THE SURVIVAL GUIDE · READ ON THE PLANE
LAND. SHOOT.
DON'T COMBUST.
You're a hardened UK crew. You've done night shoots in Grimsby in January. Nothing scares you. Except — and we say this with love — the Costa del Sol will absolutely have you if you treat it like Salford with palm trees. Here's everything we tell every crew before they land, free, because we're tired of applying aftersun to grown adults.
RULE ONE THROUGH SIX ✅
✨ THE COMMANDMENTS. OBEY OR PEEL.
COMMANDMENT I
🎥 Factor 50 is a crew position
The sound recordist who "doesn't really burn" will, by day two, be doing his job the colour of chorizo. Sun cream goes on at breakfast, again at lunch, and nobody gets to be brave about it. We've watched this movie. We know the ending. The ending is aloe vera.
COMMANDMENT II
✨ Lunch is at 2. Dinner is at 9. Fight it and lose.
Turn up to a restaurant at 6pm and you'll dine alone like a beautiful, confused ghost. Eat when Spain eats and suddenly every meal is spectacular, cheap and two hours long. We build the schedule around it. The schedule has never tasted better.
COMMANDMENT III
✨ Respect the siesta or film pigeons
Between 2 and 5 the streets empty, the shops shut and the light goes flat and horrible anyway. It's not laziness, it's genius, and it's when we do rushes, moves and naps of our own. The town wakes at 5 looking gorgeous. So will you.
COMMANDMENT IV
✨ Cash, small notes, always
The best locations on this coast — the chiringuito, the campo bar, the man with the perfect vintage SEAT — run on cash and goodwill. We handle the goodwill. Bring the cash. Card machines have a mysterious habit of being "broken" precisely when the bill is small.
COMMANDMENT V
✨ Learn five words, unlock the coast
Hola, gracias, por favor, cerveza, and "Roman said it's fine." The first four are courtesy. The fifth opens doors that money can't. Full vocabulary available in The Ballsy Dictionary, which you should read before the town hall reads you.
COMMANDMENT VI
🎥 The kit list nobody sends you
Hat. Decent sunglasses. Comfortable shoes that aren't flip-flops (you'll be on cobbles, marble and one suspicious boat). A jumper, because winter evenings bite and nobody believes us until they're shivering outside a tapas bar in December looking betrayed.
ADVANCED MODULE 🎓
✨ HOW TO PASS AS A LOCAL.
✨ Order coffee like you mean it
"Café con leche" before noon. "Cortado" after. Ask for a flat white in the campo and the whole bar will simply look at you until you stop.
✨ The roundabouts are a group improvisation
Lane discipline is more of a mood than a rule. Let us drive. It's included, it's safer, and our blood pressure is already ruined so yours doesn't have to be.
✨ One beer at lunch is cultural. Four is a wrap party.
Spain does the long lunch beautifully. We do the "back on set at 4 sharp" less beautifully but very effectively. Both things can be true. The show comes first, the third caña comes at wrap.
OR JUST SKIP THE HOMEWORK
✨ HIRE THE PEOPLE 🍑 WHO WROTE THE GUIDE.
Everything above is handled automatically the moment we're on your call sheet — the schedule, the driving, the cash, the town hall, the aloe vera. You just make the telly.
ADOPT US FOR YOUR SHOOT