Production Vans in the Film Business: What I Learned Owning a Metris And a Transit

I love production van videos. It's a quiet obsession. I probably scour Youtube and Instagram every other day in search of new content. If there's a production truck tour, grip van build out, or trailer show and tell video I've probably seen it. "Production Vans and Grip Trucks" is one of my favourite Facebook groups. I look at other people's gear lists all the time.

I find it fascinating the eccentricities people have for organizing their stuff, and deciding with the limited space they have, what to include that works for them. It's a satisfying scratch inside my brain that I might never fully understand.

As an owner/operator of equipment I've had always had to personally haul some kind of kit in a vehicle. I started with my parents mini van, then rental vehicles, a Subaru Forester which was also my personal car, then into a dedicated work vehicle, a Mercedes Metris low roof cargo van, and last year into my latest (and hopefully last) vehicle, a Ford Transit 350HD extended high roof.

We all started somewhere. Loading up equipment into the back of my old SUV.

My Mercedes Metris Circa 2018.

I drove around in the Metris since 2018. Getting into a dedicated work van was a game-changer. For those on the fence about it, who responsibly have the means to go ahead, let me tell you it's a good decision. Being able to leave certain things in the van and not have to migrate it in/out of your personal car/home/storage is a big plus on long days with early starts and late finishes.

The Metris was great. I fit a lot of kit into mine, it was easy to drive and I could park it anywhere. It worked so well that I considered not getting the Transit, but there were just a few things that would come up consistently that I couldn't ignore further.

Here are some things I was considering and what ultimately led me to get into a larger production van.

1) Exploiting existing kit and adding things that were being subrented all the time.

Getting a larger van was never about massively expanding what I had, but giving me a little room to leverage extra things I already owned that I just couldn't fit previously. There was also a pattern of sub-rented items that I was constantly getting production to rent that I knew I could add, like a 12x12 frame, and useful quality of life additions, like a 6 step ladder. I felt I could also justify a small bump in day rate to make up for these items that were being rented all the time anyways.

Side door view. I had a spot to put two 4x4 floppies and other flags right behind the partition. I left the side door area one large open space so it would be versatile with different sized items. Typically the camera package would be loaded in here. There was an area under the deck where I would keep my tripod and some extra stands. A Rock N Roller cart was hung and stored on the left hand side.

Rear door view. This evolved over time, like the addition of the combo stand cubbies on the left as the kit grew. The main large cubby (centre) was purposely built to be 2 feet tall to accommodate a large range of cases/items that are often that length/width.

2) Adding more carts to the workflow.

When I built out my Metris I designed it largely with fixed cubbies of different sizes. While I could fit a Rock N Roller cart and a collapsed Inovativ camera cart, both of those had to be fully disassembled before packing away into the van. Cubbies ultimately allowed me to pack more things into my Metris by maximizing more of the total volume. This largely suited the style of productions I worked on (and still do) where I'm in a studio or single location all day and the van is parked very close.

Even with productions that supported the Metris's workflow, gear was a tad slower to load in, and needed to be carefully arranged in a certain order back into the van at wrap. The Inovativ cart was often left back at my locker because it was too slow and cumbersome to unpack and assemble each time, especially for a one day shoot.

Having the larger Transit has allowed me to keep the Inovativ built and use it more (See point 1 again) and adding a few extra carts (C-stand cart, a head-cart and a hamper) has sped up load in and wrap out significantly.

3) Being able to stand in it!

It seems like a subtle detail but being able to walk into a vehicle makes a big difference (especially as I hit my mid 40's!). Crouching over only gets harder as time goes on!

Transit 350HD 148" extended high roof van.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Production vans are an efficient, and sometimes necessary, quality of life improvement as an owner/operator. A dedicated vehicle has allowed me to organize my gear in a way that has made Setlife, and the days around it an easier and more enjoyable process.

As I've grown in my career, certain pivots and upgrades start to make sense, such as a van upgrade. Often times it's harder to see clearly the benefits of a decision until long after you've made them.

In the case of the Metris the benefits of not having to pack or unpack after a long day started to pay off in spades. The upgrade to the Transit is still more fresh, as of writing this article, and so the clear payoffs are still being discovered as I spend more time working with it.

In the next couple of posts I'll give you a breakdown of the Transit build and what some of my thoughts were going through the process. Stay tuned!

What vehicle do you use to haul around your gear? Are you thinking of upgrading? See a van build video you think I've missed? Leave a comment down below or drop me a DM on Instagram! (@barrycheongdotcom)