Cameras, computers and screens. If you want to film your production properly, run video playback from a machine that will not interrupt the show, or put a picture where the audience can actually see it, this page is for you.
What we hire is what we use. The Sony A7S III package that films a school musical is the same kit we take on corporate jobs, and the Macs that run playback are prepped the same way for a conference as for a pantomime. Prices are per day. Tell us what you are trying to end up with — an archive recording, an aftermovie, a screen the back row can read — and we will tell you what it needs.
Theatre is close to the worst case for a camera. The stage is bright, the surroundings are black, faces move through pools of light, and the light itself is often coloured. Phones and camcorders respond by brightening everything, so blacks turn grey and noisy and the lighting design disappears. The camera we hire for this job, the Sony A7S III, is a full-frame camera built for video and known above all for low light. It holds clean, natural faces at light levels that defeat smaller sensors, keeps blackouts actually black, and records 4K through a whole act without a time limit. If a dance number deserves slow motion, it will shoot at up to 120 frames a second.
The filming package at £145 a day is the practical way to take it: the body, a wide f/2.8 zoom that covers the stage from the back of a hall, a proper tripod, batteries, memory cards and an audio recorder, all in one case. A 55mm prime is there for tighter, shallower shots, and a gimbal turns the same camera into a moving one for aftermovies and behind-the-scenes work.
Sound is half the film
The quickest way to spot an amateur recording of a show is to close your eyes. Picture from the back of a hall can be surprisingly good; sound from the back of a hall is echo, chair creaks and coughing, because the camera microphone hears the room, not the stage.
If your show is mixed through a sound desk, the fix is simple: take a recording feed from the desk. The desk already carries every radio mic and instrument, clean and balanced. Record that alongside the camera — the audio recorder in our filming package exists for exactly this — and line the two up in the edit, which modern software does automatically from the waveforms. One refinement: a desk feed contains no applause and no laughter, so keep the camera's own track and mix a little of the room back in underneath.
If there is no desk — a straight play with no reinforcement — get a recorder close to the stage instead. Distance is the enemy, and halving it does more for the sound than any setting on the camera.
Playback machines that behave on show night
Video in a live show should not run from somebody's personal laptop. Personal machines sleep, update themselves and pop up notifications, and they do it at the worst possible moment, on the biggest screen in the room. A hired playback machine is a clean build with nothing on it that can interrupt.
We hire Apple machines for this: Mac Minis from £20 a day for fixed operating positions, and a MacBook Air where the operator needs screen and keyboard in one. For cue-based shows we can add a QLab video licence, so video sits in the same cue list as sound and steps through on a single key press, which is how theatres actually run it. Add a monitor for the operator and the machine can live wherever the cabling is happiest.
Two habits make playback boring, which is the aim. Bring your content on a drive and load it at the technical rehearsal, not on the night. And play every file through to the end once — the frame that stops a machine is never the first one.
Screens people can actually see
For events in lit rooms, a bright TV on a stand beats projection almost every time. Projectors need darkness; a 49-inch TV holds a solid, colourful picture with the house lights up, which is why it suits foyers, conference sessions, sponsor loops and camera relays. Smaller monitors do the quieter jobs: a screen at the operating position, a feed of the conductor to backstage, a running order on the prompt desk.
The part people underestimate is distance. HDMI is a short-range connection, happy across a desk and unreliable across a room. For longer runs we send the signal over network cable with extenders at each end, which keeps the picture stable over distances no ordinary HDMI lead will manage. Tell us where the source sits and where the screens go, and we will supply the run, not just the boxes.
And to be straightforward about the gap: we do not hire projectors yet. That part of the catalogue is coming. If your event needs projection now, ask anyway — we would rather tell you straight than sell you the wrong screen.
What to bring, what to hire, and how it arrives
Bring the things that carry your work: the show file for playback, and a hard drive with a few hundred gigabytes free if you are filming, because the footage stays with you and the memory cards come back to us. Everything else — batteries, chargers, cards, cables, stands, adapters — is our job, and it is checked and packed before it leaves.
Hire for the dates you actually need. A filmed production usually wants the camera kit from the dress rehearsal, not just show night; the dress is your chance to learn the light and check the desk feed while mistakes are still free. Playback machines want to be at the technical rehearsal for the same reason.
We deliver, set up and collect across Coventry, the Midlands and South Yorkshire, and everything on this page is available dry hire or with a technician. For filming, a technician means an operator who has shot in theatres before and knows when a blackout is meant to be one. If you are not sure what the job needs, describe the show and we will spec it with you.
Hire rates
Item
Rate
Sony A7S III & Filming Kit (from)
£18 / day
Macs, Monitors & Displays (from)
£1 / day
Projectors & Mounts (from)
£5 / day
Rates are per day and exclude VAT. Ask us about multi-day and show-week rates, delivery, and hiring with a technician.
Common questions
Usually, yes. If the show is a licensed musical or a published play, the performance licence almost never includes the right to record it, even for a school archive. Rights holders sell video permission separately, and for school and amateur productions it is normally quick and inexpensive to add. Check with whoever issued your performance licence before the get-in, and be clear about what you intend to do with the film, because an archive copy, copies for parents and streaming are often licensed differently. Filming your own devised or original work needs no one's permission but your cast's.
Yes. Hire the kit on its own if you have a confident camera operator, or book one of ours with it, and the footage is yours either way. Tell us what you want to end up with: a single-camera archive recording is a different job from an aftermovie with moving shots and an edit. Describe the result and we will say honestly what it needs and what it costs.
No. The cards are part of the hire and are securely wiped between customers, which is also your guarantee that nobody else's footage arrives on them. Copy everything to your own drive before the kit comes back. A full show in 4K is big, so budget a few hundred gigabytes of free space, and copy the cards the same night while the hire is still with you rather than on return day.
They arrive as clean machines, and a QLab 5 video licence can be added to the hire for cue-based shows. Usefully, QLab is free to download and edit with, so your operator can build the whole cue list at home, bring the workspace on a drive, and let the hired licence unlock the show features on the night. Simpler jobs, like a looping foyer video or a conference deck, often need no licence at all.
