Film crew hire/Bristol/DIT and data
DIT and data on Bristol shoots. Every card checked and copied before it leaves the set.
The edit for a Bristol shoot might be across the city, with our own post team in London, or in another country. Here’s how the footage gets there in one piece: what a DIT or data wrangler does, what they carry, how much a day makes, how many copies, and every way rushes leave Bristol, from a drive on the train at Temple Meads to an upload that starts before wrap.
DIT · day rate
£527
Verified copies before a card is wiped
2
1 hour of Sony FX6 4K at 25p
up to about 112 GB
Temple Meads to Paddington, fastest train
1 hr 19 min
On this page
01 Who does what
DIT, data wrangler or loader?
Three jobs that overlap, and get called different things on different sets. Which one a Bristol shoot needs comes down to the cameras, the formats and how soon the edit wants the rushes.
Digital imaging technician
DIT
Works with the DOP on the camera settings and the look, checks every take for focus, exposure and noise, sets up colour for dailies, and runs the backups. The one to book for ARRI or RED on a stage at The Bottle Yard.
Backups and the log
Data wrangler
Takes the cards from the cameras, copies them to drives with verified backups, and keeps the log. On a three-camera conference in a venue like Bristol Beacon, the wrangler keeps up with the cards so the camera team never has to stop.
On smaller jobs
Camera assistant or loader
On a small shoot the 2nd AC offloads cards between set-ups with verification software. On a sportswear brand’s social spot in Woolwich, London, in January 2025, our 2nd AC doubled as DIT at the end of the day.
Our view
For a one- or two-camera FX6 interview day in an office on the Harbourside, a camera assistant with the right software does the job. Book a wrangler once there are three or more cameras, and a DIT for RAW, ARRI or RED, dailies the same night, or an edit in another city or time zone waiting on proxies. DITs are one of the roles Bristol is short of, so yours may come in from across the South West, Cardiff or London, with the travel on the quote before anything is booked. The DIT’s cart and drives go on the quote as their own lines. Booking the whole crew? Every role is on the Bristol crew page.
02 On set
How we handle data on a Bristol shoot
Five steps, every shoot, whoever is doing them.
01
Offload, verified
Cards are copied with checksum-verified software such as Silverstack, ShotPut Pro or OffShoot, which reads each copy back against the card. Never by dragging files in Finder.
02
Two copies, then three
Two verified copies on separate drives before a card goes back to camera to be formatted, and a third away from set by the end of the day.
03
Check it
Spot checks for focus, exposure, sound and timecode, while the crew are still there to go again.
04
Log it
A report for every card, and an ASC MHL file that travels with the media: a checksum for every file, usually xxHash or MD5, and a record of every copy made.
05
Hand it over
At wrap the drives go to you, onto a train at Temple Meads, to a courier, up to the cloud, or to our edit.
Card handling
A full card comes off camera marked as not yet copied, and goes straight to the DIT, never into a pocket. It goes back to camera only when two verified copies exist and the DIT has marked it safe to format. On a two-camera day each camera’s cards live in their own case, so nothing gets formatted by mistake.
Why it matters
Copying in Finder gives no checksum, so a corrupted file can go unnoticed until the card is formatted and the original is gone. The baseline we work to is the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, on two kinds of storage, one of them off site.
On one of our jobs
For Swanson Studios, an Oregon studio filming interviews in Portsmouth, London and Oxford in November 2023, our co-founder Ollie was the DIT. He ingested the RED footage and the audio, made proxies, and backed every card up twice, to two mirrored drives: one for Swanson, one for their client.
03 The cart
What a DIT brings, and what they need
The cart is a small data station on wheels. Most DITs bring their own, and it goes on the quote as its own line, with the drives.
Software and looks
A station
A laptop or workstation running the verification software, the camera makers’ own tools for RAW, and the DOP’s look files for dailies.
Media
Readers and drives
A reader for every card format on the day, and drives for three copies. A Sony FX6 records to CFexpress Type A or SD cards; ARRI and RED cameras use their makers’ own media.
Checks and backup power
A monitor and power
A calibrated monitor for checking pictures, and an uninterruptible power supply, so a tripped socket doesn’t stop a copy halfway.
Power and a corner
A socket and a spot out of the traffic of the set, close enough for the camera team to hand over cards. At The Bottle Yard, Bristol Beacon or an office on the Harbourside, we agree both with the venue before the day.
A wired line, if anything uploads
Bristol Beacon offers internet fast enough to stream live without a satellite truck, and Bristol Dockyards has Wi-Fi on site (checked October 2026). Neither publishes a speed, so we ask any venue for a wired line and test it before the day.
Parking
A DIT driving in needs a space near the set. A Bristol multiple-locations permit is £15 + VAT a vehicle a day, with no guaranteed space (parking suspension page, checked October 2026), so when the cart has to sit by the set, we suspend a bay for it.
The Clean Air Zone
Bristol’s Clean Air Zone is Class D, so it charges cars as well as vans: £9 a day for a car or van below Euro 6 diesel or Euro 4 petrol, £100 for an HGV or coach, around the clock. Bath’s zone is Class C and doesn’t charge private cars (checked October 2026). So a DIT who drives in with the cart in an older car pays the same £9 a day as an older van, on the quote at cost. We check the vehicles against the zone before they’re booked.
04 Storage
How much data a shoot day makes
Per hour of recording, from the manufacturers’ own figures. Multiply by the hours you roll and the number of cameras, then by the copies you keep.
| Camera and format | Per hour of recording |
|---|---|
| Sony FX6, XAVC-L 4K, 25p | up to about 45 GB |
| Sony FX6, XAVC-I 4K, 25p | up to about 112 GB |
| Sony FX6, XAVC-I 4K, 50p | up to about 225 GB |
| Apple ProRes 422 HQ, UHD, 25p | about 332 GB |
| Apple ProRes 4444, UHD, 25p | about 498 GB |
| Apple ProRes 4444 XQ, UHD, 25p | about 746 GB |
| ARRIRAW Open Gate 3.4K, 24 fps | about 973 GB |
| The same ARRIRAW, as Codex HDE | about 584 GB |
Worked example
Say it’s a three-camera conference day at Bristol Beacon, each FX6 rolling six hours of sessions in XAVC-I 4K at 25p. That makes up to about 2 TB. Keep three copies and it’s about 6 TB of drives, sized before the day, not found at lunch. Shoot XAVC-L and the same day is about 810 GB.
From one of our jobs
The client’s post house often sets the format. For Davies Group’s interview days in Manchester, London and Bolton in October and November 2024, the post house asked for log, 4K, 25 frames for interviews and 50 for B-roll, and the London cameras were two Blackmagic 6Ks, chosen to match the other cities for the edit.
05 Delivery
Getting rushes out of Bristol
Handed over at wrap
The drives go to your producer on set, with the media log. Whoever takes them, the masters stay with the production until the copy has arrived and been checked.
On the train, with a person
Temple Meads is 1 hour 19 minutes from London Paddington on the fastest trains, 11 minutes from Bath Spa, 48 minutes from Cardiff Central and about 1 hour 25 from Birmingham (checked October 2026). A runner or the DIT takes a shuttle drive on the train and hands it to the edit the same day: our own post team is in London. It’s a copy, never the only one.
By courier
A tracked same-day courier for the shuttle drive, booked once its copy is verified. Never for the only copy.
By upload
The connection is the limit: at 1 gigabit a second, a terabyte takes over two hours in theory. MASV gives 15 GB a month free, then US$0.25 a GB, so two hours of FX6 4K at 25p, about 225 GB, costs about US$53 to send (checked October 2026). For a Paris agency’s interviews in Wimbledon, London, the June 2025 rushes went to Paris on two transfer links two days after the shoot.
Proxies as you shoot
Frame.io Camera to Cloud sends proxies, or originals from some cameras, from a connected camera or encoder, keeps a queue when the signal drops, and lets the edit start before wrap. A file that takes more than 24 hours to upload expires, so in a venue we ask for a wired line first.
To an overseas edit
When the edit’s abroad, the proxies go up as you shoot and the drives follow by courier, or fly home with the visiting team: the A1 Flyer runs from Temple Meads to Bristol Airport in from 45 minutes, and Amsterdam and Paris fly daily (checked October 2026). Here’s how overseas teams book a Bristol crew.
06 Playback
Playback, screenings and remote viewing
A video playback operator in Bristol is £334–518 a day, with the kit on its own line: a monitor for the director and the client by the set, and a stream for anyone watching from somewhere else.
Two Bristol details. Watershed’s Cinema 1, with 197 seats, takes rushes, technical and cast and crew screenings every day, and Bristol Beacon can stream live on its own internet without a satellite truck (checked October 2026). For a stream from anywhere else, we test the building’s wired line before the client joins.
07 Post
Where it’s cut: your edit, or ours
Bristol rushes usually go one of three ways. We plan the route at the recce, so the format, the drives and the delivery match the edit.
Your spec
Wherever it is
Your post house
Send us the post house’s spec before the shoot, and the format, the drives and the route out of Bristol are set to it. For Davies Group in 2024 we handed over rushes only: Manchester’s on SSDs with a Frame.io backup, Bolton’s straight into its SharePoint, and its post house cut the show.
Edit days
Crew hire
An editor in Bristol
An editor booked for the edit days, cutting from the drives the DIT hands over, in your office or theirs.
Here Now Films
Our own edit
The people who shoot it can cut it, grade it and mix it, with no drives changing hands between companies. Xanadoo’s concept film, shot at The Forge in Bristol, was edited, graded and mixed by our own team, and H&M’s Bristol store reopening was edited and delivered within a week of the event.
- Video editing
- Colour grading
- Hire an editor in Bristol, from £350 a day
In the city
Bristol has post houses of its own. Films at 59 runs offline, Baselight grading, a DI suite and sound post from Cotham Hill, and ingest and media management at The Bottle Yard (checked October 2026). If your edit is booked there, we set the drives and the handover to its spec.
Need a DIT, or the rushes handled?
Tell us the cameras, the formats and where the footage needs to end up: in Bristol, in London, our edit or overseas. We’ll book the DIT or wrangler, the drives and the delivery. Or call us on 07412 543822.
Quick contact form
08 Questions
DIT and data in Bristol: questions
Do I need a DIT or a data wrangler in Bristol?
Not for a one- or two-camera interview day in an office: a camera assistant with verification software does the job. Book a data wrangler for three or more cameras, such as a conference in a venue like Bristol Beacon, and a DIT for RAW, ARRI or RED on a stage at The Bottle Yard, dailies the same night, or an edit in another city waiting on proxies. We’re a crew agency with 2,800+ freelance crew on our books across the UK, 150+ of them in and around Bristol and Bath, so we can scale a crew from one person for a morning to a full unit for a week.
What does data handling add to a Bristol quote?
The DIT’s day rate, £527, or a wrangler’s, quoted on the brief; the cart and the drives, each on its own line; and the delivery: train fares, a courier or an upload. A DIT from outside Bristol adds travel, on the quote before anything is booked, and an older car or van inside Bristol’s Clean Air Zone adds £9 a day (checked October 2026). On a crew hire, everything we book carries our 10% booking fee and 2% insurance.
How do I get rushes from Bristol to a London edit the same day?
Temple Meads is 1 hour 19 minutes from London Paddington on the fastest trains (checked October 2026), so a runner with a shuttle drive is often quickest, and it’s how rushes reach our own post team in London. Or upload: MASV gives 15 GB a month free, then US$0.25 a GB. The masters stay with the production until the copy has arrived.
How much storage does a three-camera day need?
Three Sony FX6s rolling six hours each in XAVC-I 4K at 25p make up to about 2 TB, from Sony’s maximum bit rates. With three copies, that’s about 6 TB of drives. In XAVC-L it’s up to about 45 GB an hour per camera, so about 810 GB for the same day.
How many copies of the footage should we make?
Three, each checksum-verified, on at least two kinds of storage, with one away from set: the 3-2-1 rule. Cards don’t go back to camera to be formatted until two verified copies exist.
Where can we screen rushes in Bristol?
Watershed’s Cinema 1, with 197 seats, takes rushes, technical and cast and crew screenings every day, and Bristol Beacon can stream live on its own internet without a satellite truck (checked October 2026). On set, a video playback operator is £334–518 a day, with the kit on its own line.
Does a DIT’s car pay the Clean Air Zone charge?
In Bristol, yes, if it doesn’t meet the standard: the zone is Class D, so it charges cars as well as vans, £9 a day below Euro 6 diesel or Euro 4 petrol, paid on GOV.UK up to six days before or after (checked October 2026). Bath’s zone doesn’t charge private cars. We check the vehicles before they’re booked, and any charge goes on the quote at cost.
Can an editor overseas get the rushes?
Yes. Proxies go up as you shoot with Frame.io Camera to Cloud, the originals follow by upload or courier, or the drives fly home with the visiting team: the A1 Flyer runs from Temple Meads to Bristol Airport in from 45 minutes. For a Paris agency’s interviews in Wimbledon, London, in June 2025, the rushes went to Paris by transfer link two days after the shoot.
Around the crew
More for Bristol shoots
01
Kit rental
Kit houses in Clifton and at The Bottle Yard, the crew’s own kit, and what comes down from London.
02
Locations and permits
Bristol Film Office, Bath Film Office, the harbour, Clifton Suspension Bridge and the drone rules.
03
Studios and set builds
The Bottle Yard’s 11 stages, green screen and infinity coves across the city, and set builds.
