Subdivision FAQ

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 colleges in the location services industry which means you don’t have to go looking for jobs we bring them to you. Working with our location manager colleagues will mean more jobs coming through Subdivision and landing in the laps of our property owners. 

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 and always being open and honest about what to expect from hosting. 

Will my rates change? We expect property owner rates will stay the same under this model. For photo and smaller video shoots you can generally expect rates between $2000-3500/day. For larger commercials you can expect rates between $3000-4500/day. 

If you rent your house out for fewer than 15 days a year any income you make on the income that results from the rental is tax exempt! To read more about The Masters Rule CLICK HERE

What happens if/when we are approached directly by someone and we have exclusivity with you. In a case such as this, you would say “Sounds interesting, here’s the contact for our location agency”. We would discuss the parameters of the shoot with whoever reached out to you and then get in touch with you to discuss the job and next steps. If the project is a commercial or large scale photo shoot, more than likely they will gladly work through us if it means securing your house (common in other markets). If the party that approaches you is a small, local company with a limited budget, we will gladly step aside and let you work directly with them. We don’t foresee exclusivity issues arising often or becoming a source of contention with our property owners. At the end of the day we want you to make money! If we need to step aside in order to make that happen we will. 

What if I am not willing to agree to your exclusivity requirement? Please get in touch with us if you have any qualms at all about our exclusivity agreement so we can address your specific concerns. Ultimately, if you cannot agree to exclusivity, your home can remain in our library. However, it will not be included in marketing efforts directed at the larger locations industry and depending on the degree to which your house is “out there” considered for fewer projects that run through our agency. 

How will this change things for us? The primary change for you will be that as we get closer to a confirmed production you will likely be communicating directly with the location manager with us in copy. During the shoot itself we will be in communication with the location manager and you to ensure everything runs smoothly, but we will not be physically present during the shoot. If you are not able to be present for a walk through at the end of a shoot, we will be available to be there. If you would like someone from Subdivision to let the crew in/out of your house each day, we can also handle that. Our goal pending availability is to be present for at least one scout prior to a shoot. 

Who are these freelance location managers? There are about 12 freelance location managers in the Austin area we have relationships with and plan to share our files with. All are known to the Texas Film Commission and Austin Film Commission and have reputations for being good location managers. If we don’t feel confident about the location manager on a job, we will turn it down. We appreciate that this arrangement only works if the people we partner with are capable caring people. If you were ever to have any concerns or disputes with a location manager, you would reach out to us and we would address the issue on your behalf. 

What if I don’t feel comfortable without someone from Subdivision being there? We would not pursue this expansion of our business if we didn’t feel confident our property owners’ homes would be well taken care of by freelance scouts. That said, we understand that not having someone from Subdivision might feel strange to some. We can require a site rep from Subdivision as a condition of booking for crews over a certain size or if a property owner requests it. This will come at the expense of the production company but for bigger budget projects something like this is unlikely to meet opposition. 

Please get in touch if you have any additional questions!