You have a 10 hour day, 4 locations spread across town. Multiple lighting set ups. Full company moves. Crafty, catering, video village, talent holding at each move. Are you feeling the pressure yet?
As anyone who works in production knows, every second spent getting set up or breaking down a location is a second that the camera isn’t shooting. The director is getting antsy, the talent is getting hungry, and the crew is creeping towards overtime. You will do anything you can to save those critical minutes for what’s most important: getting the camera rolling. One of our favorite tools for keeping things moving? Wheels.
Wheels, Wheels, Wheels
Everything that can roll, must roll. If something can’t roll, figure out a way to make it roll. We’ve come up with a variety of ways to do this, ranging from the obvious to the inventive.
Utility Carts
Rubbermaid utility carts are one of the most useful items to have on a production truck. They can be loaded up with any loose odds and ends, from crafty supplies to director’s chairs, and rolled right off the truck and on to set. This can turn tasks that would otherwise require multiple hands over multiple trips into a job one PA can knock out in no time and move on to the next task at hand. For added utility, replace the hard plastic wheels with larger pneumatic ones, and your carts will be able to easily traverse any type of terrain.
One word of advice: don’t overload the top of the cart with really heavy stuff (I’m looking at you sandbags.) If anyone tries to lift the cart while the top is over-heavy, it’s liable to pop off. We’ve had to repair more than one this way.
Crafty Carts
This one is a real secret I’ll let you in on. Thanks to a lucky Facebook Marketplace find, we’ve discovered the end-all, be-all tool for mobile crafty set ups: a hotel housekeeping cart. Hear me out; It’s got a flat working surface on the top, multiple shelves for easy storage access, and even a built-in trash receptacle. And best of all: it’s on wheels. It will easily fit through almost any door and can store all the basic crafty essentials, including first aid kits, paper towels, bug spray, sunscreen, you name it. We’ve invested in two, and our craft services people could not be happier.
Cooler Cart
If you’ve ever worked as a PA before, you know just how heavy a cooler loaded up with gatorade and energy drinks can be. When working on a larger-production, we use 100 gallon coolers, and usually we have a few on set. A 100gal cooler full of ice and drinks can easily weigh upwards of 200lbs. Transporting one using the cooler’s handles is obviously a 2 person job, and even then its tough work. Instead, we use low, flat garden carts to get our coolers around. This makes it a one man job, and much quicker to boot. It may seem like a small thing, but freeing up a PA to work on other jobs, even for just a few minutes, can be a lifesaver on a tight day.
As you can see, on a CounterTake set the camera isn't the only thing that's rolling. We are huge fans of gear-on-wheels, and are always looking for the next opportunity to speed up our days and streamline the heavy-lifting.
