Rent 3d Camera

[Rene Seiler]

Oncea month Los Angeles Camera Rentals has big discounts on camera or equipment rentals. It may be only on one product or more but the discount will be a deal breaker. The rental blowout day varies every month and depends on what products are rented out or not. The product or products need to be booked within 24 hours of the initial offer and a deposit needs to be

made by the following day.

I'm new here and not sure where to post this, so I'm sorry if this is the wrong spot. But I've seen a lot of camera rental places offer relatively cheap rates for cameras, but then require insurance or credit card charge with somewhere upwards of $20,000. My school had an insurance program that worked with some local rental houses, but not with others. Is there a way around this or do you just not rent from certain places? When I say "around this", I don't mean illegal, but are there someplace that don't actually expect you to have $20,000 and just want to make sure you're responsible for possible damages.

The places I was looking at were larger rental houses like, Lens Rentals or Borrow Lens, GearRental.com (Local Rental House) and Kitsplit.com, or sharegrid.com which are local and individual people you rent from.

The rental house will also have suggestions for insurance. Also look into getting a yearly policy if you're gonna be doing regular renting. Sharegrid has a good deal on an Athos policy if you sign up through the sharegrid website. That's what I have right now. I think it was $400 for either $20,000 or $30,000 in coverage (and that's for unlimited projects through the whole year).

I appreciate full production insurance is ruinously expensive in the USA; it's one of a very small number of ways in which we do better in the UK. I can cover a couple of days' work for all the usual stuff (workers' and public liability, gear, etc) for 200 or so. An annoying expenditure, since you're invariably paying people for nothing, but it does give you a lot of legitimacy with regard to locations and so on.

Part of the reason I'm asking this is because I had a camera reservation ( few years ago) at film independent and when I came to pick up the camera they wanted to charge thousands on my credit card in order for me to rent it, so I wasn't able to and had to make do with a camera a friend of mine had on such short notice.

Places like sharegrid and kitsplit offer insurance you can buy, but I don't know if they're expecting you to have 20,000 in collateral or something like that. I just wasnt sure how other people check out equipment, if they're not on larger productions with larger budgets.

I've never been asked for a deposit on kit hire. the big companies will just want proper insurance insurance , proof of ID and some cases references. For instance they may want to know that your going to look after the kit, so with expensive cameras/lenses they might want to know who the DOP/1STAC is.

As others have said some hire companies will offer insurance at a rate of 10% to 15% of the cost of hire. This is sensible if your overall hire is quite small. But is usually cheaper to get your own insurance cover on larger hires, or get annual insurance cover if your doing more then one project.

Its not that expensive. The most expensive bit of kit I've ever hired was the prototype Arri D20 and ultra prime set, i didn't need a deposit. Just 300,000 of insurance cover, which cost about 500 for a weekend, which I got through a media insurance broker.

I did a short last month - it cost 400 to insure for a 4 day shoot. For that I got 30,000 equipment insurance, 5 Million public liability insurance and 10 Million employers liability, Well worth it and meant was fully covered. Lots of locations will want to see your've got public liability and if you are hiring cast or crew (even if they work for free) you do not want them suing you if they get injured, hence having employers liability.

Some smaller places do ask for deposits (in the UK hireacamera.com do). They allow you to hire without insurance but want a large deposit, I avoid them, I don't want a big charge sitting on my credit card and I don't want to risk loosing the money if anything happens. I wouldn't hire kit without insurance (unless its something small i can afford to replace), its not worth the risk.

There isn't a rental house here in Australia that will rent gear to you for the first time without a hefty deposit. After that first successful rental (i.e. you bring the stuff back) they "verify" you on their books, and don't charge you deposits any more.

It's just a safety measure (and not unreasonable really, given the high price and portability of the gear).

The good news is that professional quality equipment is so affordable now that most people can buy their own camera, cine lenses, monitors, gimbal, wireless follow focus, etc. It was not really that way 15+ years ago when I was a student.

So, you are saying for 400 if anything goes wrong with equipment the insurance got you covered up to 30.000,

something happens to location or in public you got covered up to 5 Mills and (God protect) some crew/talent is injured up to 10 Mills are there for compensation?

400 for that peace of mind is a steal.

We had to have public liability insurance to secure the main locations 5mill is demanded by council owned properties. Our actors were with big agencies and a stipulation about adequate insurance cover was included in the contract

The same thing happens with camera bodies. I speak to casual beginners, serious hobbyists, and aspiring pros, who were fortunate to have enough money for a high-end camera, but later realized it was way more than they really needed, or just the wrong choice for what they usually shoot.

Of course, spending thousands is overkill. If I were just a hobbyist or part-time photographer, and not a full-time photographer and gear reviewer, I would likely have only spent a small fraction of that amount.

Plus, can you even put a price tag on having access to a certain lens or camera that could help you develop your creative style as an artist sooner than later? Having to wait months or years to save up for a new piece of gear could be holding back your creative journey, your growth as an artist, instead of having it available right now.

Plus, and this is REALLY cool, companies like LensRentals also sell their gear through LensAuthority.com after it has been in the rental system for a while. So, you can get a good deal on well-maintained, oft-serviced (used) gear, instead of having the fear of half-broken junk from eBay.

Commercials and docs are pretty different markets .. commercials the camera gear is usually rented in as a package.. and the cameras are mostly of the expensive type.. Alexa/Venice/ RED,s/ or film cameras.. with very expensive lenses..with large crews..

On the high-end, cinematographers rarely own their equipment, unless they're Shane Hurlbut or want to be the next Shane Hurlbut. Yes, many have some sort of camera, but they have connections with rental houses who supply pretty much everything. High-end would be anything with guaranteed distribution before being shot and enough budget for their crew to live comfortably.

On the mid to low arena, things are very different. Many Documentary filmmakers do own their own kits, so they can be out shooting their films without assistance. They'll bring on a DP for interviews or "beauty" work, but having done post on many doc's, it appears the filmmakers themselves do quite a bit of shooting. Mid to low are shows that have a limited up front budget and most of the time, do not have a guarantee of distribution before being shot.

You'll find many commercial DP's in the mid to low budget range also have serious stashes of equipment. Here in Los Angeles, I find most of the working commercial guys, own their own rigs because they're so busy, they don't waste time dealing with rental houses. Many have small grip trucks with everything they use and use the same camera/gaffing/grip team on all of their shows. They make money by doing A LOT of shows, sometimes two or three different clients a week. They work directly with agencies to get work and a lot of times work with the same directors.

The difference between the high end in the commercial world and the low end is that DP's in the high end can make tens of thousands per day, so they don't need to work much to make ends meet. Where the mid to low guys are hustling non-stop to make ends meet.

I think today, unless you're a high-end guy -in which case you'd already know the answer- the answer is yes, you should have your own camera package. You are a better asset to a line producer having a rig, then dealing with rental houses. You can invoice them singularly for labor and camera package, making things way easier. Insurance covers you and your camera, vs special coverage for a rental camera, etc. There is far more paperwork to do with rentals as well. Heck, I know guys with small grip trucks who work non-stop just because they don't need to do paperwork.

So what camera package to own for both ENG Doc work and Commercial work? The Alexa Amira would be top of my list. Get that beautiful imager with the ENG package body. Heavy yes, expensive yes, but pretty damn good camera.

It really depends on your market sector. With the cost of documentary cameras tending to be lower than in the days of 2/3" cameras (except if you use an Arri), if makes sense to buy your camera if that's the one you mostly use.

Thanks for the detailed reply that was very helpful! When you mention insurance, are you saying that the production company's insurance would cover the DP's camera package meaning that its unnecessary for the DP to insure their gear? Or are you saying that since a DP would have their own insurance its not necessary for the production company to insure the gear?

Also, one more question: Before laying down the cost of a Porsche for a camera package, is it reasonable for a DP to rent gear themselves for a job and charge that rental as a kit fee to the production, or is that overly complicated?

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