The three weeks before a London shoot: what your fixer does, and when

Sixteen days. That’s what we had between Magnet Media’s first email and a six o’clock call in the loading bay under One Canada Square. Two podcast episodes, three cameras, Level 48. The space was a back-up, because the client’s own office had fallen through, so the estate’s paperwork, the crew, the vans and the set all had to fit inside a fortnight.

Canary Wharf Group asks for 10 working days’ notice, 12 with a risk assessment, and 12 working days is near enough all of 16 calendar days. Magnet filed the permit itself. We sent what it needed from us: every van’s registration, our risk assessment and method statement, and hi-vis for anyone in the loading dock, because the building doesn’t supply it. The gaffer’s van was 2.02m tall, too tall for the car park underneath, so it unloaded in the bay and left. The art director was booked the day before, with Magnet’s sign-off, to dress the set and cover the logos. I met the crew in the bay at six. By one o’clock both episodes were shot and the set was packed down.

Most London shoots run on a clock like that. Not the one on the call sheet, the one before it: who needs how much notice, and what has to be true by when. This is that clock, the way we run it for teams flying in, with the jobs it comes from. The notice periods and fees are from each office’s own pages, checked in October 2026. They change, so a fixer in London checks them again for your dates.

Three weeks out: the long-notice permissions

Three weeks is the longest lead time most London shoots meet, and it belongs to a short list. If anything on it is in your shoot, that sets your date, not the crew.

• The Underground. TfL wants at least three weeks (15 working days), a site-specific risk assessment and £10m public liability in the name of the company actually filming. A permit for up to 10 crew is £900 an hour plus VAT and staff costs. Filming runs 10am to 3.30pm and 8pm to 11.30pm on weekdays, and inside the three weeks there’s a £600 + VAT late fee.
• A drone over the City, Hyde Park or the Isle of Dogs. All three sit in restricted airspace, so the flight needs NATS clearance, applied for at least 21 days ahead, and then the landowner’s yes. Canary Wharf and Battersea Power Station don’t allow drones at all.
• Westminster with parking or a big crew. Ten working days if you need bays suspended, 15 if there are more than 10 of you. That’s two or three weeks for the West End, Soho, Mayfair and Marylebone.
• Canary Wharf. Ten working days, 12 with a risk assessment, and £10m public liability.

A road closure in the City is 12 weeks, which is a different conversation altogether.

What your fixer does this week is mostly working out whose land each location is on, because that decides who you ask. London has 33 local authorities, and six of them (Camden, Islington, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Kensington and Chelsea, and Greenwich) use FilmFixer. Westminster, the City, Hackney and Lambeth run their own offices. The Royal Parks, TfL, Network Rail and the private estates each give their own permission on top. One street can be two jobs.

We also ask for your insurance certificate now. The boroughs and the Royal Parks want £5m public liability; TfL, Network Rail and Canary Wharf want £10m. On a fixer booking the certificate is yours, and an application without it doesn’t move.

Two weeks out: boroughs, parks and buildings

If you’re five people or fewer on a pavement, you may not need a permit at all. In the FilmFixer boroughs, five or fewer with handheld kit or a camera on a tripod, leaving 1.5m of pavement clear, can generally film without one. Westminster allows five or fewer handheld only, with 2m clear. The City charges £95 + VAT even for that.

Bigger than that, Film London’s rule of thumb is at least three days’ notice for a small crew and 10 for a large one. The FilmFixer boroughs want three working days for a small shoot and five for a medium one. Westminster wants three working days for seven or fewer, counted from when its fee is paid, not from when you apply. The Royal Parks want five working days for 10 crew or fewer, and Network Rail five working days for its stations.

Most of the London shoots we crew are indoors, on private property, so the yes comes from the building, and every building wants something different. Davies Group’s office on Gracechurch Street wanted every crew name for a pass and the exact kit list before the day. At 30 St Mary Axe in April 2026, the building wanted every crew member’s full name and email for sign-in, ID at reception, every bag searched and the van’s registration in advance. It searched the van again before it went down to the basement.

None of that is unusual, and none of it can be done on the morning. Your fixer asks the building for its list two weeks out, so there’s time to answer it.

Ten days out: the recce, the bays and the van

We recced the Gherkin as registered visitors ten days before the shoot. For a job in September 2025, four days of customer stories for a US production company, we recced the Uxbridge offices at the end of August. A recce isn’t only the room. It’s how the kit gets from the street to the floor.

For that job’s two days at a law firm on Cannon Street, the answer was the underground car park off Dowgate Hill, with the kit unloaded straight into the lift. At a City tower in March 2026 the van could unload at the loading bay but not park there, and on the second day there was no parking at all. At Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, for a US production company in 2023, parking was a challenge and the loading bay wasn’t.

Parking on the street is a suspension, borough by borough. Westminster wants 10 working days and charges from £51 a bay for the first day. Camden charges £100.35 a bay for the first day, with five working days’ notice for pay-and-display bays. If there’s no bay to be had, book off the street: for two days in Marylebone in May 2025, the call sheet sent the vehicles to the Selfridges car park via Edwards Mews, or to JustPark.

Then the road charges. Every unit vehicle inside the zone pays the Congestion Charge, £18 a day since 2 January 2026, and vans pay the same as cars. ULEZ covers every London borough, 24 hours a day, and a van that isn’t Euro 6 diesel or Euro 4 petrol pays £12.50 a day on top. Both go on the quote as their own lines. There’s more on parking, ULEZ and vans for a London shoot.

One week out: the crew is locked

Valentine Global emailed us on 2 January 2025, for a Nike SNKRS social spot shooting in London on the 10th. We quoted on the 3rd and had every crew member on hold by the 6th. The contract was signed on the 8th, two days out. On the 9th our gaffer went to a half-day recce at the artist’s studio in Woolwich, so the studio could be lit from nine the next morning.

Eight days works for a crew hire in an artist’s studio. It wouldn’t have worked for the Underground. That’s the real use of the countdown: it tells you early which of your locations you can still have.

More notice buys more places. For Swanson Studios, the enquiry came 19 days before the first of three shoot days, in Portsmouth, London and Oxford, one city a day. That was enough to book the crew, the kit, two vans and hotels in all three.

The last two days

Something always moves. Davies Group’s London day was re-crewed the Friday before. The DOP and second camera who took it shot on two Blackmagic 6Ks, chosen to match the Manchester and Bolton legs, so the series still cut together. On the September job, playback was added at the last minute. At One Canada Square the art director was booked the day before. None of these are emergencies if someone has the whole plan in their head.

The call sheet goes out with arrivals on it. From Heathrow, the Heathrow Express is 15 minutes to Paddington. From Gatwick, the Gatwick Express is 30 minutes to Victoria. Eurostar comes into St Pancras. When Swanson landed at Heathrow at midday, I met them and drove them south to Portsmouth.

On the day

The fixer’s day starts before the call. At One Canada Square I was in the loading bay at six to meet the crew and the vans. In Marylebone our producer was on lunch delivered to the door, transport for the visiting producers and the parking, so the director’s team could stay on the shoot.

And sometimes the city has its own plans. On the September job a Tube strike shut the Underground, so the crew drove out to Uxbridge. A three-day kit deal and one van for the crew and the kit meant it still came in £498 under budget.

If you’ve got less than three weeks

Plenty of London bookings start with less. Magnet had 16 days and Valentine eight. Short notice mostly narrows the map. Drop the Underground and the drone, pick private property that can say yes quickly, keep the crew small enough for the small-crew rules, and book the crew the day you have dates.

Our fixers are producers, from £450 for an 11-hour day, which comes to £504 + VAT with our booking fee and insurance. Not sure whether you need a fixer or a full service company? Here’s how to tell. Our team reads every brief within 2 working hours, and the first thing we’ll tell you is which of your locations sets the date. The detail for each office is on our page about filming permits in London.

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