In developmentA book and a documentaryThe Location Caterers LtdWorking title

Feed the
Camera

For half a century, one British company fed the film crews on location. Nobody has written down what that took.

A film unit gathered around a milk churn outside a catering vehicle, drinking tea from cups and saucers
Uncaptioned print · family archive Know who, where or when? Tell us

The story

Every film you have ever watched was made by people who had to eat. On a location unit that is not a detail — it is a logistical operation that moves with the shoot, sets up in a field or a desert or a car park before first light, and feeds several hundred people to a schedule that costs thousands of pounds a minute when it slips.

This is the first history of that trade, told from the dining bus rather than the director's chair. Read the story.

On this site

Keep up with it

One letter a month, when there is something worth sending.

What the research turns up: a document that changes the story, a photograph nobody had, a recipe worth cooking. No schedule for its own sake — if there is nothing, nothing gets sent.

Unsubscribe whenever. The list is not shared or sold.