With the help of her friends, one real estate agent is getting creative during the coronavirus pandemic.
Brenda Christian, a realtor for eXp Realty and myhistorictampa.com, posted a video Friday afternoon that brought a playful tone to real estate during a pandemic.
Throughout the 50’s-themed video, a man named Bill goes through a fairly standard day in quarantine while wearing a full hazmat suit.
“Meet Bill. Bill is in quarantine, but Bill is happy,” the narrator, Jonathan Cotton says at the beginning of the video. As the narrator continues to explain why Bill is happy after purchasing a house from Brenda, the video shows the hazmat suit-wearing man skipping across his yard, lounging in his pool and baking cookies.
The idea for the video came from Travis Cossel, who owns Black Label Films, a full service video production studio. Cossel said the ‘50s styling was inspired by the Fallout video game franchise, which humorously portrays an American-centric apocalypse.
“It kind of spawned from the fact that everyone’s in quarantine right now,” Cossel told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. “People are trying to figure out how to stay happy in quarantine and keep themselves entertained.”
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Cossel and his girlfriend Amy Kellison, who is a real estate photographer for HD Showings, thought it would be fun to show someone living absurdly in quarantine while loving the experience.
The video’s actor, Mylez Edward, reached out to Cossel for the role. The two had already worked together filming a promotional video for Edward’s event planning business, Creations by Mylez Edward.
“The second he reached out to me, I knew he was perfect for this role because he’s just a very creative type,” Cossel said. “Plus, I knew he had a background in acting at Disney.”
Cossel said the 55 second video took roughly 60 hours to produce, with 40 hours of pre-production, 8 hours of filming and 10 hours of post production.
“We did all the filming practicing social distancing, and we were all wearing masks and gloves the entire time,” Christian told Creative Loafing.
The midcentury modern house shown in the video, which is located at 4806 N Highland Ave. in South Seminole Heights, is actually for sale, too. The four bedroom, three bathroom house is currently listed for $524,900 if you’re interested in a new quarantine pad.
Obviously, not a lot of new listings are popping up at the moment. According to the Tampa Bay Times, over the past month over 874 single-family homes and condos were taken off the market, and new listings in the Tampa area are down nearly 8%.
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