date published: Jun 03, 2024 content type: Television Series
television series
Real Houses Of...
15 episodes x 30 minutes
Real Houses Of...: In a joint venture with Talons of Venice, we co-produced a sleek, high-end lifestyle series for the W Network that takes viewers inside North America's most magnificent, custom-designed custom homes to explore the remarkable people who live in them.
Directed by Tim Davidson and Peter Waal
Written by Jennifer Power Scott and Katie Wallace
Produced by Stephen Foster, David Ralph, Terri Riedle and Megan Thelosen
From historic east coast manors to ultra-modern Pacific pads, these Real Houses push wow factor to the max. With luxurious bedrooms, resort-worthy pools, spectacular bathrooms, million-dollar views and kitchens hot enough to make a French chef swoon - this series is guaranteed to astonish and inspire.
The Challenge
The lifestyle and home design television market is heavily saturated with "cookie-cutter" renovation formats and predictable home tours. To capture a dedicated national audience and stand out on a major network, a lifestyle show cannot simply look pretty; it needs a distinct narrative edge and an elite level of aesthetic execution. When launching Real Houses Of..., the goal was to invite viewers into some of the most spectacular, one-of-a-kind custom homes across North America. The challenge lay in formatting a high-end, fast-paced series that moved away from corporate sterility, humanizing these jaw-dropping architectural masterpieces by directly linking the design of the physical spaces back to the unique needs, passions, and eccentric lifestyles of their remarkable owners.
Our Approach
We formed an exciting joint venture with Talons of Venice—the content creation arm of the Saint John-based marketing agency Revolution Strategy—to co-produce and deliver the premium lifestyle series.
Cinematic Architecture & Home Tours: Our production teams deployed high-end, cinema-quality interior lighting, precise camera tracks, and sweeping lens work to showcase the intricate textures, layouts, and custom features of each luxury property, ensuring the homes looked as magnificent on screen as they do in person.
Character-Driven Lifestyle Framing: Rather than relying entirely on dry architectural jargon, we structured the show’s narrative around the homeowners themselves. By capturing intimate, unscripted interviews, we explored the why behind the design—revealing the human stories and creative decisions that built these one-of-a-kind spaces.
Network-Tier Delivery Optimization: We engineered a rigorous, fast-moving episodic production pipeline capable of meeting tight deadlines and exacting broadcast specifications, prepping the show for prime-time national distribution.
“This is world-class programming with creative excellence in research, production and postproduction, thanks to our teams in Ontario and New Brunswick,” said Arnie Zipursky, Executive Producer at CCI Entertainment.
The Impact
Our collaboration transformed a daring concept into a highly polished, commercially successful television asset. Real Houses Of... successfully secured its national broadcast premiere on the W Network, introducing millions of design enthusiasts to a fresh, inspiring tier of lifestyle television. The show proved that regional production houses have the scope, personnel, and creative capacity to flawlessly execute high-concept network series on time and on budget. By successfully substituting generic reality tropes with premium, human-centric architectural storytelling, the series gave the W Network a standout programming asset while cementing our reputation as a trusted, versatile co-production partner in the competitive global lifestyle market.
