Why production costs and crew owned gear discussions matter more than ever

BTS from a TinToy set

Much has been said about the state of the film industry in South Africa. And the truth is that for most production companies and crew, whether large or small, 2025 has been a difficult year. The CPA, other production bodies and even the City of Cape Town have pulled together task teams to try understand what is happening. The reality is that there isn’t one simple cause. It is all of it at once.

A slow economy. A world drowning in content. AI hanging over us like a storm cloud. In-house production. And of course the belief that filmmaking has simply become too expensive in a world where there are cheaper and quicker ways than ever to reach an audience.

We are sitting in a strange middle space. Large brands are still producing their flagship commercials, but almost everything in between is shifting towards user-generated content, small teams and one man band filmmakers. Brands are choosing quantity over quality at scale, and in many cases you cant blame them. Budgets are under pressure everywhere. But it does raise a fair question. Has the cost of production run away from us? And if so, how do we contain it?

One conversation that has surfaced more often lately concerns the pressure on gear houses. Their challenges are coming from two sides. First, fewer productions are happening compared to previous years. Second, crew have increasingly resorted to buying their own gear and renting it out on the shoots they work on. For the crew, it is a way of protecting their income. But for gear houses, it has become a slow and steady erosion of their business model.

Whenever budgets are discussed, crew rates are usually come up. On paper, crew costs make up a large portion of most budgets. But if you actually look at the CPA guidelines, the rates themselves are not unreasonable. In fact, most of them are fair. The challenge is more nuanced. Technical crew have understandably looked for ways to increase their income, and the most obvious route has been to invest in gear and rent it out. It's entrepreneurial and resourceful. But like everything in this industry, it brings unintended consequences.

As more crew bring their own gear to set, gear houses are suffering. And these are the same companies responsible for keeping South Africa competitive on high-end service work. Crew might invest in small lighting kits, basic grips and bits of support gear. But very few are investing millions in a Techno Crane, a Bolt rig, a Phantom camera or a full cinema lens set. That is the territory gear houses live in. If they cannot sustain themselves, we risk becoming an industry that can service our own small to mid-size jobs, but not the kind of international productions that helped build our reputation in the first place.

There is also the economics that people do not always see. Take a gaffer, for example. On paper, a day rate of R4,000 seems good. Multiply it by twenty days in a month and you are looking at numbers that place someone in the top income bracket. But the reality is that no one is booked for twenty shoot days a month. If they are, it is peak season or long-form work where day rates are lower. Add half-day tech recces, gear checks, agency fees, tax and downtime, and that number comes down dramatically. Cape Town’s cost of living adds even more pressure. So the shift toward owning gear becomes almost inevitable. It is a survival mechanism rather than exploitation. But again, that survival decision shifts pressure elsewhere in the chain. And eventually that pressure lands back on production.

There is another elephant in the room that is harder to talk about. We are often over-crewed. Not every position needs an assistant. Not every VT operator needs an extra pair of hands on a simple job. Not every focus puller needs a loader on a small studio shoot. And sometimes, on a lightly lit production, the DOP can also handle the gaffer duties. It might irritate some people to hear it, but the excess spend in Art is also becoming unsustainable for anything outside high-end work. The service industry spoiled us. For years crew have gotten used to large teams, extensive resources and every layer of support you could imagine. It raised the bar. It also softened our ability to hustle. Though our service and local industry compliment each other in many ways, the contrasting budgets often cause a bit of friction too. 

Now, at a time when local budgets are shrinking and clients are leaning toward more cost-effective solutions, we are struggling to adapt because we have normalised a workflow that is not always necessary. We have fallen into patterns that made sense for international service work, and the budgets allowed for it.

So where does this leave us. If we truly want to reduce the cost of production, we need to rethink how we approach jobs. Not by going cheap and nasty, but by being intentional. Every job needs to be looked at for what it is. What the budget is. What the creative actually demands. And what the most efficient way to execute it looks like. Our ability to think differently has taken a back seat, and that is costing us.

The world is changing rapidly. AI will be adopted, not because it is exciting or groundbreaking, but simply because it saves money. And cost is a conversation every CFO is having with every brand everywhere in the world. If we do not adapt, if we do not recalibrate our approach, we risk being left behind. Not because our work is not good. But because the economics of creating it no longer make sense.

That brings us to the heart of this entire discussion. We need to find a balance. A balance between what is genuinely required on a job and what we have simply become accustomed to. A balance between supporting gear houses that form the backbone of our high-end capability, while still allowing crew the space to be entrepreneurial and look after themselves in a tough economy. A balance between protecting the ecosystem and respecting the realities individuals face.

There are no easy answers here. But these are conversations we have to be having. Because if we do not speak honestly about the shifts happening in our industry, the solutions will be made for us. And by that point, we may not like the direction things have taken.