Booking a Chauffeur for a Film or TV Production

A production focused guide to booking chauffeur transport: call sheet working, talent and crew runs, NDAs, insurance paperwork and accounting terms.

How production transport is actually booked: call sheets, unit moves, talent runs, NDAs, insurance documentation and how the invoice reaches production accounting.

Production transport is booked by a transport captain, a line producer or a production coordinator, not by the person being driven, and that changes everything about the process. The buyer cares about documentation, availability across a shooting period, and whether the driver understands a call sheet. Nobody is asking about ribbon colours. This guide is written for that reader.

What production actually needs to know first

Availability across dates rather than for a journey. A drama block shooting in North Yorkshire for three weeks needs to know the vehicle is held, that the same driver covers the run, and that a schedule change of one day does not lose the booking.

Documentation, immediately and without chasing. Private hire operator and driver licensing, hire and reward insurance with cover levels, public liability, enhanced DBS certification and a completed risk assessment. We send the pack on request the same day, because a coordinator with a shoot in ten days does not have time to prompt three times.

Working to a call sheet

We work from the call sheet, not from a booking form. Unit base, location, times, contact numbers for the assistant directors and the transport captain, and the understanding that the times on the sheet are a starting position that will move during the day.

Practically that means the driver monitors the radio or the WhatsApp group rather than sitting silently, repositions when the second AD asks, and does not need to be told twice where the unit base is. Turnaround rules matter to us too, and we plan driver hours around them rather than pretending they do not exist.

Talent, crew and unit movements are three different jobs

Talent runs are hotel to unit base and back, often at unsociable hours, often with a publicist or an agent involved, and always with discretion as the governing requirement. The silver Mercedes-Benz V-Class with its privacy glass is the usual choice.

Crew movements are volume work: heads of department between unit base and location, or a shuttle when the location has no parking. The Mercedes-Benz V-Class carries six with kit. Unit and location work is different again, covering recce runs for the location manager, producers visiting set, and executives coming up from London for a single day.

Discretion, NDAs and set conduct

We sign production NDAs as a matter of course and treat every booking as covered whether or not one has been issued. No names, no locations, no photographs, no mention of a title on any channel, before or after transmission.

On set the rule is simple: the driver is invisible until needed. No approaching cast, no asking for anything, no lingering where a crew is working. Yorkshire has hosted a great deal of high profile production precisely because it can be relied upon to be quiet about it.

Long shoot days and driver hours

A twelve hour shooting day plus travel is normal and we plan for it honestly. Where a schedule genuinely exceeds what one driver can safely cover, we say so in advance and either build in a break or bring in a second vetted driver, rather than discovering it at ten at night at the end of a long week.

The car is stocked for the day, not the journey: water, charging, a clean interior and a load area that copes with the reality of location work in the Dales in October.

Invoicing and production accounting

We invoice production directly with a purchase order reference, itemised by day and by run so that costs can be coded to the correct department. Standard terms are agreed before the first day rather than negotiated afterwards.

For long running bookings a weekly consolidated invoice is usually easier for accounting than a document per day, and we are happy to work either way.

• york
• harrogate
• leeds
• skipton
• richmond

Do you work to a call sheet and unit base timings?

Yes, that is how every production booking runs. We take the call sheet, the unit base location and the assistant director contacts, monitor the day's changes, and reposition on request rather than waiting to be called.

Will you sign a production NDA?

Yes, as standard and without amendment in most cases. We also treat production work as confidential by default whether or not an agreement has been issued, which includes never naming a title or a location publicly.

What insurance and licensing documentation can you supply?

Private hire operator and driver licences, hire and reward insurance with cover levels stated, public liability cover, enhanced DBS certification and a written risk assessment. The pack is sent the same day it is requested.

Can you hold a vehicle for a multi week shooting block?

Yes. Production bookings are taken as a block across the shooting period with the same driver and vehicle throughout, and we absorb reasonable schedule movement without releasing the booking.

How do you invoice a production?

Directly to production with a purchase order reference, itemised by day and by run for departmental coding. Weekly consolidated invoicing is available for longer blocks, on terms agreed before the first shooting day.