Production Companies: Booking a Hire Studio, From Bid to Wrap

A production company prices a studio the way it prices anything on a bid: a line with a number, an assumption and a risk. The room is the easy line, because the rate is published. The harder work is deciding which of the other lines the room touches, and which belong to the production.

This guide follows a studio day from bid to wrap for the producer or production manager: where the room sits in the budget, what the production desk can source, what goes on the call sheet and how the block is run. Scope's page for production companies is the short version, and the trade overview sits above it.

Where a studio sits in a bid

A hire studio is a stage, not a location: a room you control, with no weather and no location permissions to chase. In a bid that makes it a fixed line with a known edge. Price it from the published rates and write the assumption beside the number: the block length, set-up and pack-down inside it, and lights charged separately in every room but the DJ room.

A worked room line. A two-set spot with a built set: Studio A for a full day at £620 for the build, the shoot and the strike, and Studio B for a half day at £220 for the dialogue. That is £840 in rooms, and the rest of the bid is quotes.

Which lines belong to the room, which to the production

• The room: the booked block at the published rate, with set-up and pack-down inside it. A production that wants nobody else on site takes the whole building from £1,500 a day, and the DJ room sits outside it.
• Lights: in every room but the DJ room, lights are charged separately from the room rate — please enquire about our lights and we will quote for what your shoot needs.
• Crew, camera, grip and sound: the production's own, or sourced through the desk and quoted.
• Set, props and wardrobe: the production's, or quoted by the desk. The build and the strike happen inside the block.
• Talent, casting and releases: the production's, or sourced through the desk and quoted.
• Catering and transport: the production's, or quoted by the desk. The kitchen is in the building and parking is in the yard.
• Insurance: the production's. Clients must hold appropriate cover, and the desk gives insurance guidance.
• Post-production: the production's, or quoted by the desk, and never part of a room rate.

The office is an easy line to forget. The workshop seats up to 20 with 10 iMac workstations, and works as a production office, a casting room or an edit suite: £120 for a half day, £240 for a full day.

What the production desk can source, and what is quoted

Scope is more than room hire. The team can source and manage what a shoot needs and run productions end to end, of every size. The list is:

• Crew: producers, production managers, directors of photography, camera operators and assistants, gaffers, sparks, grips, sound recordists, DITs, hair and make-up, stylists, art department and runners.
• Camera, lighting, grip and sound kit hire.
• Set design and builds, and props.
• Talent and casting.
• Locations beyond Scope.
• Catering and transport.
• Insurance guidance.
• Post-production: edit, grade, sound mix and VFX.

None of it is priced on the site. The team quotes it, a quote comes back by email once you describe the job, and nothing is assumed to be included in a room booking. For a bid that means two columns: the room, which you can write down today, and the quoted lines, which you request and carry as to be confirmed, with the name of who is quoting. Do not put a guessed number in the bid for any of them. A production with its own crew and suppliers uses the room and leaves the rest. A production short of a gaffer or a set builder can ask.

Write the room down today. Carry everything else as a name and a question until it has a quote.

What goes on the call sheet

A studio call sheet is shorter than a location one, but the details are the studio's and have to be right at the door. The running order covers the sheet in full; these are the lines a production company should check against what the studio has confirmed.

• The address in full: Block A, Chartwell Business Park, 61-65 Paulet Rd, London SE5 9HW, and which room.
• Parking in the yard in front of the unit, and load-in to Studio A at ground level through the roller door. Door and yard specifics are not published, so ask before you put a vehicle on the sheet.
• Block start and block end. The end is wrap, not the last shot.
• Calls by department, staggered, with talent and make-up to the dressing and prep room.
• Lunch, and who is bringing it. The kitchen is in the building; the food is your line.
• Contacts, and a note that anyone under 18 must be supervised.

Put nothing on the sheet the studio has not confirmed in writing. Opening hours are not published, so an earliest arrival time is a question for the booking, not an assumption for the call sheet.

Rig, shoot, derig inside the block

Set-up and pack-down are inside the booked time, so a studio block has three parts and the sheet should show all three. As a convention, not a rule, hold the last forty-five minutes of a lit day for the derig, longer if flats are coming down, and write it as its own line so nobody reads it as spare time. A full day of eight hours, from the start of the block:

• 0:00 — rig. Load-in, build, lighting rigged to the plan; camera and sound build alongside.
• 0:45 — dress and check. Stand-in on the mark, tech check, talent to make-up.
• 1:30 — shoot, in lighting-state order, with lunch between set-ups.
• 6:45 — pick-ups. The slot nobody schedules and everybody uses.
• 7:15 — derig. Lighting first, then dressing, then the floor.
• 8:00 — out. The block has ended; the van should already be loaded.

If the client is watching, Studio B's edit and playback area and the client lounge take them off the floor. Studio load-in planning covers the van and the door, and how to budget a studio shoot the rest of the money.

Terms to ask about before the bid goes out

Some terms are published: 48 hours' notice to cancel, same-day cancellations and no-shows non-refundable, appropriate insurance held by the client, and the client owns the content. The production is responsible for the people it brings and for damage to equipment or facilities; releases and paperwork covers the principle.

Others are not. The deposit, the cancellation fee and the overtime rate are confirmed when you book, and account terms, invoicing, purchase-order handling and supplier forms are not published at all. Ask for them in the first email with the quote, not in the week of the shoot. Nothing is held until it is booked and paid for. For the wider picture of how Scope works with productions, see film production, and for the agency-side view of the same booking, how agencies brief and book a studio.