Yesterday was Demo day for the Hill Family's house. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has been filming their season opening show in Suffield, Connecticut and our friends Amy and Dave live across the street from all of the action.
The following pictures are a quick recap of the day's events. The first is of one of the show's designers, Michael. He is being filmed rallying the volunteers and talking to the Hill family on a small camcorder in his hand. Next is the view from Amy's front porch of the claws open and ready to destroy. The loud engines were hard to hear over all of the screams when the claws first broke through the roof of the Hill's house.
Here's Ty Pennington, standing on the spot where the Hill's house used to be. He is taping his message to the family, who are enjoying their vacation to Disney.
It was an exciting day, but so long. The worst part about being there is the magic of Hollywood is lost when you watch each segment of the show get filmed over and over, and your kids get that glazed over bored I'm going to start complaining look. The bus was pulled up; horns blazing, Ty jumping out yelling, and crowd screaming... about 10 times. We arrived around 8:00 AM, since some crew members said the demo would begin about 8:30 and others thought it would happen around 10:30. After many retakes of the designer's pep talks, Ty's arrival, and the dramatic charging of hammer and crow bar clad volunteers, the house finally came down around 1:00.
The best part of being there was enjoying the behind the scenes Hollywood magic. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the crew had set up an outdoor kitchen in my friend's backyard. When we arrived the Extreme Makeover chef had prepared a huge breakfast buffet complete with eggs, hash browns, biscuits, gravy, fruit and danish. Soon after, the Dunkin Donut truck arrived with endless coffee and tables of doughnuts. Lunch was a bigger buffet of spaghetti, meatballs, sausage, chicken, rice and veggies. Just when we thought we couldn't eat another thing... the Friendly's ice cream truck pulled in. As if the demo excitement and food wasn't enough we were invited to Massage World, the relaxation tent also set up in Amy and Dave's backyard. By the end of the day we felt like stars of the show.
I can't wait to see the show when it airs this September. My kids, niece and nephew are excited too. They are hoping to catch a glimpse of themselves. The cameras were filming Ty shaking hands and talking with onlookers and they all got to shake his hand. They also met and took a picture with Xhibit (the rapper & MTV's Pimp My Ride host).
I made another slide show on Flickr of all the extra pictures. Hope you enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by,
Kristin : )
That is so cool. Is Ty as cute and nice in person as he appears to be on tv ... oh, and please don't tell me the neighbors haven't met him yet. That would be just too sad! *vbg*
ReplyDeleteCute, oh yeah! Nice? That's hard to say. He was busy and looked stressed. My kids shook his hand, so they were happy. Ty rushed around between shots and when he did sit there were signs saying no pictures or autographs. I can't say that I would be all that happy after a long day of filming and retakes with fans screaming your name. I hope that my friends do get the chance to actually sit down and meet him. They have given their yard for this, they more than deserve it.
ReplyDeleteSounds so exciting! I do watch the show sometimes and often wondered how they do what they do in such a short length of time.
ReplyDeleteKristie Leigh Maguire