ve all watched TV or movies at some stage and most of us are fascinated by how these shows are made if the popularity of ‘Behind the scenes’ specials are anything to go by.

Yet few people get a chance to see a TV show being filmed and even fewer get the opportunity to have a real TV show filmed in their home. I was recently lucky enough to have that chance when Channel 7 (one of 5 major TV networks in Australia) contacted me to use my house as a location for their hit TV show, City Homicide.

For those who might get a similar offer, here is what my experience was like (there is a video of the scenes at the very end of this post) …

(The episode that featured my house is the Season 2 finale – Life and Death).

A Mysterious Letter

I arrived home from work to find a letter from Channel 7 in my letterbox asking I would consider letting them use my home as a location for their show.

I called the location manager and discussed the details. For one day of shooting plus the next morning to clean-up, they would pay me a reasonable sum (or make a donation to charity), they would be fully insured for any damages, they would move all the furniture and put it back at the end, arrange council permissions and inform the neighbours.

Besides the excitement of having a TV show filmed in my house, who couldn’t do with a bit of extra cash? So it didn’t take me long to agree.

The Pre-Work

Over the next three weeks, I had three visits from the production team. With each visit, more and more of the crew came along.  The first visit was one of the location managers who took some photos. The second visit involved the Director, location manager, a couple of set designers and one of the camera crew (I think) who paced around my house and discussed the scene.

After the second visit, the location manager confirmed they would use my house and got me to sign a location agreement – which amazingly was quite simple and in plain english.

The final visit involved a mini-bus rocking up with 15 crew! If you have ever had a thorough physical medical examination by your doctor, that is pretty much what my house went through with this crew. They took all sorts of measurements – from the width of my stairs (to build a fake wall to hide it), to measuring the lighting, and to seeing if they could get their equipment through my garage.

Day of Shooting

The day started early (by my standards) at 8am with the location manager rocking up and laying out traffic cones to reserve the parking spots on my street.

Shortly after the Art Department arrived and moved all my furniture into my garage and then setup their  props. Whilst my house is double story, they wanted the set to appear as a bed sit apartment and so they build a fake wall to hide my staircase (behind the desk in the photo below).

As the initial scene they would film would be at night, they put blackout clothes over all the exterior windows and even the stairwell landing.

By this time, the tech department had arrived with the camera and lighting rigs.

The below photo looks weird because I forget to change one of my camera settings – doh.

Whilst I’m no film expert and hence can’t give you detailed technical descriptions about the filming process, one thing which I found fascinating was the lighting. By the afternoon, they were filming a ‘daytime’ scene in my house – however, because they do many many takes of each scene, they have to keep the light consistent.

Consequently, they cannot rely on just the daylight. The two photos show how they maintain a consistent light – basically they shine lights in through my exterior windows via a translucent screen.

In the photo below, you can see the translucent screen on the left. You can see the film crew inside the house and in my garage, squashed in with all my belongings is the director and sound crew.

It was a tight fit in my garage. The Director and sound crew had a direct feed from the cameras and so could review how the scene looked ‘on television’. You would be amazed how many takes that they … well, take … of each scene! Film a scene in one direction, then move the camera and film the scene from another angle .. repeat for ten different angles. Then repeat the scene again but focus on their faces, then again just on their mouth, again on their feet …

Here is one of two cameras that they used. I don’t have a shot of the other camera – but it was one mounted on one of those huge Steadicam rigs. The camera guy wore a harness which the camera slotted into. Between takes, the assistants took the camera off and put it on it’s own mount – do doubt the camera weighed a ton.

And here is one of the stars of the shows – and certainly the most popular star with the ladies – Daniel McPherson.

A few more shots from the day:

The Wrap

Shortly after 5pm they finished filming. Upon declaring ‘it’s a wrap’ (yes they actually said that), the actors dashed off to a waiting car and the whole place was packed up within 30 minutes!

The following morning, professional cleaners arrived and cleaned my house – I actually had a cleaner house than I normally do!

And so what did the final scenes look like? Note how many cuts and angles are in the 3 minutes that this clip runs for. Also remember that the ‘night’ scene was filmed in the morning with blackout clothes on the window. The whole clip is 3 mins long … yet took a day of filming.

Would I do it again? Would I recommend others allow a TV show to be fimed in their house?

Yes! Channel 7 and the City Homicide team were absolutely professional and couldn’t have made the whole process any easier.

Whilst they are (understandably) not very flexible with their schedule (they will want to shoot on a specific day), they do their utmost to miminse the impact on you. They treated my possessions with care when moving it and they put 95% of it back in the same place. They also took great care not to damage anything whilst they were in my house, putting protective mats down on the floor and so on. The cast and crew were very friendly and were very tolerant of me standing around taking photos of them all day.

It is such a novel experience to watch a TV show being filmed that if you get the opportunity I heartily recommend you take it.

That’s me on the left

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Channel 7, City Homicide, Daniel MacPherson, director, episode, film, tv, tv show