The Real Housewives of Potomac wraps production for Season 10 in Alexandria

The Real Housewives of Potomac just wrapped its 10th season, and the Alexandria-based production crew will soon send all its footage for editing in New York City.

ALXnow sat down for a few minutes with the show’s production manager Juancarlo Morales. While the show is filmed in and around the Town of Potomac, Maryland, since April, Morales and his crew of about 30 producers and video production specialists have lived in apartments in Potomac Yard and worked out of The Link coworking office (215 N. Payne Street) in Old Town.

Morales, who didn’t disclose any spoilers on the upcoming season, discovered The Link when he was hired last year for the ninth season of the reality series. When he’s not living in Alexandria, Morales lives and works in Culver City, Los Angeles County, California.

ALXnow: What’s production look like? How do you schedule filming? 

Morales: Our crew size is about 30 people, and we capture the housewives with two separate crews working 12-hour days, five days a week. We have two cameras for each crew, a sound operator, producers, and other production support.

ALXnow: How did you land in Alexandria?

Morales: When I got on board, I was asked to find a cheaper option than staying in a hotel and using their conference rooms as offices. I started calling people in Arlington and worked my way down. I never knew about Alexandria, and this became our hub, our home.

When I was asked to come back in season 10, I really wanted to come back to this office space. Everyone agreed, and we ended up in apartments in Potomac Yard, which isn’t too far away. But our office had a compatibility here, because we like the energy and the space and the atmosphere of the area. I think Old Town is great, and I think everyone in my team feels the same way. We all walk down King Street, we hit up local restaurants, and it makes working here a lot better.

ALXnow: What’s the week look like for you while you’re in production? Is it a Monday to Friday thing, or are you working at night and on weekends?

Morales: It’s definitely scheduled. We’re doing two to four locations a day. Every week, the team meets here, they grab the cameras, the sound equipment, and load them into vehicles and drive to a location we’ve booked. It could just be anywhere — a house, a restaurant or a golf course.

ALXnow: What’s the best part of the gig?

Morales: Aside from the people, the travel. Last season, we went to Panama and North Carolina, and this season — Actually, I can’t say, but we do travel again outside of the region.

There’s a lot of good scenery. We’re in DC, we’re at great restaurants, we’re at hotels. You know, it is a lot of fun to be involved in this show. Last season, we went to the White House.

ALXnow:  Some of the housewives are very hard on each other. Can this be stressful for you and the crew? 

Morales: It’s not as stressful as you might think. The ladies are easy to work with and are adaptable, for the most part.

ALXnow: What happens now production-wise?

Morales: I’m heading back to Culver City, and all the footage is sent to New York for post-production. I think it will begin to air in October.

ALXnow: Will you return for season 11 if asked?

Morales: I would love to come back. I love this area.

ALXnow: We definitely have all the seasons here. Any unexpected surprises this year, production-wise?

Morales: Yeah, we had that storm a couple of weeks ago that was insane. We heard something fall, and I thought it was just thunder, and it turns out it was a tree that snapped and hit my car here at the office. It was totaled.

ALXnow: Whoa! Any other surprises?

Morales: It was pretty calm, actually. This season works really well. It was logistically smoother, and the production team worked really well.

ALXnow: How do you think this season will be received?

Morales: I think people will like it. This and last season were very smooth, and we got the right permits for all of our shooting locations and didn’t get the rug pulled out from under us and lose any. It’s one of the most important aspects of making the show.

ALXnow: Any special shout-outs?

Morales: I want to give a shout-out to my executive in charge, Scott Colbiz. I also want to give a shout-out to Maria Salikova, the production coordinator. She’s a trooper who worked the long hours, and we’d tell her to take a break, and she just kept going and going.