Get That Life: How We Created House Hunters
When reality TV producers Tara Sandler and Jennifer Davidson went looking for a new house in 1998, they grew increasingly frustrated as none of the houses they saw crossed off all the things on their wish list. During one house tour, they realized this frustration was a brilliant idea for a TV show and went home and wrote the pitch for House Hunters. (They currently produce four of the show's spin-offs.) Their production company, Pie Town Productions, has produced more than 10,000 episodes of different shows for networks like TLC, We TV, and HGTV, and is currently working with Amanda Knox on a new series.
Tara and Jennifer discuss how reality TV has changed, what it’s like to work with your partner, and why House Hunters is really a show about people, not houses.
Tara: [In high school,] I went to my guidance counselor and said, “I want to be a photographer,” and she said, “Oh, that’s mass media communications - radio, television, film.” From the minute I found out you could do that for a living, that’s what I wanted to do.
Jennifer: Someone gave me a tip that Northwestern University offered a degree in radio, television, and film, and I also jumped at the chance because I had no idea you could study something like that.
Tara: We both started entry-level. I was answering phones for a film company, then I was a PA [production assistant] on Truth or Consequences, and I worked on The Home Show as a production manager. In this business, you have to work your way up an invisible ladder - the rungs aren’t really on top of one another. You just have to take the job you think is going to be the best job for your big-picture career.
Jennifer: There was not an enormous amount of thought and planning that went into starting a company together.
Tara: We met at a party [in 1990]. We were friends first and one thing turned into another. We worked together on three shows before we started Pie Town Productions in 1995.
Jennifer: We have complementary skills. Initially, Tara was more logistical and focused on business and budgets and things like that, and I was more focused on research and development and producing and writing.
Our very first show that we produced as Pie Town Productions was a show called Great Country Inns for TLC in 1996. Tara and I were producing A Wedding Story and Dream Living for TLC with another company. We ended up leaving that company and an executive from TLC, [Michael Dingley,] called us up and said, “What are you doing now? Because I have this show that is in transition and I’m looking for another production company.”
[Great Country Inns] had the most extraordinarily low budget we had ever heard of at that point. Every episode had to be produced for under $17,000, and that included traveling [with] a host and a crew somewhere in the country to feature a fabulous inn. Tara and I were able to afford one assistant and two editors who were brand new to editing. It was the five of us producing 45 episodes in eight months. It necessitated our being able to do every job.
Tara: You know, am I going to do a Fedex run today? Or am I going to clean the toilets? Or am I going to record the [voiceover] scratch track for the editor? Or am I going to go out and direct the episode? Or am I going to write the episode?
Then we did the next season and then the international version, Intimate Escapes.
Jennifer: [Next] we produced A Baby Story for TLC [which followed a couple from the last weeks of pregnancy through birth and the baby’s first weeks]. That show was to some extent groundbreaking, because reality TV at that point featured mainly cops; there was Cops, Rescue 911. There was very little out there that featured family rituals in reality television. A Baby Story kind of made a big splash. That put us on a path of being more recognized in the industry.
Jennifer: We became known as the company to go to to deliver these shows on time and on budget with really good storytelling. That’s why we had these executives coming to us and saying, “What if we did this?” and trusting that we could figure out what that format would look like and then actually produce 65 episodes on a crazy budget within a given year.
Tara: Our executive who gave us [Great Country Inns,] Michael Dingley, went from TLC to HGTV. We ended up doing a series for him called Designing for the Sexes. He called us up one day and said, “I just woke up. I had this dream of he wants this in his house and she wants that in her house. And then we bring in a designer and they merge their two tastes.”
Jennifer: At that time, HGTV was mainly doing DIY programming. It was more craft-oriented. And Michael really wanted to take more narrative storytelling and apply it to HGTV.
Tara: So we were producing Designing for the Sexes and Jennifer and I were looking for the house that would be our second house. We thought, We’re going to get everything we want because we’re not in the starter level anymore. And then we looked and it was really, really frustrating.
One day we went to this house and it was a mid-century modern, which we love, and it was this very small house with a very big pool. It turns out that it was some famous bandleader’s pool house. We were like, “it’s not perfect, but it could be if we did this and that to it.” We both looked at each other and said, “Wow, this is really stressful. This could be a really good idea for a show.” So we decided, let’s go back to the office, and we’ll put an offer in on the house, and we’ll write up a pitch and send it off. That’s how we created House Hunters.
Jennifer: We started with an incredibly low budget [in 1998].
Tara: I think it was something like $28,000 an episode.
Jennifer: It was a really such a new kind of show for HGTV that everybody was undergoing a learning curve. When we launch a new show for any network, you talk in such abstract terms for such a long time. When everybody finally gets a look at something concrete, we can talk about what’s actually working and what’s not. For a network that was experimenting with a new genre, there was a lot of back and forth. I think we probably sent them many, many cuts for that very first episode and for that first season.
Tara: It was very hard to produce at the time because we were convincing real estate agents to let us into houses and give up five days of shooting for a half-an-hour show. Now it’s so much easier because people want to be on the show. We receive hundreds of applications every week.
Jennifer: Because we started out with such a low budget, we were confined to working locally, which for us is the Los Angeles area. So we didn’t have a tremendous diversity in terms of location. But in terms of ages and ethnicities and those types of demographics, we had a very diverse pool of people to choose from.
Tara: That’s something we’re most proud of, how diverse our casting has been.
Jennifer: One thing we were doing back in ’98, ’99 that was a little unusual is we were featuring some gay couples who were looking for houses. Like everybody else, this was a life ritual that they were fulfilling, and we treated them just as we would treat any other family or straight couple. That was kind of new to the world of reality TV and even fiction at that time.
If we pitched House Hunters today in this climate of reality television, I just cannot imagine that anybody would have bought it. Reality TV has morphed and changed so much, and it’s gotten louder and louder and louder.
Tara: Our executive used to refer to it as a good bedtime story. That’s why it was on at 10 p.m. He was like, “It’s a nice way to decompress from the day and go to sleep.”
Jennifer: But I think it took several seasons for House Hunters to really catch on the way that it has. We flew under the radar. I don’t know [the tipping point], but we started to realize people were watching the show. I was cashing a check at the bank in the early 2000s and the teller freaked out because the check said House Hunters on it. She asked if I was associated with the show and [said], “I can’t believe it! You do that show?!” It became that over and over again.
Tara: The other thing was going into networks and being ready to pitch a show to them and them just going, “No! Wait a minute. I just want to hear everything about how you produce House Hunters.” And we’re like, “What?”
Jennifer: In 2002, we thought there was great potential for [House Hunters: International]. We thought it would be fascinating to see how people house hunt in different countries and cultures. I remember the very first episode we produced was in Italy, and it was fascinating to see people having the same exact concerns that we do in the States about, you know, how big or small their master bedroom was. We were floored by just how similar the experience was. But in other cases, whether we were in Bulgaria or someplace else, it might be a little bit different, and that was equally as fascinating.
Tara: We produced it for 17 seasons. We don’t produce all the [spin-offs]. The first eight years of this company, we went without a day off, and that is not good for a relationship.
Jennifer: It’s a good thing we make each other laugh. I think it’s like how med school students tend to marry each other. I think producers wouldn’t see each other if they weren’t together producing. We’d rather be together than apart for all the crazy hours that these jobs require.
Tara: In the old days, we were producing typically 13 or 26 episodes a year and now we’re producing up to 200 episodes a year of just House Hunters - what we refer as House Hunters: Classic, as opposed to House Hunters: Renovation and Tiny House Hunters and Vintage House Hunters and House Hunters: Outside the Box and all these different strands of House Hunters: Classic.
Jennifer: We have a much larger staff who are traveling.
Tara: Five to seven different crews out a day.
Jennifer: It’s become a bigger show to manage. More people, more shoots, more participants, more everything, so it’s been a challenge in a different kind of way.
Tara: I think keeping the show fresh is the biggest challenge that we face. When we want to come up with new ideas, we’ll sit down with our team, and really encourage everybody to come up with new ways of telling the story or shooting the show.
Jennifer: We’ve had to grow the show creatively to keep up with these changing expectations [of reality TV], but at the same time, not go to a place that’s mean-spirited and trying to shock, because that’s not the HGTV brand either. So how do we thread that needle and still be a PG-13 viewing experience for families, and yet not feel dated and old?
Tara: Like Baby Story or Wedding Story, House Hunters is this story of this couple or this family or siblings or whoever it might be, going through their house hunt. Capturing their personalities and their wants and needs and hopes and conflicts is what makes each show unique. And I think casting is the key to that: casting people that you’re going to want to spend a half an hour watching.
Jennifer: We are involved in casting every single show that we produce at Pie Town because casting is the most important element of every show creatively. [On House Hunters,] we focus as much on the people going through it as we do on what we call the “real estate porn.”
One element that makes every person a good candidate for any reality show is that they’ve got to be somewhat unfiltered and not be too polite. You’re not going to get everything you’re looking for in a house, no matter what’s your budget, no matter where you are, [but] it should still feel inspiring and exciting and like a new beginning.
Tara: Humor always helps, a couple with two different points of view always helps, but we want energy and enthusiasm and when you can tell that they really care about each other.
Jennifer: House Hunters is one of the shows that we are the most proud to say that we produced, because it’s hit a nerve in pop culture, and we love working with HGTV and Scripps. But there are a couple other things that we loved producing as well. We did a show with Joan and Melissa Rivers, Joan Knows Best. That was huge fun because we got to work with a comic genius.
Tara: We’re currently pitching a series with Amanda Knox. We followed her case, read her book. Jennifer said to our development department, “I really want us to start looking into selling crime stories,” and by targeting that, they came up with the idea of reaching out to Amanda Knox.
Jennifer: This is a real passion project. [This show] will revolve around her working with other wrongfully accused people who have either been exonerated or are still fighting for their exoneration. What we’re hoping to do with it is not only tell their stories but also, what happens when these people are finally exonerated? What is life like now?
Tara: Amanda comes to the table like nobody else. She would go out in the field. She would interview these people, she would tell these stories, and with a perspective that nobody but Amanda Knox could bring. She tried to shy away from the limelight when she got back [from Italy] and she just wanted to live her life, but after going through this experience, she can’t just live her life the way it was before. We’re hoping this show is going to be something that helps other people and helps Amanda at the same time.
We’re always in development on things. The house stuff is what we’re known for, but before house and design and real estate, we were known for lifestyle programming. We just like telling stories.
Get That Life is a weekly series that reveals how successful, talented, creative women got to where they are now. Check back each Monday for the latest interview.
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