Film crew hire/London/DIT and data
DIT and data on London shoots. Every card checked, copied and on its way to the edit.
In London the edit is often across town in Soho, with our own editors, or an ocean away. Here’s how the footage gets there safely: who handles it on set, how many copies, how much a day makes, and the ways it leaves London. From our office on City Road, by Old Street.
DIT · day rate
£527
Copies · Netflix baseline
3, verified
1 hour of ARRIRAW 4.5K
about 1.9 TB
Bike courier across London
from £7.50
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 London shoot needs depends on the cameras, the formats and how fast 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.
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 bigger unit, the DIT’s assistant.
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 studio day in Woolwich in January 2025, the 2nd AC doubled as DIT at the end of the day.
Our view
For a one- or two-camera FX6 interview day in a City office, a camera assistant with the right software does the job. Book a DIT for RAW or Alexa, three or more cameras, dailies the same night, or an edit in another time zone waiting on proxies. The DIT’s cart and station are quoted per job, with the DIT. Booking the whole crew? Send the brief from the London crew page.
02 On set
How we handle data on a London shoot
Five steps, every shoot.
01
Offload, verified
Cards are copied with checksum-verified software such as Silverstack, ShotPut Pro or OffShoot, never by dragging files in Finder.
02
Two copies, then three
Two verified copies on separate drives before a card is reformatted, 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 fix it.
04
Log it
A report for every card, with an ASC MHL file of checksums travelling with the media as its chain of custody.
05
Hand it over
At wrap the drives go to you, to a courier for Soho, up to the cloud, or straight to our edit.
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. Netflix’s baseline is three copies, checksum-verified; the 3-2-1 rule adds two kinds of storage and one copy off site.
On a London job
On a hospital interview day at Chelsea and Westminster in November 2023, for a US production company, our DIT’s brief was to ingest the RED media and the sound, and make double backups and H.264 proxies.
03 Storage
How much data a shoot day makes
Per hour of recording, from the manufacturers’ own data rates. 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-I 4K, 25p | about 112 GB |
| Sony FX6, XAVC-I 4K, 50p | about 225 GB |
| Apple ProRes 4444, UHD, 25p | about 498 GB |
| Apple ProRes 4444 XQ, UHD, 25p | about 746 GB |
| ARRI Alexa Mini LF, ARRIRAW 3.8K UHD, 25 fps | about 1.14 TB |
| ARRI Alexa Mini LF, ARRIRAW 4.5K open gate, 25 fps | about 1.88 TB |
Worked example
A two-camera FX6 interview day, with three hours rolled on each camera at 25p, makes about 670 GB. Keep three copies and you need about 2 TB of drives. The client’s post team often sets the format: for Davies Group’s London office day in November 2024 it asked for Log, 4K H.265 and no RAW, 25fps for interviews and 50 for b-roll, shot on two Blackmagic 6K cameras.
04 Delivery
Getting rushes out of London
By hand
Drives in a bag go anywhere on the tube: the only size rule is nothing over 2m. Soho and Fitzrovia, where London’s post houses cluster, are a tube ride from most locations.
By courier
Gophr runs a production service for hard drives, props and sets, from a bike at £7.50 to a large van at £26.50, insured up to £5,000 and tracked live. Speedy Freight does same-day editing drives and aims to be on site within 60 minutes, day or night. Checked October 2026.
By upload
The connection is the limit: at 1 Gbps a terabyte takes over two hours in theory. MASV gives 15 GB a month free, then US$0.25 a GB. A Paris agency’s rushes from its Wimbledon interviews went by TransferNow in June 2025.
Proxies as you shoot
Frame.io Camera to Cloud uploads proxies or originals from supported devices such as the Teradek Bolt 4K line, queues them when the signal drops, and lets the edit start before wrap. An asset that takes more than 24 hours to upload can expire.
Film goes to the lab
For Cohere’s AI for Empowerment, the London 2nd AC and a second assistant prepped the 35mm Panavision package at Greenford in one working day, and Cinelab held the film files.
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: Heathrow Express is 15 minutes from Paddington. Here’s how overseas teams book a London crew.
05 Playback
Playback and remote viewing
On a four-day shoot across a City law firm and an Uxbridge office in September 2025, the US team brought its own DIT and we crewed around them. Playback ran all four days: a playback package with a Teradek, a livestream licence, an operator and delivery, added late in the budget, so the shoot could be watched from outside the room.
A video playback operator is £334–518 a day, with the kit priced on its own line. For a client in another time zone, the stream and the proxies together mean nobody waits for the drives.
06 Post
Post in London: Soho, Fitzrovia, or our edit
London’s post houses cluster in Soho and Fitzrovia, a few streets apart. Among them:
Four sites
Fitzrovia
ENVY
Sites on Stephen Street, Mortimer Street, Foley Street and Windmill Street.
Here Now Films
Our own edit
The people who shoot it can cut it, grade it and mix it. AimHi Earth × PepsiCo was shot at County Hall and cut by a freelance editor we booked, with motion graphics and a grade; AlTi Tiedemann Global’s London films were edited and animated by us.
- Video editing
- Colour grading
- Online editing
- Hire an editor in London, from £350 a day
Need a DIT, or the rushes handled?
Tell us the cameras, the formats and where the footage needs to end up: Soho, 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
07 Questions
DIT and data in London: questions
Do I need a DIT for a corporate shoot in London?
Usually not for a one- or two-camera interview day in a City office: a camera assistant with verification software does the job. Book a DIT for RAW or Alexa, three or more cameras, dailies the same night, or an edit abroad waiting on proxies.
How much does a DIT cost in London?
A DIT is £527 a day, the same national rate as everywhere we book. Their cart and drives are priced alongside, and on a crew hire everything we book carries the 10% booking fee and 2% insurance.
How do I get rushes to a Soho edit the same day?
By hand on the tube, by courier or by upload. Gophr’s production service runs from a bike at £7.50 to a large van at £26.50, insured up to £5,000; Speedy Freight aims to be on site within 60 minutes, day or night. Checked October 2026.
Can you send rushes to an editor overseas?
Yes. Upload them through a service such as MASV (15 GB a month free, then US$0.25 a GB), send proxies up as you shoot with Frame.io Camera to Cloud, or let the drives fly home with the visiting team. For a Paris agency’s Wimbledon interviews in June 2025, the rushes went by TransferNow.
How many copies of the footage should we make?
Three, each checksum-verified, with one kept off site: Netflix’s baseline and the 3-2-1 rule. Cards aren’t reformatted until two verified copies exist.
How much storage does a shoot day need?
It depends on the camera. An hour of Sony FX6 4K at 25p is about 112 GB; an hour of ARRIRAW 4.5K is about 1.9 TB. A two-camera FX6 interview day with three hours rolled on each needs about 2 TB of drives for three copies.
Can a client watch a London shoot remotely?
Yes, with video playback and a stream. On a four-day shoot across a City law firm and an Uxbridge office in September 2025, playback ran every day, with a Teradek and a livestream licence.
Around the crew
More for London shoots
02
Locations and permits
Borough film services, the Royal Parks, TfL, the private estates and the drone zones.
