Successful productions and creative operations usually involve a lot of gear — cameras, lenses, lights, batteries, grip. In a word…stuff. In-house teams often purchase equipment vs. renting to maximize ROI and make teams more nimble. You can drop everything and pick up a camera immediately if you don’t have to rent it. However, it takes a rock-solid operation to manage that gear as if it were coming from a rental house.
I have years of experience running a team that managed millions of dollars worth of film and lighting equipment. We operated bi-coastal (Brooklyn and Hollywood), and rented tens of thousands of individual items per year. All items were barcoded and registered in our inventory management system (RentalWorks), and a small team of rental agents managed the entire process from inquiry to booking and return.
What’s more: this data was all tied to a project management system on the backend to give further insight into a project’s specific details. For example, we could tell exactly how much we saved the client by utilizing in-house equipment vs. spending money on rentals. We could tell what cameras were rented the most and what piece of gear was ready for retirement. Most importantly, we could tell when a piece of equipment reached its return on the initial investment.
The Result:
$5 million dollars per year saved. That money otherwise would have been spent and added to the production budget. Not to mention the intangible benefit of giving creatives access to their tools without one more thing to rent ahead of time.