Have you ever watched a movie or TV show and wondered about the automobiles you see in street scenes? Those parked cars and the ones moving along streets and highways just didn’t happen to be there when the cameras were rolling. They were hired as movie prop cars and each one of them earned their owner in the neighborhood of $300 for a day’s work.
My father, my brother and I have had cars in movies, and you can too.
In some instances the vehicles are owned by the film production company, others are rented from a handful of rental sources that provide cars for films. But the vast majority of movie prop cars are owned by people just like you and me.
The fees paid to individuals whose cars are used on camera depends on the value and rarity of the car and how it will be used in a film. For instance, though $250-$300 is the going rate, a Mercedes Smart Car can rent for $500 a day since it’s a relatively rare car not easy to find. Some expensive high performance cars will bring upwards of $900, or more, per day. But such studio calls for ‘exotic’ cars are few and far between, Eight out of 10 rental calls are for average looking cars, not exotic or classics.
‘Daily driver’ rental opportunities happen more frequently for movies or TV shows set in the present. You would usually be hard pressed to find any car more than five years old on current TV shows.
For ‘period’ pieces set in any decade in which vintage vehicles, from the early ‘horseless carriages’ to Muscle Cars are needed as props, the rental calls are less frequent, as fewer flicks of this type are made. But it happens.
One opportunity that immediately comes to mind and is the exception to the rule is the TV show Cold Case. Both daily drivers and classic cars can turn up any week. Though set in the present, the show’s weekly plots depend upon flashbacks, often ten years or more, to portray the original crime. The ‘flashback’ scene cars most often used are almost always of the specific year of the crime or a year or two earlier at most. This current season they aired two different shows in which classics from the 1930s were in one, and more recent classics from the 1950s were in the other.
So, what the deal? How do you get in on the action? First you need to locate, and register, your car with as many of the approximately 30 movie prop car agencies and brokers as you can. They are all known to the studios, and these are the people who get the ‘car casting calls.
A simple online search will turn up at least a handful in your area. Some of these are large, full time operations with hundreds of vehicles they own in inventory. Ownership often includes different year models of police cars, taxi cabs, ambulances, ice cream trucks, fire engines, and such, as well as some typical Chevys, Fords, station wagons, etc., from different years.
Other operators are part-time or independents who know the ropes and have assembled other car owners to present studios with several choices. In either case the broker collects a fee from the studio, and the car owner gets the typical fees mentioned in this story.
For a traffic jam scene in the Tom Cruise movie ‘War of The Worlds,‘ a few thousand vehicles were needed to fill streets and highway scenes shot in Staten Island, NY. Consequently, the money paid per vehicle was lower. Nearly every car in that shot was privately owned locally, including a few by people who were just in the right place at the right time when the call went out for cars. Most never thought their car would be in a movie. The happy owners of recently minted Toyotas, Hondas, Chevy’s and Fords, etc., all less than ten years old, got $75 and a lot of memories for their effort.
After seeing their car in take after take of the same shot, and eventually seeing the finished product, car owners often come away from the experience with great stories to tell, and some pocket money to boot.
Two years ago my 1956 Continental Mark II was hired by New York-based PictureCars, Inc. for one day’s work on the set of “Infamous”, the Truman Capote biography that shot some circa 1960 street scenes in Brooklyn earlier last year. The $300 I earned more than covered the cost of my annual classic car insurance with Hagerty. And my car was parked, not driven, the whole time.
So, if you think you’d get a kick out of hanging around behind the scenes of a movie set all day, perhaps chatting with some of the actors, catching a sandwich, donut, or coffee at ‘Cecil B. De Meals’ with Sandra Bullock (as I did) or some other mobile food vendor who specializes in feeding film casts and crews on location, then read on! And a bit further down we’ll tell you who, and how, to contact a movie prop car broker.
If a car is driven in a scene the rate is often higher, and sometimes the owner actually gets to do the driving. If the car is driven by one of the featured actors, the paycheck to the owner can be higher still, and the car might be booked for two or more days. Though there are no set industry wide rates, most prop car brokers typically offer private owners similar fees.
There is no right or wrong way to choose an agency, and big is not necessarily better. As I’ve said, the best advice is list your vehicle with as many agencies (it’s free) as you can, since some studios may prefer to work with certain or only a few brokers.
A good place to start searching for movie prop car agencies is on the Internet. Depending on your search engine, keystroke in various word combinations and parts such as: movie car rentals; prop car vehicles; movie car agencies; (or) brokers; TV and film cars, etc. Of the 30 or so agencies I have my cars listed with, perhaps five are full-time operations.
Also important: don’t forget to visit the website of your state’s (and neighboring state’s) film commissions. All large states generally have movie prop car agency listings. If you can’t find it immediately, a good place to look is the state’s department of commerce.
Okay, now that you’ve just had a quickie course in ‘Movie Prop Cars #101’ here are a few for starters from my own area, but be advised, this is only a representative sampling. With little effort, you will discover several more yourself:
PictureCars, Inc., Brooklyn, New York, has provided its own and privately owned vehicles for more than 1400 movies, TV shows, magazine photo shoots, advertisements and commercials, mainly in the tri-state area, since 1974. President and founder Gino Lucci says PictureCars owns 300 cars and has thousands of privately owned vehicles (like yours) in their database. Reach them at (718) 852-2300 or visit their website: PictureCars.net.
Gino’s brother, Ralph Lucci, does business as Automobile Film Club, based in Staten Island, New York, and has approximately 150 vehicles on site and thousands more from the early 1900’s to the present, any make, model or color listed in their database. Reach them at (718) 447-2255, fax (718) 447-2289 or on the Internet at: www.Autofilmclub.com.
Ken Maletsky, of AutoProps-Waterworks in Wallington, New Jersey, provides a myriad assortment of vehicles and services for film industry, video productions, and still photographers. Besides the vehicles they own, AutoProps has a database of privately owned vehicles. His advice to vehicle owners: “Be prepared to have good resolution photos (scanned at 300dpi .jpegs) of exterior and interior and certainly include at least one exterior with your query. Be specific regarding the year, make and model. Is your vehicle stock, original or restored? Will you permit it to be driven by others on the set? Include your location and the distance you are willing to drive or flatbed your car for rental purposes. Phone: (908) 232-6701. Website: www.autoprops-waterworks.com.
A newer entry in the small industry of companies offering prop movie cars is Code One, based in Raritan, New Jersey. Their website, still under construction, is CodeOneAuto.com. When finished the site will offer a behind the scenes look at the creation of TV and movie “Star Cars” of the late ’70s, ’80s, ’90s to current; vehicles in various stages from design, production, completion, display, and in some cases destruction. A “Moviecar Locator” link is intended to locate obscure movie vehicles you haven’t seen in a long time. Plus they are offering tips and amusing stories from owners of movie cars and movie replicars. Interestingly, they offer private owners the chance to drive a movie or TV car, or buy one.
All of the prop car rental agencies interviewed for this story agree that anyone interested in listing their car should keep in mind that the vehicle’s originality is paramount. Not so much in the engine compartment, but certainly in the exterior and only to a slightly lesser degree the interior, unless a project needs to shoot inside the car. Rims, wheels, wheel covers, license plates and any add-ons (spot lights, headlamp brows, fender skirts and continental kits) should be strictly vintage or else the car will run a risk of exclusion by a ‘Continuity Editor’.
Rule of thumb is that only the most authentic vehicles win approval for inclusion. This would also apply to owners of, say, some 1930’s cars which have been modified to have something on the order of a 350 block dropped into the engine bay. Starting up and driving a car from this era with the sound of a contemporary engine will not be looked upon favorably in a scene where the engine whine will be a factor. ”
FilmCars generally provides vehicles for productions in the New York tri-state area. Besides their own cars, they welcome privately owned cars for their available inventory. They’ve arranged for vehicles to travel nationwide as well as to Canada. In such a relatively small industry it is not uncommon for one agency to contract a TV or film deal and then hire some competitor colleagues for specific car needs. Despite their own large inventory, Picture Cars has supplied cars from FilmCars for dozens of feature films including: Batman Forever; The Talented Mr. Ripley; Mona Lisa Smile; Carlito’s Way; Private Parts; Last Days Of Disco; Down With Love and Almost Famous. Phone is: 718-748-6707 and the website: www.FilmCars.com
Obviously, a lot of movie and TV work is done in California, New York, Las Vegas, and Miami. But many movies are shot at remote locations. The Dukes of Hazzard was filmed in Louisiana, the TV series Cold Case shoots in Pennsylvania and nearly all shows or movies often include locations and scenes outside the film and TV centers, so it makes sense to list your car no matter where you are from.
But filmmakers do not depend strictly on individual private vehicle owners for their needs. Often, the first contact studios make is to one of the specialized movie prop car companies which have hundreds of vehicles in their inventories.
One such is Cinema Vehicle Service (CVS), of North Hollywood, California, providing vehicles for a quarter of a century. With more than 800 vehicles of all types, they are indisputably the oldest and largest movie prop car company in the country. Besides typical street cars from various decades, if a scene needs a police car, fire engine, taxi cab, ambulance, back ho, or some other vehicle, chances are the studio will peruse the CVS inventory first. Though all the Torinos seen in Starsky & Hutch came from CVS, all other cars were privately owned. CVS built or provided most of the vehicles in Universal’s Fast And Furious as well as The Italian Job; Austin Powers; Terminator 3; and Herbie Fully Loaded.
Good luck, perhaps we’ll see each other on some movie set someday.
