Film location rental · Brooklyn, NY
Shoot your commercial on a working climbing wall, with a spotter already on the mats.
A bouldering gym film location in NYC for commercials, branded content, music video and documentary. Real routes, real chalk, a steel-truss ceiling you can light from, and a floor team who has watched crews lose half a day to the wrong wall.
Full-day block with load-in and strike counted, quoted by crew size and power draw.
Quoted per booking after the recce or a call. No rate card, and nothing binding until it is in writing.
Rent a climbing gym for a commercial shoot and get the floor team with it.
The booking is the walls, the mats, the ceiling and the people who run them. You bring the crew, the camera package and the talent. We bring the spotter and a clear read of where the light falls on each wall at each hour.
- Block
- Full day. Load-in and strike sit inside the block, not on top of it, so plan your call time around them.
- Walls
- Choose from the bouldering walls, the steep overhang and the tall rope wall. See the wall-by-wall notes for light direction and how each reads on a long lens.
- Floor staff
- A floor spotter on every move above head height, included. Rope work goes on a belay run by our staff.
- Video village
- Off the mats, on the level floor, with a clear line to the wall you are shooting.
- Drones
- Indoors only, under the ceiling trusses, with a named pilot on the call sheet.
- Not allowed
- Haze, pyro and open flame anywhere near the walls. Route re-sets on less than a week's notice.
What a film crew needs to know before the truck leaves.
Most of the trouble on a gym shoot is logistics, not creative. A 20-person crew on soft mats behaves differently from the same crew on a studio floor. Stands walk. Carts sink. A gaffer who has never lit a wall with a 45-degree overhang will spend the first hour chasing a shadow that the overhang makes on purpose.
- PowerSend your lighting plan and total draw with the inquiry. We tell you what house power carries and where the circuits sit along the wall. If your package outgrows it, a generator stays outside and cable comes in along the walkway edge.
- Cable runsTaped along the mat edges and across the walkway under rubber cable mats. Nothing runs across a landing zone. A climber who falls onto a cable ramp gets hurt.
- SoundGym music goes off for the booking. Ventilation noise is the one thing that stays, so plan room tone early and record it. Mats swallow footsteps, which your mixer will like.
- Stands on matsBring sandbags. The mats are soft and a C-stand on them walks. Heavy stands go on the level floor or on boards you bring.
- RiggingNothing hangs from holds, volumes or wall bolts. Ever. Overhead rigging from the trusses is discussed at the recce with your key grip, and anything we are not sure about stays on the ground.
- HazeNo haze machines. The chalk already hangs in the air under the lamps, and it reads on camera better than anything you can rent.
Drones fly under the trusses, with a named pilot, and nobody on the wall below.
Indoor FPV gets the best move in the room: the camera dropping off the top of the overhang with the climber. It also puts a spinning prop three feet from a person holding on with three fingers. So the rules are fixed.
- The pilot is named on the call sheet before the day and is the only person flying.
- Indoors only, under the ceiling trusses. No flights between the trusses and the roof.
- Prop guards on. No flight path crosses a climber who is above head height.
- The floor spotter can stop a take at any point. The pilot lands and nobody argues about it.
- Video village stays off the mats. Monitors, carts and chairs sit on the walkway, where nobody lands on them.
The routes were set by working setters, not an art department.
A built set looks like a built set. The holds are too clean and match the brand deck. Every climber who watches the spot knows it in two seconds. On the floor at 575 Degraw St the routes are real problems set to a schedule, the holds carry months of rubber and chalk, and the mats have the scuffs to match.
That has a cost. Routes get reset on a schedule, so if you need a specific color of hold in frame, tell us a week out. Less than a week and you shoot what is on the wall. We will not pull a setter off their rotation for a two-hour insert.
The overhang is steep enough that a climber on it reads as horizontal on a 35mm. Plan the frame around that. For a commercial that needs the product on a foot or a hand, the tall rope wall gives you vertical height and a steady climber on a belay, which is easier to repeat twenty times than a boulder problem. Stills crews working the same walls have their own rules on the photo shoot page.
We spot every move above head height. That is not negotiable and it will not slow you down much.
How a film booking runs.
The common failure: a shot list written for a studio cyc, and a key light that ends up facing the one wall you cannot use. The steps below exist to catch that before the shoot day.
- Day 1Send the brief
Date, crew size, camera and lighting package, total power draw, whether talent climbs and how high. Treatment or board if you have one.
- ReplyWe answer with the wall
Which wall suits the frames, what the setters' schedule does to your date, and anything on your list we will not host. No rate card, a straight read.
- RecceWalk the floor
Your DP, gaffer and key grip walk the floor with us. Power, cable routes, rigging points and the village spot get agreed here. Arranged by email on the plan page.
- QuoteWritten quote
Priced by crew size and power draw, with load-in and strike inside the day. Confirmed in writing under the booking terms.
- Load-inCarts on the walkway
Carts roll on the level floor, cable mats go down, sandbags go on every stand that touches a mat. The spotter briefs talent before the first take.
- WrapStrike and brush
Gear out, tape up, and we brush the holds you chalked. The floor goes back to climbers the same evening.
Straight answers before you book the floor.
Can our talent climb without your spotter if they are a pro?
No. Pro or first-timer, every move above head height is spotted or roped by our staff. A pro gets tired on take fourteen like anyone else, and that is when the fall happens.
Is the gym closed to members while we shoot?
That depends on the booking and is settled in the quote. A crew that needs the whole floor quiet gets a different quote from a crew that needs one wall and a clear walkway.
Can we bring haze or a smoke machine for the look?
No haze, no pyro, no open flame near the walls. Backlit chalk dust gives you the same texture, and your gaffer can get it with a climber chalking up in front of a lamp.
Chalk and our camera package?
Chalk gets everywhere. Cover your lens changes and keep cases shut on the floor. Do not put a black backdrop down anywhere near the mats.
Who is this not a fit for?
A production that needs to repaint walls, rebuild holds in brand colors or hang anything from the wall itself. A built set in a stage will serve you better, and we will say so on the first call.
Can you give me a price today?
Not a binding one. The day is quoted per booking after the recce or a call, by crew size and power draw. Send the brief and the answer comes back with what the wall can do first.
Shooting people rather than a story? Athlete sessions run on a smaller footprint on the portrait page. Filming a competition or launch instead of staging one? See events and reportage.
Send the shot list and the date. We answer with what the wall can do.
Include crew size and total power draw and the first reply comes with a real read on the day.