SEATTLE — Talk about the surprise of a lifetime: a pop star showing up at your home studio to film part of a Super Bowl commercial.
That’s exactly what happened to Joe Reineke and Karyn Gold-Reineke, who only found out Lady Gaga would be filming in their space the day before it happened.
“It was just very surreal to be like, ‘Lady Gaga is in my yard, right now,’” Karyn said.
The couple lives in King County and built their Temple of the Trees studio during the COVID-19 pandemic. They spent about a year and a half building the structure, along with friends, using material from the property itself.
“All the wood that you see in the studio is from the trees on the property,” Joe said.
As musicians themselves, they drilled down on every detail to create the perfect space.
“We hand-treated every (wood) board,” Karyn added. “We dried it for months.”
This particular shoot started with a call from a production company.
After two visits, the crew booked the space on the spot — the day before it was set to happen. Only then, after signing a nondisclosure agreement, did the couple learn Lady Gaga would be on site in between her Seattle shows.
“They didn’t really tell us much because it was all very secretive,” Karyn said.
The shoot lasted more than 12 hours and included a crew of more than 80 people. While on site, the couple discovered the shoot was for Pokémon.
“It felt so Hollywood at the time,” Joe said.
“We got to be very hands on with the crew, helping them out around the studio,” Karyn added.
Joe got a cameo in the spot, too, playing a sound engineer in the background.
“She was super gracious and super nice to us,” Joe said. “And everybody was here for a bigger purpose.”
Despite the scale of the production, the couple had no guarantee that the footage would eventually air.
The couple only learned it had aired while watching the Super Bowl.
“We were watching the Super Bowl and the ad came on,” Joe said. “We both fell off the couch, and Karyn was like, ‘Stop screaming,’ and I was like, ‘I can’t!’”
Their phones started ringing off the hook.
“Being here, and then having our team there, and that they won, and her being there performing,” Karyn said. “It was just this very interesting confluence of all these things happening at once that we never expected.”
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