Obscure question... as DP's.... what do you drive? To transport gear etc.

When I freelance...the production company organises rental vans or camera trucks for the camera department.

For my own productions ... I hire a van for the AC. Rest of the gear comes in trucks. eg lighting and grip.

I have seen so many private vehicles ruined by carrying gear. Not worth doing it!
 
Eh.. well... unfortunately I'm not involved on big enough budget projects yet for quite that level.

Are there any hatchbacks or smaller cars than an SUV/crossover that you think I could manage with that I'm not thinking of? Something perhaps with fold down seats etc., always been a fan of smaller cars.
 
Land Rover Discovery II, but I'm trading it in for a Toyota minivan. Twice the mileage, half the price, half the repairs, twice the capacity. A no-brainer for me.
 
Before I bought the Sprinter van I had a Range Rover as my go anywhere shoot mobile.
I had racks on the top I could add a shooting platform to which was nice, but to be honest it didn't hold much gear.

I absolutely love my Sprinter. I got it for a great price, then did a little work to finish out the interior walls and bed.
Even as much as it holds, I have had to scale back a bit.

Worst vehicle ever for holding gear? My 77 Ferrari. I don't remember the circumstances as it was a few years back, but it was the only car around and we had to take it to a political shoot. Two seats, two people, and as much gear as you could possibly stuff into a Ferrari, which isn't very much. I will say we did get to the shoot quickly. ;)
 
I drove a ford E250 van for years. Currently I have a high mileage F350 pickup, which was a bad purchase.

Whatever you drive for hauling gear, get some type of cargo or pet barrier between you and the gear.

In my early 20s I had a large 35-III package in the trunk and back seats of my Buick sedan. Panic top on the freeway sent a mag case into the back of my head. Loss of vision for several seconds followed by extreme pain. I probably had a concussion but lacked the medical insurance to visit the ER and fear of asking production to cover. Young + inexperienced.

I bent the rear axel in that same car from overloading with grip and lights.

My wife drives a Jetta wagon and I installed the OEM cargo / pet barrier in it for the same reason.
 
I used to drive a Holden Epica 4-door sedan and it fit all that gear and more. Wrote that off though, and bought a Hyundai i30 Crossover Sportswagon. Fits heaps of stuff, isn't as stupidly long as a normal wagon, good fuel economy and fun to drive. It all depends on how much gear you need to cart around. These days, I try to only bring camera gear, and then lighting/grip equipment arrives in vans or trucks.
 
If I could afford it I would go either: Sprinter - Iveco - Toyota Previa...

We had the Previa where I was an apprentice. It NEVER needed service, never had any issues. The only thing is that it's light as a kite and that wasn't always fun when crossing wire bridges in windy weather :D
The Iveco is just nice since you can often get them pre configured with wooden beams along the inner walls and they are perfectly boxy.
Sprinter... well, just a nice van, atleast the ones I've tried.

Color config: Black all the way.... or silver if you don't wanna deal with scratches over the years.
 
One more vote for the Element! Make sure to at least look at one before deciding on anything else! Huge flat floor and open space. I have a cart 3.5 feet tall and about five feet long (Rock'n'Roller R10) that I load up with gear, and i can roll the whole thing intact right into the back of the Element... much faster and easier than folding and unfolding carts, loading them from the car and unloading them back into the car... it drives nicely, is rock-solid reliable, has tons of little storage spaces, is extremely comfortable and spacious for rar passengers when you DO have the rear seats in a passenger position, the tailgate forms a great working surface.... flexible paths for loading and unloading of huge objects with the pillarless side doors... a great place to sleep... I could go on and on...

Big surprise? I used to have a del Sol... and it was LONGER than the Element. For all its cavernous interior space, the Element is quite small on the outside. The only concern might be access via the side doors in narrow spaces (you kind of get enclosed between the front and rear doors when they're both open in a narrow space, so end up doing a dance with the two doors to get things out. But that's pretty rare, and you can plan around it if you know you'll be in a narrow space!
 
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I have a Boxer - a little shorter and smaller than a Sprinter..

Considerations..

General considerations
parking footprint
height for multistories
FLAT inside

Security
Rear windows?
Saftety - exclude the gear from the cab if possible
Tax - uk there are svings making the vehicle part of your business

Id consider (uk vehicles)

Ford fiesta van
Vito
Boxer
Sprinter

ive just added a second layer to my interior..

ArPOjABCMAENxTf.jpg
 
j said:
Land Rover Discovery II, but I'm trading it in for a Toyota minivan. Twice the mileage, half the price, half the repairs, twice the capacity. A no-brainer for me.
Click to expand...

Speaking of Rover 'style'... I have ISUZU Trooper in the garage... the 'boxy freight' area was pretty good, but the 6 cyl engine just wasn't up to going the distance to 500K miles... it has about 250K on it

The Trooper and the Xtera (well the one I have...) are both built on truck frames, and in the case of the Trooper, it has been rearended and still is in usable condition... not so for the rearender's car...

This has been one of the reasons that I've kind of shied away from the more 'untized body' type vans... While accidents are not something someone 'plans'... normally... unless part of the script... but with more miles driving there's a higher likelihood of something happening...
 
I had a Trooper and upgraded to the Discovery and to be honest, I miss my Trooper. Split folding doors, light weight. I'd say it's 80% of a discovery at half the price.

If I were looking at a production truck, those smaller Fords that are like a mini-sprinter look like they'd be pretty cool for smaller shoots:

http://autos.aol.com/article/ford-transit-connect-video/

Edit: Holy crap, read down the article about the "Tool Link" That would be SO useful for one-man band shoots...
 
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The Transit does look cool. The one big area where my Sprinter really shines is the height. I'm not getting any younger, and bending over to get gear out of regular size vans was wrecking my back. I can stand up in the Sprinter without hitting my head to load or offload gear which has really helped with back issues. Before I got the Sprinter I was looking at Box trucks, but after investigating the options the Sprinter got better gas mileage, had better performance with the turbo diesel, and with normal service runs almost forever. I have well over 300K miles in mine.
 
j said:
I had a Trooper and upgraded to the Discovery and to be honest, I miss my Trooper. Split folding doors, light weight. I'd say it's 80% of a discovery at half the price.

If I were looking at a production truck, those smaller Fords that are like a mini-sprinter look like they'd be pretty cool for smaller shoots:

http://autos.aol.com/article/ford-transit-connect-video/

Edit: Holy crap, read down the article about the "Tool Link" That would be SO useful for one-man band shoots...
Click to expand...

The Xtera was for us the 'best' replacement... I still don't like the Xtera's sweep of the body on the back so there's this little strip of body that one has to wiggle big things through to access the interior when loading up the back with 'stuff'...

As for the RFID Tool monitoring/id deal, I would imagine there's an after market option... somewhere...
 
Totally forgot about the Transit Connect. If someone needs to buy new, that's totally the thing to get for a small production truck. Huge interior height and absolutely flat floor, and it stores 130 cubic feet, which is close to twice as much cargo as the Element does.
ctc12_highlight_lg_capability.jpg


Plus that tool RFID system sounds just too awesome.
 
+1 for the Element.

I'm sort of living in one right now on a big road trip. No problems at all.
 
I drive a 2010 Ford Explorer and I love it. It seats seven people comfortably, and the back and middle row of seats folds down so I can store a bunch of gear. A doorway dolly + eight foot tracks fit perfectly.
 
Two ways now. It depends on the size of the job. The great thing about the little van is it is CNG. The fuel is $2.30 per gallon and I can take the HOV lane with only one person.
 

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