About · Who runs the floor
A gym that keeps climbing is a better set than one built to look like it.
Brooklyn Boulders Studio is the location and production desk of a working bouldering and climbing gym at 575 Degraw St, Brooklyn, NY 11217. The site at brooklynboulders.us is run by Brooklynboulders. We rent the floor to photographers, film crews, athletes and event organizers who need a sports photography location in Brooklyn that is the real thing.
The chalk on the holds is real. So is everything that comes with it.
A built set is clean in the wrong places. The holds are new plastic with no rubber on them, the mats have never been fallen on, and the climber in frame is doing moves a designer imagined. Anyone who climbs sees it in half a second. So does the audience that buys the shoes.
Here the routes are set by working route setters to a schedule, for members who come to climb them. The wear is honest. The grades are honest. When a climber in your frame falls off a crimp, it is a crimp that has been fallen off a few hundred times that month.
That comes at a price, and we say so. You share the building with a gym. Routes change on the setters' timetable, not yours. There is noise, there is chalk in the air, and some things you could do on a stage you cannot do here. If you need total control of every surface, hire a studio and build it. If you need the frame to be believed, book the floor.
The overhang is steep enough that a climber on it reads as horizontal on a 35mm. Plan the frame around that.Floor desk, to most first-time crews
Location hire and events inside the gym. That is the whole business.
Everything is booked by inquiry. There is no shop, no checkout and no online payment. Every figure about money is quoted per booking after the recce or a call.
Stills location hire
Sportswear lookbooks, editorial, catalogue work in use. Half-day or full-day block, one wall kept clear of climbers for the booking.
Film and video
Commercials, branded content, music video, documentary. Full-day block with load-in and strike counted, quoted by crew size and power draw.
Athlete portraits
Climbers and athletes from other sports on real walls. A floor spotter is included in every session.
Events and reportage
Competitions, launches and team nights run by our floor staff, with optional coverage quoted by hours on the floor.
Before booking, most crews take a recce. How that works, and the hour-by-hour of a shoot day, is on Plan a shoot
Four refusals, and the reason for each.
None of these are about being difficult. Each one comes from a day that went wrong, somewhere, for someone.
- No climbing on camera without our spotter. Every lead or high move is spotted or roped by studio floor staff. That is not negotiable and it will not slow you down much. A spotter who knows the mats is faster than a production medic.
- No route resets on less than a week's notice. Setters work to a schedule for members. If you need a specific colour of hold in frame, tell us a week out, or shoot the walls as they stand.
- No haze, pyro or open flame near the walls. Haze settles on holds and mixes with chalk into a paste nobody can grip. Flame near foam mats is not a conversation.
- No binding price before a recce or a call. A quote written blind is wrong in one direction or the other. We would rather be slow by a day than wrong by a lot.
Who you deal with, from the first email to the walk-out.
Bookings desk
Answers the inquiry
Reads the shot list, checks the date against the setting schedule and member traffic, arranges the recce and sends the quote in writing.
Floor manager
Runs the day
Opens up, gives the safety brief, marks where carts park and where the video village sits. Walks the mats with your producer at strike.
Floor spotter
Stands under the climber
Present for every move above head height, on every booking. Calls a stop when talent is fading. Nobody overrides that call.
Route setters
Own the holds
Set the problems to their own timetable. Only setters touch hold bolts, and they are the people to ask which hold will take a prop without it sliding.
A human reads every message.
Email reaches the bookings desk at [email protected]. The phone is (215) 479-5335, answered on the floor during gym opening hours; if nobody picks up, someone is under a climber, so leave a message or send the email. Written inquiries usually get a reply the next working day, and it usually carries questions before any number.
Operator: Brooklynboulders, trading as Brooklyn Boulders Studio at brooklynboulders.us.
Brooklyn, NY 11217
United States (215) 479-5335 [email protected] Full inquiry form
Send us the shot list and the date. We answer with what the wall can do.
Not a rate card. A reply from the people who will be on the floor with you.