Work with a production service

What this is about

They supply crew, kit, permits, transport and the local judgement about what is genuinely possible in that city in November. The relationship goes wrong in two predictable places. Scope gets described loosely, so both sides assume different inclusions and the difference appears on the final invoice. And quotes come back structured differently — one all-inclusive, one line by line — which makes them impossible to compare without rewriting them yourself. Both problems are solved in writing, before anybody falls in love with a location that turns out to need a month of paperwork.

The order matters more than the tools. Skip a step and you usually notice two steps later — by which point the fix costs several times as much.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• The service company owns local execution — crew, permits, transport, locations. The creative brief and the film itself stay with you.
• Quotes differ in structure more than in price: insist on the same line items and the same exclusions before comparing any two.
• Local judgement is the actual product: what a permit really takes, which street is impossible on a Friday, and whom to ask.
• Holidays, working-week conventions and time zones belong in the schedule; a permit office closed locally costs a shoot day.

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Brief the service exactly as you would a crew at home — treatment, shot list, reference frames, draft schedule — and add everything you do not know about the country.
2. Ask for the quote in your own line structure with exclusions stated, so two offers can be compared and neither hides transport, overtime or standby days.
3. Put responsibilities in writing: permits, insurance, employment of the local crew, equipment damage, and who cancels what when the weather turns.
4. Check what the price covers per day and per person: overtime rules, meal breaks, driver hours and what a sixth consecutive shooting day costs.
5. Get local advice before locking the schedule — holidays, traffic patterns, seasonal light, and the hours a permit actually allows on that street.
6. Send the look specification and a reference frame whenever local crew shoots without you, and agree how dailies reach you the same evening.
7. Agree one contact per side and one language for the production paperwork. Two languages in a single call sheet reliably produce two different shoots.
8. Settle payment terms, currency and deposits early, and write down what happens to advances if the shoot is cancelled or moved.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Comparing two quotes that describe different scopes and taking the cheaper one, which is cheaper because it excludes transport.
• Assuming a permit that takes a week at home takes a week there.
• Sending a brief in film shorthand nobody local uses, then blaming the crew for shooting something else.

With TillyGen

Hand the service company a TillyGen plan instead of a description: shot list, storyboard and schedule in one document cut down how much intent gets lost in translation.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.