Grip Services

Here is how this works in practice. We provide key grips, grip teams and full grip kit packages for productions across South Africa. Our key grips work alongside the DP and gaffer from pre-production, planning camera support, rigging and movement, then specify packages through the country's mature rental network: dollies and track, cranes and jib arms, sliders, camera cars and the full inventory of stands, clamps, flags and rigging hardware.

Here is the short of it. Cape Town Film Studios and the surrounding facilities give grip departments the space and infrastructure for large stage builds and tricky rigs, while our crews are skilled rigging on location across the Western Cape's different terrain. Grip and camera-movement work is routinely set up with stabilised camera, cranes and vehicle mounts on the same shoot, and our teams arrive with the redundancy and spares to keep a shoot day moving. Because South Africa's film-services industry is large and competitively priced, a complete grip department, crew and kit alike, can be resourced within the country at short notice across Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban.

Here is the breakdown. South Africa's geography puts grip departments to work across an top spread of environments within short travel distances. A production might rig on the slopes below Table Mountain. The Twelve Apostles, build track through the Cape Winelands, or set up camera support in the semi-desert Karoo and the Kruger bushveld, with the country routinely doubling for locations worldwide. The dry, sunny Western Cape summer from November to February offers stable conditions for outdoor rigging and the trusted light the country is known for. Mains power runs at 230V/50Hz, driving is on the left, and ATA carnets are accepted for any expert grip kit brought into the country.

English is the working language of the grip crew. The SAST time zone at UTC+2 suits European productions. The DTIC production rebates, historically around a 25 percent rebate of qualifying local spend, and the favourable rand exchange rate make gear-intensive grip packages cost-good. The studio work behind series such as 'Black Sails' shows the rigging skill ready here.