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One Los Angeles Agent Finds Success Marketing Multi-Million Dollar Listings Through Feature Films

Ben Bacal’s latest productions include a Corgi throwing a pool party in the Hollywood Hills

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Situated in the Doheny Estates, this 7,500-square-foot house is featured in listing agent Ben Bacal's latest short film. The contemporary home is on the market for $16.5 million.

Simon Berlyn
Situated in the Doheny Estates, this 7,500-square-foot house is featured in listing agent Ben Bacal's latest short film. The contemporary home is on the market for $16.5 million.
Simon Berlyn

With more than 105,000 Instagram followers, Aqua the Corgi is a social media sensation. Now, the four-legged fur ball stars in a short film to promote an $18.5 million Hollywood Hills home.

The film, which was released earlier this week, is the brainchild of Rodeo Realty’s Ben Bacal, who is co-listing the property with Ness Krief of Virtual Real Estate. Mr. Bacal has found success marketing properties through videos with an elaborate storyline.

In 2014, the Swedish billionaire Markus Persson, creator of Minecraft, bought a Beverly Hills spec home for $70 million after seeing one of Mr. Bacal’s videos, according to the agent. Mr. Bacal also received a $35 million-offer on a Bel-Air manse after the buyer saw another narrative-style video he produced. The seller, however, did not accept the offer and the property remains on the market.

 

In Bacal’s latest video, released today, a leather-clad thief named Scarlet breaks into a house in the Doheny Estates in the Hollywood Hills. Soon Jessica, Scarlet’s blonde accomplice, enters with a man who is presumably the home’s inebriated owner. The two women meet in the closet, where they proceed to steal the contents of a safe before driving away in a Thunderbird.

In the Aqua the Corgi video, the canine stars as “Sherlock Bones,” a dog who — in a Leona Helmsley-esque twist of fate — inherits his owner’s fortune, which includes the $18.5 million mansion above the Sunset Strip. Sherlock arrives by Rolls-Royce and wastes no time settling into — and showing off — his new home. The video culminates with a piñata-smashing pool party, where the guest list includes German Shepherds, Beagles and Dachshunds.

(The property is where actress Brittany Murphy and her husband died within six months of each other, according to TMZ. The home has since been completely redeveloped.)

 

Write to Gina Faridniya at gina.faridniya@dowjones.com