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We go behind the scenes with the owners of Lordship Park location house with Sarah and Brian, the owners of a photo shoot location house in London, who give us the lowdown on the reality of being a London shoot location.
Represented by SHOOTFACTORY, Lordship Park hosts a variety of photo shoots and filming for the most weird and wonderful.
“As the whirlwind of barely-under-control celebrity photo shoots continue upstairs, we (husband, three teenage boys, two whippets and me) try to maintain a semblance of normal family life in our basement hideaway”. Life as a shoot location owner is a sharp contrast to being a regular homeowner. On the plus side, you get paid for hiring your home as a location and you get to see your home on the TV or in a magazine, even at the cinema. Sarah and Brian find it interesting even now after years of experience as a filming location house to see their home; “When flicking through Vogue, Grazia or Hello Magazine has your eye ever wandered beyond the featured celeb and thought “hmm” that’s a nice sofa she’s sitting on, or “Oh! They’ve a whippet, like ours?
“Well, the chances are that’s in fact, our sofa and our whippet you’ve spotted”, Comments Sarah. Going from a homeowner to one of London’s busiest filming locations is a shock! “With dogs and children” our boys see having a non-stop parade of celebrities, photographers and stylists in their home as, for the most part, a bit of a nuisance. It means having to be polite and being expected to eat their weird leftovers for tea. Wandering through the house in your boxers with bed-head is frowned on (but that’s never stopped Joe) and not being able to watch back-to-back re-runs of Top Gear because Britain’s Next Top Model is being recorded in the living room is a bore. There was a flurry of excitement when Cheryl Cole and her glossy hair came for the day, although Joe said he’d never heard of her and Ed was pleased when La Roux rocked up with full-on quiff for an NME shoot. The dogs aren’t fussed whether they sniff JLS’s crotch or the postman’s and spend most of the day sleeping.
Sarah and Brian explain the history of their house, “Twenty years ago, before the arrival of kids or dogs, we moved into the reception floor of a grand but run-down, Victorian house that had been converted to flats in the 1960s. Photographer friends loved the big, light-filled rooms and often borrowed the place as a location for photo shoots. Over the following two decades and the insane risk taking and a million pound loan enabled us to buy the three remaining floors, as their occupants decided for one reason or another to move on.”
Owners, Sarah and Brian explain how they made their home a great London shoot location house. “With romantic French-style settings constantly in demand we’ve decorated the place to resemble the Palace of Versailles as closely as we can with stuff from eBay and the local auctions. At night we are free to waltz through the grand rooms, eat under the huge chandeliers and sleep in the Louis XV beds but during the day we’re confined to our cramped underground quarters; just a tiny kitchen, toilet and office, leading to a dugout under the front steps, housing an old sofa and a telly, rigged up to a PlayStation.”
If you are serious about registering your property with our location company, try to imagine what a photographer would say about your home. Are the rooms big enough for the team; is there enough daylight, what is the condition of the decor and furniture? Would you be happy with a team of people filming in your property?
Spread over four distinctly styled floors:
Do you have a beautiful, photogenic home? Or an interesting space that you feel could be a great shoot location? If so, we want to hear from you!
You must include the following in your email otherwise we will not accept your request to register your property.
Register your property
Alternatively you can post a memory stick or CD with photographs, along with an accompanying letter including all of the required information, and a contact email address. Please post to:
SHOOTFACTORY REGISTRATIONS (NORTHERN OFFICE), 5 GRAMMAR SCHOOL YARD, FISH STREET, HULL, HU1 1SE.
If you wish to have your memory stick or CD returned, please include a SAE including the correct postage.