DigitalRichDaily: The Day Reba McEntire Used My Bathroom

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Day Reba McEntire Used My Bathroom

I initially posted this on October 28th, the day after Reba was filmed on location on the DigitalRich Ranch shooting the new Brooks & Dunn music video for Cowgirl's Don't Cry, but I think Google Alerts popped up in her manager's inbox and some feelings were hurt.

I was asked to take this down for a few weeks. I've noticed some news stories since the CMA Awards about Reba performing with Brooks & Dunn and some YouTube behind-the-scenes stuff about the shoot, so I figure it's safe to repost.

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Today was the day. It all started about a week ago when an unassuming young gent named John knocked on our front door. He asked my wife if he could come in and take a few pictures of our house. He'd heard we had a nice and spacious living area and they wanted to see if it would work for a new Brooks & Dunn (w/special guest Reba McEntire) music video.

Michelle came downstairs to my office to get me, and I did the proper vetting. I asked for his business card, what production company he was with, etc, etc. We let him in and he took a few pictures and left. I wasn't sure we'd hear from him again, but he emailed me a few days later.

He told us he wanted to stop by the house with the director to look around and we said ok. About 10 people showed up and walked around the kitchen area talking about possible shots. They ended up wanting to shoot the scene here and John contacted me the next day with their offer. I countered with double what they offered, and we settled for 1/2 way between the two numbers.

The advance crew showed up today about 10:00AM and got to work. The most important thing to get done first seemed to be set-up for catering. The tables went up, along with about 35 chairs or so. Unfortunately they picked the coldest day so far this season and eating outside was just a bit frosty.

While the catering guys were hard at work, the rest of the crew started arriving and used part of our land as a make-shift parking lot.

They started to set-up the production trucks, generators, outside lighting (shining into the kitchen), and other necessary work to get the right look inside.

Then it was lunch time. Catering provided a rather tasty rice-stuffed chicken breast, salad with all the trimmings, wild rice, and broccoli and for dessert a rather tasty Boston cream pie.

Here we see the piano room, after everything that was not needed in the great room was moved into it to make room for the interior lighting and camera. I wasn't aware they were going to do all this. It was a bit of a shock, but they were very careful.

Here you can see one of the lighting set-ups and the camera in the edge of the great room looking into the kitchen and dinette area. Reba arrived about this time and they used our master bathroom to do her make-up and touch up her hair. This was unforseen, and of course was the one room my wife DIDN'T clean up before the shoot.

And here is the second interior lighting set in the dining room looking through the foyer into the dinette. The young girl there is an actress that played Reba's character's daughter.

And, finally, the money shot. Here is Reba's character answering the phone, ostensibly getting horrible news, and her daughter seeing her mom distressed comes over to hug her.

And we're done. The crew left by 3:30PM after packing up everything and using digital pictures they took prior to the shoot to make sure everything was put back in its place. We did a walk through with a couple staff guys to make sure all was ok. We told them it was, they left, and then my wife realized they took our fruit bowl (making its screen debut in the photo above).

I called John on his cell and they rushed it right back over.

It was a very interesting experience, but if there is a next time, I'm not coming down off my number.