Shooting a commercial in our house

Today I opened my house to seven dogs and fourteen people to shoot a commercial for a pet health care product: liquid ibuprofen for dogs with arthritis.  The photo above shows what it was like most of the time.

The art director got to clean the windows.  At one point he and I were dancing around each other in the kitchen, cleaning and prepping.  I felt like I had a new husband for the day.

The first scene was at the front door.  The actress had to walk down the stairs, call her pug over, squirt some medicine in his mouth, and then go off to work.  Pug looked out the door after her.  They did many, many takes.  His rear end kept ruining the shots, and that was hard to control.

The border collie was beautiful.  She was in a shot on the couch with a gorgeous and sweet golden retriever.  They did well.  They also did a good job of leaving fur all over the rug.  There was also an adorable little dog called a chin and three field spaniels.

The kitchen shots took a super-long time.  Not keen on having a dog on my counter, but someone waved cash at me.  And then they waved some more cash when they needed an extra actor.  My first commercial.

I offered the bedroom when they needed a spot to do the testimonial.  They needed a place that looked a lot different from the previous shots, and this was the only spot.  I had to quickly remove the dirty clothes and make the bed.  Kind of weird to have all those people in there.  That is my temp husband lounging on the bed.

Everyone had these three questions:

How did you get roped into this?  Well, one of the film company partners had been to our house to do some editing for us and remembered it.  The commercial is for the European market, and they were looking for a European look.  They called our place The Scandinavian House when looking at all the test shots.  They offered money, so I said yes.  I don't often have an opportunity to make money as a woman of leisure.

Have you done this before?  No.  Will you do this again?  Sure, but hopefully without the dogs.