In May 2025 a US production company booked us to crew two days of a startup series at a workspace in Marylebone. They had their own producers. What they didn’t have was anyone who knew where to park a van in W1, who would get lunch to the right floor, or how their producers would get across town between set-ups. So we did that as well as the crew. That’s fixing.
Four months later a different US production company flew four of its team in for four days of customer stories, two in the City and two in Uxbridge. We put a producer and an assistant producer on it and built the rest of the unit around them. That’s closer to a service company. Same city, same year, and both clients would have been right to call what they needed a fixer, because the word stretches to cover both jobs and several others.
This is the guide I’d have liked to send both of them before the first call: what a fixer, a line producer and a production service company each do on a UK shoot, what each one costs, and how to tell which you need.
The short answer
If your own director or producer is going to run the shoot, you need a fixer, a crew, or both. If you need a UK company to take the production on, with the permits and the public liability in its name, you need a production service company. A line producer is a person, not an arrangement: you can hire one under either.
The question underneath all of it is who’s the producer of record: the company responsible for the shoot, its permissions, its insurance and the people on it. Answer that and the rest follows.
What a fixer does
A fixer is a local producer you book by the day to make a shoot possible in a city you don’t know. They find and recce the locations, work out who has to say yes, chase the permissions, book the crew and kit, sort the vans and the hotels, and then stand next to your director on the day and deal with whatever comes up. They work to you. You stay in charge of the film.
On the Marylebone job that meant a call sheet running 8am to 4pm across two days, a crew of seven (DP, AC, sound, gaffer, DIT, hair and make-up and a PA), lunch delivered to the door, transport for the visiting producers, and parking sorted in the Selfridges car park or through JustPark. None of it is glamorous, but it’s the difference between a calm day and visiting producers on their phones in a corridor.
What a fixer doesn’t do is become your production. They won’t hold your insurance or sign a permit as if the shoot were theirs, and they don’t employ your team. That’s the line between a fixer and a service company, and it’s why a fixer is the lighter, cheaper option.
Our fixers are our producers. In London and Manchester that’s from £450 for an 11-hour day, paid to the producer in full, plus our 10% booking fee and 2% insurance: £504 + VAT for a day. Recce and prep days are at the same rate, and permit fees, parking and travel go on the quote at cost. The detail is on our pages for a fixer in London and a fixer in Manchester.
What a line producer does
A line producer owns the budget and the schedule, from the first day of prep to delivery, and reports against both. On a two-day interview shoot that job usually belongs to whoever is producing. On a documentary, a series, or anything that runs for weeks, it becomes a job of its own, because someone has to know at any moment what’s been spent and what hasn’t.
People sometimes ask for a line producer when they mean a fixer, because “line producer” sounds more senior. It’s a different skill. A good fixer knows the city. A good line producer knows the numbers. Some people are both, but if you only need one, book the right one. If a job is long enough to need its own line producer, we’ll say so when we quote.
What a production service company does
A production service company takes your UK production on. It becomes the producer of record: the permits go in its name, its insurance covers the shoot, its producer writes the risk assessment and runs the day, and you get one UK contract and one invoice. Your director still makes the creative calls. Everything around them is the service company’s problem.
For Swanson Studios, an Oregon studio photographing and interviewing surgeons for a surgical robotics company, that was three shoot days in three cities in November and December 2023: a hospital in Portsmouth, another in London, and their client’s office in Oxford. They brought their own cameras, two REDs. We put a gaffer, sound, hair and make-up, a DIT and a production assistant round them, with the lighting, two vans and the hotels. I met them at Heathrow and drove one of the vans. In London the parking was a challenge and the loading bay wasn’t, which is the sort of thing you only learn by asking the hospital beforehand.
The Cannon Street and Uxbridge job sat in the same territory. A Tube strike shut the Underground on a shoot day, so the crew drove out to Uxbridge, and playback was added at the last minute. A three-day kit deal and one van for crew and kit kept it £498 under budget. That’s what a service company is for: absorbing the city so the visiting team doesn’t have to.
We quote a service company job as a production: everything at cost, plus a 15% production fee and 5% for insurance and contingency, with our insurance covering the whole shoot. There’s more on how working with a UK production service company works.
The question that decides it
Side by side, the difference is mostly about who carries what.
| Fixer | Line producer | Production service company | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Producer of record | You | Whoever hires them | The service company |
| Runs the day | Your director or producer, with the fixer beside them | Runs the budget and schedule, not usually the floor | Their producer, with your director on the creative calls |
| Permits | Prepared and chased by the fixer, in your production’s name | Tracked against the budget | In the service company’s name |
| Public liability | Yours | Whoever is producer of record | The service company’s |
| How it’s priced | A day rate | A day or weekly rate | A production quote |
| Best when | Your director or producer is flying in and wants someone who knows the city | The shoot runs long enough for the money to be a job | You’re flying in without a UK company or UK insurance |
My view, from a lot of these calls: most overseas teams who ask us for a service company need a fixer and a crew. They have a producer. They have a production policy that covers them abroad. What they lack is local knowledge and local people, and a fixer is the cheapest way to get both. The ones who need a service company are flying in without a UK entity or UK insurance, or shooting somewhere that wants the production to hold £10m public liability. In London that includes TfL and Canary Wharf. The London boroughs and the Royal Parks ask for £5m.
Three things worth knowing before you book anyone
“Employer of record” is the wrong phrase
You’ll see it in briefs from the US. It isn’t a UK legal term, and in the market it means the company that issues employment contracts and runs payroll, holiday and pensions. Most UK film crew are freelance, so it doesn’t describe what happens on a shoot. What you want is a production service company that contracts and pays the UK crew, and that’s how we describe what we do.
Your own team can usually come as visitors
Under the UK visitor rules, film crew employed by an overseas company can come in to work on a location shoot for something produced and financed outside the UK. The catch is that they mustn’t be paid from a UK source, beyond reasonable travel and living costs. So a UK company shouldn’t contract or pay your travelling team, and we don’t. Your people stay yours; the UK crew are ours. Check the current rules on GOV.UK before you travel, as visitors from many countries now need an electronic travel authorisation as well.
Health and safety stays with whoever runs the shoot
The Health and Safety Executive is plain about this: legal duties under health and safety law can’t be delegated. On a fixer booking the risk assessment is your production’s, and your fixer will help you write it. When a service company is producer of record, its producer writes it for the UK side. Either way, ask who holds it before the first shoot day, not on it. (This is how we work, not legal advice; your own lawyer or insurer has the final word.)
What we’d book for you
If your producer is coming with you and you have a production policy, start with a fixer in London or a fixer in Manchester, and a crew around your director. If the job grows, the same producer stays on it and we quote it as a production, so nobody new needs briefing. If you’re flying in with no UK company, no UK insurance and no producer, go straight to a service company. Shooting in London? Here’s what your fixer does in the three weeks before a London shoot.
If you’re not sure, send us the dates, the places and who’s flying in. Our team reads every brief within 2 working hours, and the first answer is usually which of these three you need.
Questions
What’s the difference between a fixer and a production service company?
Who’s the producer of record. A fixer is a local producer who works to your director or producer: they find locations, chase permits, book crew and kit and run the ground, but the production stays yours, including its public liability. A production service company takes the UK production on, with the permits and insurance in its own name and one UK contract for the lot.
What’s the difference between a fixer and a line producer?
A fixer knows the city; a line producer knows the numbers. A fixer gets your shoot permission, places and people. A line producer owns the budget and the schedule from prep to delivery. On short shoots one person often does both; on long ones they’re separate jobs.
How much does a fixer cost in the UK?
Our fixers are producers, from £450 for an 11-hour day, paid to them in full, plus a 10% booking fee and 2% insurance: £504 + VAT a day. Recce and prep days are at the same rate. Permit fees, parking and travel are at cost, each on its own line of the quote.
Do I need a production service company to film in the UK?
Not if your own producer will run the shoot and you have insurance the locations accept. Most London boroughs and the Royal Parks ask for £5m public liability, TfL and Canary Wharf for £10m. If you have no UK company and no cover, a production service company becomes the producer of record for you.
Can my own crew work on a UK shoot?
Usually, as visitors, if they’re employed by your overseas company and the film is produced and financed outside the UK. They mustn’t be paid from a UK source beyond reasonable travel and living costs, so the UK company crewing your shoot shouldn’t pay them. Check the current visitor rules on GOV.UK before travelling.
