Wednesday, February 15, 2012

TV show stars?

For those of you who might have noticed the Facebook or Twitter comments I've made about camera crews, TV shows, producers and house hunting... here is what's been happening.


We are going to be featured on House Hunters International! :)

*cue theme music*

We aren't buying a house in England, but recently there has been such a demand for more shows that they started taking on stories of renters relocating internationally! We definitely fit that category and we were chosen for the show! Last weekend we had a film crew follow us around for three days while we toured three houses (one being our own), walked around our village, and made the "decision" on which one we wanted.

If you are really confused why our house would be one property that we toured, I have to let you in on the not-so-secret secret HGTV has on how this show is filmed: It's all backwards!

I wonder about this house...
Sorry, folks! It's true! We moved into our house in November, Remember? We had been communicating with HGTV since October and they really liked our little trans-Atlantic fairy tale story. A casting producer name Claire told us to wait until we found a house and had moved in before we started talking about dates for filming. They wanted to make sure we actually had a house to show us living in England so you Americans could get that warm fuzzy feeling of seeing a successful international house hunt story! We created a casting video right after we signed a lease and sent it over to the producers. I am not sure if I am willing to post the casting video. I am really dorky!


We felt a little cheated at first when we first learned that HHI stages the whole thing, but I have to admit, we L-O-V-E this show, and I don't think I would like it half as much if the folks touring houses didn't pick one at the end. (Come on, it only takes 30 minutes to find the house of your dreams, right??) It's all TV magic!

I have heard so many stories of people not liking this show because they get fed up with the couple or individual touring the potential homes. I hope this will cast a new light on how it's created because chances are, they aren't that rude or picky or mean... the directors are looking for extreme opinions and the editors pick the direction of the story to make it all fit into 22 minutes of film (8 minutes of commercials). The people who are on it already have the house and choose to create opinions about everything for TV. We just hope the editors choose to make us look laid back & reasonable and not picky & stuck up.

Is this acting or the real thing? Our "letting agent" was so great!
We had two sets of dates for filming: 4-6 Feb for the hunting and decision making scenes and 19 February for the back story. They gave us a travel stipend to cover the cost of flying to Minnesota for a couple days for a bit of filming of our life before we moved (we are filming at a friend's house because we don't have a house in MN anymore!). On Friday we are flying back to the United States and while we're there we are going to Washington state to see my nieces! :) We will get some time with family in Minnesota and then it's five days of Walker baby twins! :)




This weekend we get to meet these adorable rollie pollies!!
We are pretty sure that if you have been keeping up with the blog you will not be surprised which one we end up picking, but we will still keep you posted on when the episode is supposed to air on HGTV! We were told at least a couple months, so we expect it'll be around June 2012. Stay Tuned!