Interested in hosting a paid commercial shoot at your house?
We would love to discuss adding your home to our Residential Location Library.
Who we are: Established in 2016 Subdivision is a women-owned and operated location agency that provides location services for print and commercial video shoots. Austin is home to a robust production economy and in recent years has become a sought after destination for out of town productions. As the need for locations grows, we aim to help connect clients excited to work in the Austin market with top notch locations. Subdivision manages shoot’s all over Austin (in parks, downtown, on ranches etc) but we specialize in homes.
What we do: Subdivision represents property owners interested in hosting commercial shoots at their private residence. Subdivision facilitates and guides communication between property owners and production companies. We oversee contracts, insurance, payment, and coordination between property owner and production company. We vet projects before presenting them to you and know how a production’s footprint will impact your home; with this knowledge we get you the best possible day-rate. Hosting a shoot is fun but can be overwhelming; we make the process straightforward, transparent, and safe for your property.
ALL types of homes wanted.
Fancy is NOT a prerequisite.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How do I join? Is there a fee?
Joining our library is not a hard and fast commitment, just an openness to host a shoot if it works for you. There is no fee to add your home to our residential library.
The first step in the process is setting up a time for us to drop by and take some scouting photos of your house. This typically takes about 1-1.5 hours. It is ideal if your home can be tidy for the scout but by no means does it need to be spotless.
A few key photos of your home go up on our website under a randomly assigned name (no geographical info is shared) and join our private clients-only database. When a client comes to us looking for a specific type of home we share options with them. If your house is of interest we reach out to you to talk about specific details like date, rate, and overall footprint.
Why should I work with a location agency? As an individual property owner without connections to the production world marketing your home to those in search of homes for commercial shoots is challenging. Subdivision has a direct line to clients, agencies, and colleagues in the location services industry which means you don’t have to go looking for jobs we bring them to you.
Working directly with companies and freelance managers can be overwhelming and time consuming if you aren’t familiar with how the production industry works. Talking production lingo with folks in the industry, negotiating rates, and holding boundaries where boundaries need to be held is what we do day in and day out. All of us at Subdivision are property owners with pets, kids, and busy lives. Putting ourselves in the shoes of our property owners is not challenging. Your house becomes our house when we work with you.
Ensuring that our property owners feel confident and comfortable about hosting shoots in their homes is of utmost importance to us. We gain that trust by securing the best possible day rates, always being transparent about what to expect from a shoot, and being in tune and attentive when questions or issues arise.
How do you determine my home's day rate and what sort of rates can I expect? The rate we are able to secure for any location is determined by the budget of a given project. Therefore we will more often than not determine your day rate on a job by job basis. If you are interested in knowing what sort of day rates you might see for your home don’t hesitate to reach out. We can likely give you a rate range based on a few photos of your house. As a general rule of thumb the bigger the job (more people and more equipment) the higher the day rate. We will never move forward with booking without your approval of compensation, if you have a bottom line you are not willing to go below we will happily respect that. You can expect to be paid in full on the first day of a shoot.
What do timelines look like? Timelines run the gambit depending on the project but on average there is typically 1-3 weeks between our first reaching out to you and the start of a shoot. In the days leading up to a shoot you can expect 1-3 scouts of your home, one of which typically takes place before your home is officially booked.
How often can I expect my house to be booked? The answer to this question is dependent upon what kinds of homes a given production is looking for. It’s possible a year could go by before your home is booked or that you could have several inquiries in the span of a month. While hosting shoots can be lucrative we do not recccomend counting on reliable income from hosting shoots.
Can I turn down a shoot at my house? Yes, we absolutely understand that your home may not always be available for a shoot, you can always say “no”.
How long is the average shoot? The vast majority of our projects are between 1-3 three days long although some run longer. For stills a standard production day is 12 hours, for a commercial days can be 14 hours.
What sort of oversight do you provide? Subdivision provides an industry standard location agreement (signed between production company and property owner) that lays out expectations and liability that give property owners peace of mind. On shoot days you can expect a representative of Subdivision or a trusted freelancer on site for the duration of the shoot in the role of a location manager. The location manager is first to arrive and last to leave and your primary contact during the production itself. Whenever possible we encourage property owners to do a thorough walk through of the house with the location manager at the end of a shoot to ensure everything looks in order and has been restored to your liking.
Who is liable for damages should something happen to my property during a production? In the unlikely event that your home incurs the production company is liable. We will not allow a shoot to move forward until we have received a COI (Certificate of Insurance) from the production company naming your home as additionally insured.
Am I allowed to be at home during a production? Because of how much space productions typically need to get the job done we ask that homeowners not be present during shoots. Sometimes there can be flexibility here if for instance you work from home and your office is in an area of the house not being used by the production. If you foresee being away from your home for an entire day being a challenge let us know so we can make a note of it.
Can I restrict certain areas of my home? It is generally expected that when a production uses your home they will have full access to the house but if there is a specific area of your home that you would like to restrict during a shoot let us know and we will bring “off limits” signage.
In what shape can I expect to find my house after a shoot? Our location agreement is very clear that your home must be left in the same or better shape than it was found in. If for some reason this is not that case we will make sure the situation is remedied. For jobs with larger crews or that are more than one day long it is standard to pay homeowners a cleaning fee of between $100-200. This cleaning fee is paid directly to homeowners and can be used to pay a thrid party cleaning service for a post-shoot clean.