Film and Television Production Unit Travel Arrangements

The call sheet governs everything

On a production, the call sheet is the schedule and everything else bends around it. Individual call times differ by department and by cast member, they are issued the evening before, and they move. Transport that works to a fixed weekly booking will be wrong within two days. What works instead is a standing arrangement with times confirmed daily from the call sheet, which is precisely how production coordinators already work with every other supplier.

Studio access and the unit base

The major studios west and north of London, Pinewood, Shepperton, Elstree and Leavesden among them, are secured sites with gate procedures, drive-on passes issued to named vehicles, and internal roads that are not obvious to a first-time visitor. On location, the equivalent is the unit base, which may be a car park, a field or a closed street, and which moves as the shoot moves. In both cases the daily instruction from the transport captain or coordinator matters more than any map.

• Confirm whether a drive-on pass is issued per vehicle or per day
• Ask where cast set-down happens relative to base camp
• Expect the unit base to change between shooting days
• Name the coordinator who issues the daily call times

Talent, discretion and the things nobody posts

Production work carries a strict expectation of silence. Cast members, scripts, locations and shooting dates are all confidential, frequently under a signed agreement, and the fact that a particular person is in a particular car on a particular morning is itself information. Nothing is photographed, nothing is discussed outside the booking, and script pages left on a seat are returned to the production rather than to anyone else.

Night shoots and turnaround

A night shoot inverts the day: a call at six in the evening, a wrap at four in the morning, and a crew that needs to get home safely at an hour when almost nothing is running. Turnaround rules mean the following call cannot come too soon afterwards, so the pattern is predictable even when the finish time is not. Arranging the wrap runs before the shoot starts, with an open finishing time, is far more reliable than trying to organise them at the end.

Recces, location moves and regional shoots

Before shooting, directors, producers and heads of department travel to look at locations, often visiting several in a day across a wide area and rarely finishing where they started. During production, a move to a regional location shifts the whole pattern for a week or more. Both benefit from a vehicle held for the day rather than booked leg by leg, since a recce that runs long is the normal outcome rather than the exception.

Production codes and how the cost lands

Production accountants work to budget codes and purchase orders, and travel that arrives without a reference creates work for somebody. Supplying the production name, the relevant code and any purchase order number at the point of booking keeps the record clean and makes the monthly reconciliation straightforward. Billing arrangements for a production run are agreed at the point of enquiry rather than published.

Plan your chauffeur journey

London Chauffeurs provides itinerary-led private travel for airport transfers, executive travel, private aviation, events and long-distance UK journeys. Availability and pricing are confirmed for the requested itinerary.

Frequently asked questions