Coming soon · Not yet available
shootpod is being rebuilt to leave the pavement.
A studio that drives to the location — and stays.
The original shootpod was a high-top grip van: shelving, 2,400 watts, a charging bench, and onboard WiFi. It retired in June. Its replacement is being designed as a four-wheel-drive, off-road camper van kitted out as a self-contained photo and video studio — power, gear, a review bench, and a place to sleep. It's in development: not bookable, not priced, and being designed in the open.
Coming soonshootpod is a project in development. It is not available to book or rent, no rate has been set, and there is no date yet. The image above is a concept, not a photograph of a finished vehicle.
Why we're building it
Denver is a trailhead.
Some of the best locations within a day's drive of the studio have no power, no shelter, and no signal. The current answer is a truckload of cases, a rented generator, and a hotel in the nearest town. shootpod is the other answer: drive the studio to the location, and stay.
Power runs out
Batteries, laptops, and continuous light all want a wall. A rented generator is loud, thirsty, and lives in the audio track.
The day is a commute
Two golden hours in the same place means a hotel forty minutes out and a drive in the dark on both ends of it.
Nothing is on hand
The modifier you didn't pack is four hours away. So is the card reader, the shade, and anywhere to sit with a client.
The first one
shootpod already existed. It just couldn't go far enough.
For years the shootpod was a pre-packed high-top van that showed up at a location with the gear and the electricity already solved. It earned its keep, and everything it was good at is the starting point for the next one — not the finish line.
A pre-packed high-top
Custom shelving, cases where they belong, and a van you could work out of instead of dig through.
2,400 watts on board
Distributed into multiple outlets and USB, so the location had power the moment the van arrived.
A charging station for every mount
One built-in bench that kept Canon, Nikon, Fuji, RED, Phase One, Hasselblad, and GoPro batteries topped off.
Onboard WiFi
A working network at the location, back when that was the hard part.
It stayed on pavement
A loaded high-top two-wheel-drive van turns around at the first washboard grade. Half the locations worth driving to are past that point.
You couldn't stay
It hauled gear, not people. Two golden hours in the same place still meant a hotel in the nearest town and a drive in the dark on both ends.
The new rig
Eight systems, one vehicle.
Every one of these is on the build list because a remote shoot day currently fails on it. None of them exist in metal yet — this is the spec being designed against, not a walkaround of a finished van.
Four-wheel drive, real clearance
A 4×4 drivetrain on all-terrain tires with the clearance to finish a forest road. The point is arriving at the location, not near it.
Off-grid power
A house battery bank charged by solar and by the engine — enough to run lights, chargers, and a workstation across a shoot day. No generator idling through a take.
A gear garage, not a back seat
The original's custom shelving, rebuilt for washboard: bodies, glass, and strobes locked, padded, tied down, and loadable without unpacking the van.
Tether and review bench
A real work surface with a calibrated monitor, so a client approves the frame on site instead of squinting at a phone in the sun.
Redundant data offload
Cards come off to two copies before anything gets formatted. The drive that dies on the way home should be the one that no longer matters.
Connectivity where there are no bars
Satellite alongside cellular — the onboard WiFi idea, taken to the places that actually needed it.
Built to stay
Sleep, heat, water, and a galley for a crew that isn't driving back. Two golden hours in the same place, without the two-hour drive between them.
Base camp for the rest of the crew
Awning, exterior power, and exterior light — the van becomes the shade, the charging station, and the holding area for everyone who came in their own car.
What rides in it
A rental house with a drivetrain.
photospace already runs a full gear-rental catalog out of the studio. The plan is for the pod to carry a working subset of it permanently — the pieces that make a location shoot self-sufficient — with anything else pulled from the shelf per job.
Cameras & lenses
A working body-and-glass set pulled from the same catalog that goes out the door at the studio.
Battery strobes
Location flash that runs off its own packs — full output with nothing plugged into anything.
Continuous LED
Bi-color and RGB fixtures for video, and for stills after the sun quits.
Modifiers, grip & stands
Softboxes, flags, and stands weighted for wind — the modifier that flies is the one that ends the day.
Audio
Lavs, a boom, and a recorder, so an interview at 11,000 feet still sounds like an interview.
Power & charging
Distribution, spare batteries, and a charging bench that keeps every mount in the crew alive.
Where it goes
Roads that end.
The rig is being specced for the terrain a support vehicle usually turns around on. How far it travels — and what that costs — is one of the things still being worked out.
Alpine & pass country
Above treeline, on roads that close for half the year.
Desert & red rock
Long approaches, hard light, and no shade for a crew or a laptop.
Dunes & badlands
Places where a rented cargo van gets towed out and a real rig drives out.
Ranch & working land
Agricultural and industrial locations that were never wired for a film crew.
Who it's for
Built for shoots that can't come to us.
If the location is the point and the infrastructure isn't there, this is the rig being designed around your day.
Outdoor & adventure brands
Apparel, hard goods, and vehicles that need the real place in the frame — not a cyc painted to look like it.
Automotive & overland
Rigs shot where they actually get used, with a support vehicle that can follow them there.
Editorial & documentary
Multi-day subjects in one location, where staying put is the difference between coverage and a visit.
Production companies scouting remote
A self-contained unit for the days the location is right and the infrastructure is nowhere near it.
Status
Still on paper.
There's no van in the lot. There's a build list, a set of shoots that keep running into the same three walls, and a stack of decisions that aren't made yet — which is exactly why this page is public.
Open questions
- The chassis and the build partner — still being specced.
- Whether it ever goes out bare, or only with a crew.
- How it prices: a day rate, mileage, a crewed package, or some mix.
- Which kit lives in it permanently versus what gets pulled per job.
Nothing on this page is bookable and no rate has been set. Studio time and gear rental are available today — this isn’t. If you have a shoot on the calendar now, rent gear and we’ll get it to your location the way we do today.
Follow the build
Tell us what it has to do.
Leave your name and the shoot you'd take it out for. You'll get build updates, first word when it's real, and a say in the open questions above while they're still open.