Advice for becoming a DIT or Camera Support/Rental Company

[Samir Patel]

Wondering if anyone can help me by giving me some insight into this. I love my Scarlet and I would love to one day acquire more equipment to start a small scale rental company in my market but it puts the fear into me to put my main workhorse camera out there in someone else's hands and hope that it is unharmed.

So I have been thinking instead to focus on maybe renting support items out to current RED shooters locally. So something like RED mags, lights, touch screens, batteries etc.

My questions are do you think RED shooters would use this type of support? Am I better off packaging as a rate as a DIT and offer to actually go on site with Laptop/Rocket etc.

As a RED shooter what would you expect a DIT to show up with?

Any general advice to help me breakout of the worrying about renting my gear out. (I know truly it is the best way for me acquire equipment I will eventually want to use for my own production while having it pay for itself)

I have also thought of renting out lenses but I would worry about someone knicking the front elements/coatings after I have spent many months completing sets of lenses. (That would be devastating)

Thanks guys.

 

[Robin Leveille]

No film school had some great web interviews about that in the past. Have a read:

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/dit-table-dit-professional/

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/defining-dit-tools-job/

http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/defining-dit-biggest-misconception-dits/

 

[TonySegreto]

Are you thinking of buying additional support items, and renting those out, or renting your current items out. If you only have one set of items, virtually you'd be in the same predicament that you fear. If you send out your touchscreen and it gets damages, you can't really shoot with your Scarlet. If your mags get damaged, you can't shoot. Unless you have multiples of those items. Most people who rent out equipment require insurance from renters, I would suggest you do the same, so that if the gear gets damaged, the renter's insurance will cover the replacement value.

As for DITs, the gear would be dependent on the job. Single camera vs. multicamera shoot, what types of cameras they're shooting on, how fast they will be swapping cards, how long shots are, if they want on-set color, if they want transcodes, how many backups, etc. Its best to figure out what your market is, and then attack it from there, answering all those questions and what type of system and equipment you need.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

DIT needs completely depend on the particular job. You will have different duties/expectations on a $200,000 commercial than a $10,000 corporate vid or a 2 week Indy feature

 

[Brian Merlen]

I work as a DIT on gear I don't own like 200 days a year...So you can totally depend on productions to put up the xeons, 32tb arrays, software, capture cards, bnc, and anything else you might need should they want to. As for kitting out something yourself, like mentioned above some jobs are vastly larger then others.

 

[Samir Patel]

Thanks guys. Looks like I may just be better off improving my skills and then go out with gear on a job as a second shooter so that I am in control of handling my equipment. Just too scary that someone would abuse it.

 

[Brian Merlen]

You can insure for rentals, and require a deposit. Check out Kat Wong at Athos insurance, tell her I sent you...PS most of RU uses her, check old threads