Need a town erected in a dusty desert this week? Movie Prop Rentals can do it. No job is too big, and few timelines are too small. We thrive on making the “impossible” possible for our clients. Ultimately, that’s why people choose our friendly, flexible crew over a huge operation. You’re not another number for us. You’re a valued, respected client, and we treat you as such. We’ve worked with the best of the best in film, music, and commercial environments. In this case, we had the pleasure of working on a shaking set with Shakira and dozens of dancers.
About the Ad
SEAT, a Spanish automobile company, owned by Volkswagen, contacted us to work on a commercial in December 2006 – 10 months after Grammy award winner Shakira released “Hips Don’t Lie,” one of the best-selling singles of all-time, downloaded over 13 million times. Movie Prop Rentals is no stranger to celebrities, but nevertheless, we’re always thrilled to work with such a talented artist on set. This was one of the longer ads we worked on at nearly two minutes. Not surprisingly, fans were clamoring to find out which song was in the video. (It’s “Pure Intuition”) Shakira and the car were the stars of the ad, but we helped create the sense of place that whisked audiences away down a dusty road through a small town.
What We Did
SEAT had a tall order – to create a small town in less than three days. It was a challenge we couldn’t resist. We had to design and create this whole little town, complete with blueprints, bulldozers, dump trucks, fences, paint, wood frames, drywall. We trucked in props from our Miami warehouse, including a tricycle, payphone, bathroom mirror, frying pan, sheets, rugs, tennis racket, punching bag, street signs, a toaster, a gas pump. Pretty much the only thing we didn’t truck in were the palm trees.
Insider’s Perspective
“It was a giant job,” recalls Art Director Jerry Blohm. “We designed a remote little town filmed on location in Nassau, Bahamas. The entire location is fake – the house, the restaurant, the gas station, the streets – we built everything you see from scratch! At one point, Bob Vinney was grinding down a bathtub to fit precisely in the room – it was just crazy! After seeing this [ad] and knowing what went into it, somebody might want to hire us to build their home or commercial operation now, I don’t know!” he laughed.
Movie Prop Rentals’ Graylan Franklin echoed the sentiment: “This was not a matter of hanging a dusty rug on a clothesline or handing an actor a frying pan and an egg. The first day we worked 18 hours to get the gas station and diner up. It seems impossible to build a town out of dust in 48 hours — you’d almost have to see it happening to believe it – but that’s the nature of the beast in this industry: get it done on a tight timeframe and a tight budget, no excuses.”
Contact Movie Prop Rentals for a Celebrity Caliber Commercial
Set builds are our specialty. Whether you need a stage, a façade, a whole building, or a city – you can count on Movie Prop Rentals to conceptualize and make it happen. We’re not just dreamers – we’re doers. Our team can help you come up with artistic renderings if you don’t have them already, or we can bring all the materials you need to execute a commercial to your exacting specifications. Every project is totally unique–contact us for a free, no-obligation quote as soon as possible.
