Create Gear Sharing Community
People are the most valuable resource when sourcing filming tools to rent or borrow. That means if you join or form a community of credible movie producers, sound designers and video editors, you can always get what you want in a timely manner. There’s also the advantage of having a barter system set up for individuals to trade skills for equipment. For example, someone can offer video shooting, color grading, and editing services to access filming kits owned by others.
There are challenges tied to sharing equipment within a community. Think about how gear is stored, handled, transported, and returned. So, rules must be developed to dictate the best mode of transportation, storage, and maintenance of cameras, drones, gimbals or stabilizers, lighting kits, tripods, and microphones. Equipment misuse, for example, can be prevented by ensuring resource sharing is done among individuals with similar filming needs or workstyles only.
Leverage Peer-to-Peer Rental Platforms
Centralize Inventory and Equipment Returns
When an independent movie director chooses to rent equipment, they’re concerned about convenience. They want to know what gear is available and if it will be deployed to them in time and working condition. In large organizations or community groups dealing with many indie film creators, managing inventory and asset returns requires strategic thinking. One effective move is centralizing inventory and asset returns. A catalogue managed from a single location ensures visibility of tool availability, resource allocation, and when returns are due. Knowing where items are reduces multiple bookings by a single filmmaker, last-minute scrambling for filming gadgets, unauthorized use, and missed production deadlines.
Bundle Gear into Kits
Leasing movie production tools piece by piece sounds nice until items are misplaced or can’t be tracked. So, create ready-to-go lighting kits, camera kits, and audio kits. A camera kit, for instance, could have the main camera body, lenses, tripods, batteries, and media cards. The benefits of standardized kits include easy tracking of gear. Since everything in a specific kit is packaged together, one can’t overlook must-have accessories like mounting gear, cables, and media cards. Also, pre-packaged or bundled gear supports equipment compatibility, organized setup and demobilization to boost efficiency.
Indie movie directors run on tight budgets, so owning a set of production assets can be challenging if you factor in the expensive price tags in various equipment. The solution they turn to is borrowing, renting, or sharing resources. But for this to work, filmmakers must be smart with renting and managing equipment. For instance, random borrowing can be replaced with community sharing, where individuals form local networks or platforms to hire movie production gadgets. Also, gear should be bundled up as kits based on functionality. To safeguard equipment, rental firms should centralize inventory and return of equipment.
Briana spent seven years working in independent film production before taking a step back to start a family. She has since returned to her first love of writing and enjoys contributing to a range of publications, both printed and online.
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