We sell containers. We do not rent.
Van Blanc sells shipping containers outright. We do not rent, we do not lease, and we do not offer rent-to-own. Renting comes up on this page because buyers compare it against owning, and that comparison is worth reading, but purchase is the only arrangement we offer. Stocked units deliver from our Brantford yards in 1 to 3 days. Request a sale quote or call the yard at 519-754-6844.
Quick Answer: Ontario film production on public property typically requires permits from Ontario Creates and local municipal film offices. An on-location shipping container rented rather than bought outright with a welded lock-box, cellular cameras, and a 100-amp panel in Ontario is the working setup in 2026. Most production rentals last two to twelve weeks. Van Blanc delivers a 20-foot or 40-foot unit to Toronto soundstages, rural farms, and downtown street closures from our Brantford yard in 1 to 3 days. Honest delivered pricing, confirmed before payment, get a real quote from Paul or Christian. Van Blanc has shipped containers across Ontario since 1995. Honest 4.9-star service, 1-3 day delivery from 4 Brantford yards.
The wedding-and-festival economy runs the same physics on a different calendar, covered in the event company depot guide.
In This Guide
- Why do Ontario film productions store equipment in shipping containers?
- What size container fits a grip, lighting, and camera package?
- How do you store costume, props, and craft service separately?
- How do you stop overnight theft of a high-value kit?
- Should you rent or buy a container for a multi-week shoot?
- How does on-location delivery work on a farm, downtown, or soundstage?
- How do you power charging stations inside a production container?
- What drives the cost of a production container?
- FAQs (10 real questions)
Reading Time: 13 minutes
Why do Ontario film productions store equipment in shipping containers?
Ontario film productions store equipment in shipping containers because a 20-foot or 40-foot steel box lands on location, locks hard overnight, and shrugs off a cold November shooting day. One welded unit replaces a leaky equipment tent or a soft-side lock-up trailer, and it travels from a Caledon farm to a downtown street closure with no rebuild.
Ontario filmed billions of dollars in production volume in 2023, and the Toronto and Hamilton soundstage corridor accounts for the lion’s share. The region added more than 1.4 million square feet of new stage capacity between 2020 and 2025, and Cinelease alone opened a 37,000 square foot lighting and grip warehouse west of Pearson Airport in September 2022. The result is a working week where dozens of features, episodic series, commercials, and streaming productions are simultaneously on location somewhere between Niagara and Durham.
Every one of those productions needs storage. Not warehouse storage. Storage that lands on location for the duration of the shoot, locks securely overnight, survives a cold-rain shooting day in November, and can be unhitched on a downtown street closure or a Caledon farm field with equal ease. The lock-up trailer that worked in 1985 is not it. The Pelican cases stacked in a wet equipment tent is not it either. A 20-foot or 40-foot shipping container is the format the industry actually uses.
Christian, Paul’s son and second-generation operator at Van Blanc, sees the pattern weekly. “The phone call usually comes from a production coordinator on a Thursday. They are starting principal photography on Monday in a town we have never delivered to before. They need two units on the ground by Sunday afternoon, hard-locked, with a power feed for the camera batteries. We ship Friday or Saturday from our Brantford yard. By Monday morning the locks are on and the grip truck is unloading into them.”
What ISO 6346 tells production buyers
ISO 6346:2022 sets the dimensional standard every shipping container exits the manufacturer to. A 20-foot dry van gives you 5.90 m of interior length, 2.35 m of interior width, and 2.39 m of interior height. A 40-foot high cube gives you 12.03 m of interior length and 2.69 m of interior height. The high cube extra foot is what lets a Combo stand, a 1.2 kW HMI head in its road case, and a stinger reel sit upright in the same row. For production storage, specify high cube unless the location access forces a standard.
What size container fits a grip, lighting, and camera package?
The three biggest equipment categories on any Ontario production each have different storage demands, and a smart on-location plan separates them.
Grip. A working grip package runs C-stands, combo stands, century stands, baby and junior gobo arms, flags and nets in every size, butterflies and overheads, sandbags, apple boxes, dance floor, speed rail, mafer clamps, cardellinis, sliders, ladders, and rolling carts. The footprint is large, the items are heavy, and the cube fills fast. A standard 40-foot high cube holds a mid-budget grip package with room to roll a cart in and out without unloading the back row, and the interior cube gap between a 20 and a 40 high cube is exactly what decides how a department lays out its load. For series with two or three grip trucks, two 40-foot HCs side by side give the key grip a working layout.
Lighting kits are the high-value category. A current generation HMI head, a SkyPanel, or a Vortex8 fixture each carries a steep replacement value. A full lighting package on a network episodic series can run to a very large replacement value. Theft of a single 1.2 kW HMI ballast ends a shoot day before lunch, because no rental house can deliver a replacement to a rural Norfolk County farm location by 11 a.m. on a Saturday. Storage for lighting deserves the heaviest security spec the production budget will tolerate.
Camera packages, with bodies from RED, Sony, ARRI, or Canon, prime sets, zooms, follow-focus motors, monitors, AKS carts, and DIT equipment, reach a very high value on a feature shoot. Most productions store camera in a separate, smaller unit, often a 20-foot dry van, because the DP and 1st AC want to control the access. Some productions specify a climate-rated reefer container for camera storage so lens packages do not survive a 32°C July day on a Niagara vineyard location and come back fogged.
Split your kit across two containers, not one
Productions that store everything in one 40-foot HC routinely lose a half-day of shooting when one item buried at the back of the container is needed first. A two-container layout, one for grip and gripping consumables, one for lighting and electrical, with the camera body separately in a 20-foot or in the camera truck, keeps the load-out under 15 minutes every morning. We have delivered both pairs to the same location more times than we can count. The premium over one 40 is not large. The time saved on every shoot day is what pays it back.
How do you store costume, props, and craft service separately?
Production storage is not only the equipment department. Costume, props, and craft service each need separate footprints, and the costume design budget on a period feature is rarely smaller than the lighting kit.
Costume storage wants climate stability above raw security. A 20-foot dry van with passive ventilation, or a 20-foot HC reefer with the refrigeration unit running on low to hold a steady 18°C and 50 percent humidity, protects period pieces, custom build wardrobe, and rented Theatrix or Malabar inventory. The wardrobe department typically wants hanging rails installed wall-to-wall, which we can pre-fit before delivery as one of the fit-outs we build into a unit before delivery.
Props storage runs different. A working props master stores everything from a vintage car steering column to a rubber-prop firearm in a foam case, with cyclical access during every prep and shoot day. Shelving and bin-storage matter more than hanging rails. A 20-foot dry van with built-in shelving and a workbench at the door doubles as the props master’s morning prep room and reduces the daily transfer to set.
Craft service, set decoration, and the SPFX department all have ad-hoc storage needs. On a long-form series, a third or fourth container handles the long-tail. On a feature with three to six weeks of principal, productions sometimes consolidate craft and SPFX into a single shared 40-foot HC, with the SPFX coordinator and craft service supervisor working out the layout in the first week.
Real Ontario locations from the Brantford yard
The Greater Toronto Area is the headline production hub but the working locations span the province. A Caledon farm field substituting for 1940s Wisconsin. A King City estate playing as upstate New York. A Hamilton steel mill as a Detroit foundry. A Niagara vineyard for a wine-country romance. A Six Nations community film for a CBC commission. A Kingston military base for a war docu-drama. We deliver to all of them inside the 1 to 3 day window. Brantford’s central position in the highway 401, 403, and QEW triangle is why the production coordinators keep coming back. We are usually closer to the location than the rental house is.
How do you stop overnight theft of a high-value kit?
A high-value lighting kit sitting overnight on a rural Ontario farm location is the security problem that defines the rest of this article. Our experience over 30 years of supplying containers to Ontario productions, construction sites, and high-value industrial storage is that no single security measure is enough. Defense-in-depth is the working framework. Layer five things and the determined thief moves to the next location. Skip one layer and the locker pick reads the gap.
Layer one: the lock-box weld. A standard shipping container locks with a CSC-grade rotary lock arm on the cam handles. A motivated thief defeats that with a battery angle grinder in under 90 seconds. The fix is a welded steel lock-box housing that covers the entire padlock body, with the padlock recessed inside so the shackle is inaccessible to a bolt cutter or grinder disc. See which lock setup actually stops a battery grinder before you spec the unit. We can pre-weld a lock-box on any container before delivery for production rentals.
Layer two: the padlock spec. Inside the lock-box, the actual padlock matters. CEN Grade 6 Sold Secure Diamond rated shackleless puck-style padlocks resist hydraulic bolt cutters and grinders far longer than a typical hardware store lock. Spend up for the puck lock rather than a cheap hardware-store one. The production saves the cost the first night a thief gives up.
Layer three: cellular cameras with motion alerts. A 4G LTE camera with night-vision and motion-triggered push alerts to the production manager’s phone runs on a low monthly cellular plan. The unit mounts inside the container facing the door, plus an exterior unit covering the lock-box. We can pre-mount cameras as a modification, or the production grip can install them on day one. The full wiring and mounting pattern is walked through in how we rig the cellular cameras on a container door.
Layer four: GPS or asset tag inside the kit. A small GPS tracker inside the most valuable case, an HMI ballast or the camera body, gives the production manager a recovery option if a unit is taken. The newer LTE-M trackers run on a multi-year coin cell and report position every few hours, at a low cost per tag. Most insurers now accept a documented GPS tag inventory as part of a film equipment policy.
Layer five: location lighting and visibility. Most stolen production equipment is taken from poorly lit overnight locations where the container is parked behind a building, in a back lot, or in a field beyond sight of the main set. A pair of dusk-to-dawn motion floods on the container exterior and changes the calculation for any opportunistic thief. Pair them with the cellular camera and the cost-benefit for the thief collapses.
Christian LeBlanc, second-generation operator at Van Blanc: “The productions that ask us about security on the first phone call usually have the budget right. The productions that ask us about security after the first weekend on location are the ones that already lost something. We can pre-weld the lock-box, supply the puck lock, and rough-mount the camera bracket before the unit leaves Brantford. By the time it arrives on set, the protection is already there.”
Should you rent or buy a container for a multi-week shoot?
For a multi-week film shoot, renting a production container almost always beats buying one, and the length of the rental window sets the per-week rate. A container that sits on location for a single shoot block rarely earns back a purchase price before the production wraps.
A typical Ontario feature shoots for 30 to 45 days of principal photography. A network episodic series shoots in blocks of 6 to 12 weeks. A streaming limited series can run 12 to 20 weeks. A commercial production can wrap in two to five shoot days but the prep window often extends two weeks before and one week after. Each of these scenarios maps to a different rental contract.
For shoots of two weeks or less, we charge daily rates with a two-week minimum, which usually works out to a flat per-week rate. Delivery and pickup are additional. The 40-foot HC sits slightly higher than the 20-foot dry van on per-week pricing because the haul is heavier.
For shoots of three to eight weeks, the per-container monthly rate drops to a lower figure, with delivery and pickup as separate line items. This is the sweet spot for most Ontario productions. The break-even versus owning a container hits at roughly 14 to 18 months of continuous use, which only the largest production companies justify.
For shoots beyond two months, productions sometimes negotiate to purchase outright with a buy-back option after wrap. A used cargo-worthy 20-foot dry van in 2026, with the lock-box pre-welded, is priced to buy outright, and a 40-foot HC runs higher. The buy-back depends on yard demand at end of shoot, but the production capitalises the cost across the production budget rather than booking it monthly. For a 16-week series, the math sometimes favours owning two and reselling one.
How does on-location delivery work on a farm, downtown, or soundstage?
The three working location types on Ontario shoots each set different delivery demands, and the production coordinator needs to know what works before booking.
Rural farm or estate location. A rural farm or estate is the straightforward container delivery. A tilt-deck truck rolls onto a field, lowers the container onto a level pad of timber dunnage or compacted gravel, releases, and pulls forward, the same tilt-deck drop we run across rural Ontario every week. Setup takes 30 minutes. Pickup is the same. The constraints are road access for the tractor, soft ground after rain, and overhead clearance for the tilt arm at 24 feet vertical. Most working farms accommodate without modification.
Downtown street closure. The complicated delivery. Working with the City of Toronto Film, Television and Digital Media Office or the Hamilton Film Office means the production has secured a permit window, typically a 12-hour overnight or weekend block. The container has to arrive inside that window, set on the road surface or a trailer, and lift off again at the end of the closure. Some productions use a single 20-foot on a flatbed staged in the closure rather than tilt-decking onto pavement, because the pavement load rating may not support a fully loaded container’s 30,000-plus pound gross weight on point contacts. We coordinate with the production transport coordinator before delivery to confirm the staging plan and the trailer-stay versus drop arrangement.
Soundstage exterior or back lot. Mid-complexity delivery. Most Toronto and Hamilton soundstages have a designated equipment-storage area outside the building, with the container set on level asphalt and locked daily. The constraint is usually overhead clearance for the tilt-deck near the building eaves, and turn radius for the tractor in the soundstage yard. Larger stages, Cinespace, Pinewood Toronto, William F. White, accommodate without thinking. Smaller independent stages sometimes ask for a flatbed-and-drop arrangement instead of tilt-deck.
How do you power charging stations inside a production container?
Modern productions run on battery power. The grip and electric department, the camera department, the sound mixer, the DIT, and the SPFX team all need charging capacity overnight inside the secured container.
For most productions, a 30-amp 240V or a 60-amp 240V panel inside the container, fed by a generator or a tied-in soundstage utility feed, handles charging. The panel runs four to eight 120V circuits for the various battery chargers: V-Mount or Gold-Mount camera batteries, walkie-talkie chargers, lighting battery bricks like the Anton Bauer DIONIC or Core SWX HELIX, plus power tool chargers for the grip department.
We handle the ESA-certified electrical install as a pre-delivery modification, part of the panel, lock-box, and rail work we finish at the yard before a unit ships. The container leaves Brantford with the panel mounted, the circuits run to weatherproof receptacles inside, and an ESA inspection sticker on the panel cover. Most productions add an outdoor twist-lock connector on the container exterior so the generator or stage feed plugs in without opening the door.
For higher-load shoots, a 100-amp 240V install supports faster charging plus a small portable HVAC unit for the camera and sound storage. It carries a premium over a 30-amp install and includes a sub-panel inside the container, breaker protection, and ESA inspection. The camera and DIT departments will tell you whether the production justifies it.
Match the generator phase to the panel
A 30 kW or 60 kW production tow-plant generator usually runs three-phase 240V. A container panel wired for single-phase 240V does not natively accept three-phase without a transformer or a phase-converter. The electrical contractor will know, but the production transport coordinator who orders the generator and the container in separate calls sometimes does not. We have rolled to a location to find the generator phase does not match the panel and the production had to swap the generator overnight. Confirm the phase before the truck rolls.
What drives the cost of a production container?
The cost of a production container is driven by a short list of factors, not a single sticker number. Container size and grade, the security build, the electrical panel rating, and the delivery distance from our Brantford yard each move the figure. Van Blanc sells rather than rents, so a production buys the box and resells it at wrap, or a production company that shoots year after year takes it on commercial rent-to-own through our financing partner. Here is how the common production configurations stack up against each other, so you can read your own quote before you call.
| Configuration | Best department fit | Security build | Power | Climate control |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20-foot dry van, basic lock | Props, craft service, set dec overflow | Standard cam-lock arms | None | Passive vent |
| 20-foot dry van + welded lock-box + puck lock | Camera bodies, lenses, DIT | Welded lock-box, Sold Secure puck | Optional 30-amp | Passive vent |
| 40-foot HC dry van, basic lock | Grip package, stands, dolly track | Standard cam-lock arms | None | Passive vent |
| 40-foot HC + lock-box + puck + 100A panel | Lighting and electrical, charging hub | Welded lock-box, puck, camera-ready | 100-amp 240V, ESA | Optional portable HVAC |
| 20-foot HC reefer | Period costume, heat-sensitive camera | Welded lock-box, puck | Reefer unit feed | Active, 18°C target |
Delivery from our Brantford yard to a Toronto, Hamilton, or Niagara location is quoted round trip for a single 40-foot HC, depending on distance, route, and whether the production wants a stay-on-trailer or drop arrangement. Cottage country and Eastern Ontario locations run higher. Northern Ontario is quoted per route. Every quote includes a real lead time, not a hopeful one.
The Facebook trap, production edition
Every few months a production coordinator calls us because a Facebook Marketplace seller advertised a “production-ready 40-foot container” for a suspiciously low monthly rate, sight unseen, with a vague delivery date. The deposit clears. The seller stops responding. Two weeks later the call comes back to Brantford asking what we have available with a Friday delivery. Many people call us saying they can get a bin far cheaper on Facebook. The bin that is cheaper than ours is the bin that never arrives. We see the call-back every month.
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Tell us the size and your postal code and we’ll send back an honest, all-in number, container, delivery, and placement, usually within 1-3 days. No pressure, no mystery fees.
Family-run in Brantford since 1995 · 200+ containers in stock · 4.9★ across 140+ Google reviews · every box graded by a person, walk it before it lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to rent a shipping container for a film shoot in Ontario?
Fleet operators rent a basic 20-foot dry van at a monthly rate, with two-week shoots charged at a higher per-day rate. Van Blanc does not rent: a production buys the box from our Brantford yard, outright or on commercial rent-to-own through our financing partner, and a 40-foot high cube with a welded lock-box, a Sold Secure puck padlock, and a 100-amp electrical panel runs higher than a bare 20. Delivery to Toronto, Hamilton, or Niagara is added one way, and the box resells at wrap. Ask us for a real quote for your location.
How fast can Van Blanc deliver a container to a Toronto film location?
1 to 3 days from our Brantford yard. Production coordinators usually call on a Thursday for a Monday principal start, and we ship Friday or Saturday. Delivery to a Toronto soundstage, a Caledon farm field, a Hamilton industrial location, or a Niagara vineyard fits inside that window. Every quote comes with a real lead time, not a hopeful one.
What size container fits a full grip and lighting package?
A 40-foot high cube comfortably holds a mid-budget grip package or a mid-budget lighting package, but not both. Productions usually rent two 40-foot HCs side by side, one for grip and one for lighting and electrical, then a separate 20-foot for camera or costume. The two-container layout shaves daily load-out time and keeps the key grip and gaffer from working over each other.
Can you secure a lighting kit overnight in a container?
Yes, with defense-in-depth. A welded lock-box housing protects the padlock from grinders and bolt cutters. A CEN Grade 6 Sold Secure Diamond puck lock resists picking and shimming. A cellular 4G LTE camera with motion alerts notifies the production manager. GPS tags on the highest-value cases give a recovery option. Two motion-sensor floodlights cover the exterior. Layer five things and most thieves move on.
Do I need a refrigerated container for costume or camera storage?
Sometimes. Period costume builds and rented Theatrix or Malabar wardrobe inventory benefit from climate stability at 18°C and 50 percent humidity, especially in summer or winter extremes. A 20-foot HC reefer running on low covers it. Camera storage rarely needs the full refrigeration cycle but a passively insulated 20-foot reefer with the unit off protects lens packages from heat-cycling on summer locations.
Can you deliver a container to a downtown Toronto street closure?
Yes, with coordination. Most downtown deliveries stage the container on a flatbed trailer inside the City of Toronto Film Office permit window rather than tilt-decking onto the road surface, because the road load rating may not support a fully loaded container’s 30,000-plus pound gross weight on point contacts. We coordinate with the production transport coordinator before dispatch.
How do you power charging stations inside a production container?
A 30-amp or 60-amp 240V panel inside the container feeds four to eight 120V circuits with weatherproof receptacles for camera, walkie, and lighting battery chargers. The panel ties into a production generator or a soundstage utility feed through an exterior twist-lock connector. We handle the ESA-certified install as a pre-delivery modification.
Should I rent or buy a container for a long-run production?
Rent from a fleet operator for a shoot under a few weeks, and we will say so. Beyond that, buy: Van Blanc does not rent, the break-even versus a fleet rental runs roughly 14 to 18 months, and most limited series and feature productions buy outright and resell at wrap, or ask us about buyback, which capitalises the cost in the production budget rather than booking monthly rental against the line. Production companies that shoot year after year can take units on commercial rent-to-own through our financing partner.
Can the lock-box be added to a container already on location mid-shoot?
Yes. Our mobile welding crew can weld a lock-box onto a container already on location in roughly two hours, including the puck lock fitting and the camera bracket. The production rarely lets us do this after the first burglary, but the option exists. Easier and cheaper to specify the lock-box and camera bracket on the original delivery before the truck rolls from Brantford.
What is the difference between a one-trip and used container for production use?
One-trip containers are essentially new with factory paint, clean interiors, and freshly sealed doors. Used cargo-worthy and wind-and-watertight units have surface rust, paint variance, and visible cosmetic wear. For a short production with a planned resale, used wind-and-watertight is the working spec because cosmetic appearance is irrelevant and the resale spread is small. For productions that will keep the box across several shoots, one-trip holds value better. Both options ship from our Brantford yard.
Sources
- Ontario Creates. (2024). 2023 Ontario Film and Television Industry Statistics. Ontario Creates industry statistics
- Cinelease. (2022). Cinelease Launches New Lighting and Grip Warehouse in Toronto, Canada. the Cinelease announcement
- Porta-Stor. (2025). Containers for Film Production On-Location Storage. Link
- International Organization for Standardization. (2022). ISO 6346:2022 Freight containers Coding, identification and marking. ISO 6346:2022 at iso.org
- Sold Secure. (2024). Sold Secure Diamond Rating, Padlock Classification Standards. Link
- Transport Canada. (2025). Cargo Securement Standard 10, Containerized Cargo. Transport Canada road transportation
Reach Van Blanc in Brantford
We have been supplying shipping containers across Ontario since 1995. Our warehouse is at 90 Morton Avenue E in Brantford, and we deliver right across the province on a cash-on-delivery basis. Every quote comes with a real lead time, not a hopeful one.
Van Blanc Ent. Inc. 90 Morton Ave E Unit 1B, Brantford, ON N3R 7J7. Call 519-754-6844 or toll free 1-888-509-6658.
If you are coordinating production storage for an Ontario shoot, call us before you commit on the location list. We can pre-weld the lock-box, mount the camera bracket, and ESA-certify the panel before delivery, so the unit is ready the morning the trucks pull in.