A production vehicle is a moving part of the schedule, and it is booked by someone whose day is already full and who will not have time to explain the job twice.
R5 Executive Travel has provided ground transport across broadcast, editorial and commercial production for three years, for clients including British Vogue, Netflix, Adidas, Vodafone, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, as well as a long tail of independent production companies. They are named here with their agreement; work we have not been given leave to reference stays unnamed.
What follows is what the work actually demands, written for the coordinators and producers who have to book it.
A call sheet is not an itinerary
It is a document recording what has already been decided and, read properly, what is about to go wrong. A chauffeur who arrives having read only the pickup address will still complete the job. They will simply need to be told everything, twice, by someone who has no capacity to tell them.
Before an R5 vehicle leaves for a shoot, the chauffeur is expected to have taken the following off the sheet:
- Where unit base actually is, which is frequently not the address in the location field.
- Which entrance talent uses, which is rarely the entrance crew uses.
- The weather contingency, because if it is invoked the schedule inverts.
- The transport contact and their mobile number, not the production office switchboard.
- When the meal break falls, because that is when vehicle moves get requested.
- Whether there is a second unit, because if there is, there are two schedules and only one of them is on the sheet that was sent.
None of this is difficult, but it has to be somebody’s job.
Know who vetted and briefed the driver
When a production books ground transport, the vehicle is sometimes only approximately the class requested, and the driver may have picked the job up that morning knowing only a name and a postcode.
For an airport transfer that is usually survivable. For a production move: talent in the vehicle, a call time that cannot slip, a location the driver has never seen, it is the largest uncontrolled risk in the day, and it sits with a supplier who has already been paid.
Our chauffeurs are licensed, DBS-checked and briefed personally before the day begins, and they sign your NDA on request.
Editorial is not broadcast
Broadcast work tends to be structured: a schedule that has been through several hands, a transport captain, a unit that has done this before. Editorial and commercial shoots move differently.
The schedule shifts through the day. Talent arrives from a hotel, crew and equipment need to be in place before them, and a wardrobe or props run that was not on the call sheet at seven becomes essential by eleven. Wrap does not happen when the sheet says it will.
For the supplier, that means a chauffeur who is already where the vehicle needs to be, who knows which of the twelve people on set can authorise a move and which eleven cannot, and who does not need to be found.
Multi-day work
A shoot running across several days is a different problem to a single one. On day one everyone is learning: which gate crew actually uses, where vehicles can wait without being asked to move, how far behind the schedule genuinely runs rather than how far it says it will.
By day three the transport should be invisible: the vehicle is in position before anyone asks for it, and nobody rings to ask where anything is.
That is the deliverable on a multi-day booking. The knowledge built up on day one is worth something on day three, and it is lost if the supplier changes.
Choosing the vehicle
Productions often book larger than they need, on the assumption that a bigger vehicle reads as more serious. We choose like this:
- Mercedes E-Class: single talent or one-to-two passenger moves, airport runs, hotel to set.
- Mercedes V-Class, up to seven passengers, or two with genuine equipment. Also correct for any journey over two hours with a group, because facing each other turns dead time into a working meeting.
- Range Rover: location shoots, unmade approaches, poor weather, and a register that sits differently to a saloon.
- Monaco Sprinter, crew moves and touring parties, where a group needs to arrive together rather than in three vehicles at three different times.
If you describe the day rather than the vehicle, we will frequently suggest something cheaper than the booking you were about to place.
Discretion and naming clients
On request, R5 chauffeurs sign your non-disclosure agreement, or we can supply ours. Chauffeurs don’t post about bookings on social media or mention who they drove. Plate-only correspondence is available where a booking requires it.
It is worth being precise about where that line sits, given this article names clients. R5 as a company will occasionally reference work, and only ever with the client’s written agreement obtained in advance. An individual chauffeur will not, under any circumstances, with or without permission. The two are not the same thing.
How R5 works with production
We know the unit bases across Manchester, Salford and the wider North West, the city’s talent hotels (The Lowry, Gotham, Dakota, Principal Manchester, Edwardian, the Stock Exchange), the Manchester to London wrap run, and airport transfers to Heathrow and Gatwick as well as Manchester.
Every shoot gets a fixed quote confirmed in writing beforehand, and approved accounts get one VAT invoice a month against your purchase order. If a shoot overruns, we tell you on the day.
Across three years and more than five thousand journeys we hold a 5.0 rating from 100+ Google reviews.
Frequently asked questions
Will the chauffeur receive the call sheet?
Yes, ahead of the shoot day, and they are briefed before leaving.
Are your chauffeurs NDA-signed?
On request. The chauffeur signs your NDA, or we can supply ours.
Can you invoice against a purchase order?
Yes. Approved accounts get one VAT invoice a month.
Do you work outside Manchester?
Yes. From Manchester, nationwide, including London wrap runs and Heathrow and Gatwick transfers.
If you are booking production transport
Ask any supplier the six questions worth asking: will the driver get the call sheet, who is my contact at four in the morning, are your chauffeurs NDA-signed, what happens to the price if we overrun by three hours, have your drivers worked this unit base, and what is the contingency if a vehicle fails on the morning.
We are happy to be asked all six. Our production transport page sets out how we work, or call the office directly on 0161 327 4199.
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