HOTCAM marks two years of evolution

HOTCAM, the leading equipment rental company and technical production partner marks two years of continual evolution despite well documented industry volatility post Covid.

HOTCAM supports the TV, film, and entertainment industries with camera, audio, comms and lighting equipment hire from locations in Park Royal and Glasgow. Additionally, they supply all the technical services needed on location from technical project management, flypacks, OB vehicles and systems engineering, through to crewing and logistics.

Specialising in complex non-scripted entertainment and multicamera formats, HOTCAM have built their company over the last two years to a scale that can handle any factent, music or entertainment capture. Whether cine or system-based workflows, the company caters to a broad range of content production across TV and digital. This has become more relevant in an increasingly homogeneous space and as clients seek to create higher production value content for the global streaming audience.

Unique to their business model, HOTCAM employs a team of in-house project managers to tie all the technical elements together for clients, acting as an anchor point and production partner working alongside the production team and crews.

Joint HOTCAM Managing Directors, Henry Coulam and Peter Green, and Technical Director, Ash Starr, credit on-location culture and the sense of community their crews bring to each production for their steady growth and success over a challenging time for the industry. “HOTCAM has always existed within and is a part of the TV community,” says Coulam.

Coulam adds, “We recognise the UK as a world leader in non-scripted and entertainment programming. HOTCAM has sat at the heart of this space for twenty-five years. It’s been a wonderful experience taking the company from working almost exclusively in entertainment TV into adjacent spaces such as events, music and experiential. The same principles that govern a complex entertainment TV show apply to many other types of production, particularly in the ‘new’ space as digital content becomes more sophisticated. This has allowed us to considerably broaden the work we do as the market evolves.”

Two years on, they are also celebrating their commitment to developing emerging talent in an industry composed mostly of freelancers, which has forged the ethos that defines their business today. “Even in the most difficult times, we continue to invest in upcoming talent and are a major employer of in-house and freelance technical crew,” says Green. “Our staffing levels have increased from 14 off the back of Covid to 47 currently across five departments and two locations. Many of our team are trainees and junior technicians, who are supported and mentored by our more experienced staff and the broader community. We aim to strike a balance between offering opportunities for the next generation whilst also giving our clients access to the most skilled, established crew – whether in-house or freelance.”

Coulam and Green took the company over through a management buyout in April 2022 from prior owner and founder Trevor Hotz, who founded the company with Alistair Cameron in 1999 (the original Hot and Cam in HOTCAM). Since then, they have made a conscious decision to meaningfully impact the future by investing in the TV community and have sought to bring focus to gender diversity in the industry.

Laura Neal, HOTCAM Senior Project Manager comments, “It’s extremely rare to come across women holding technical positions in broadcast – I had never met a female engineer before joining Hotcam last year. It’s so refreshing after nine years to find an engineering department with a 50/50 gender split and see strong, independent and successful women running their own projects in the warehouse and on location.”

Through hands-on training focused on new technologies and the sharing of ideas, in-house assistants and technicians are trained to problem solve on location working alongside HOTCAM’s diverse range of clients. “We provide our team with constant opportunities for vocational skills development, across all departments at HOTCAM,” continues Green. “Our team gains industry experience that you can’t get anywhere else and it’s so inspiring to see some of our young talent excel and go on to be nominated for industry awards.” To this end, HOTCAM’s Lucy Moore, Technical Manager, and Charlotte Mills, Junior Camera Assistant, were recently nominated for the Broadcast Support Engineer and Rising Star Award by the Rise Awards, the leading organisation dedicated to fostering gender diversity within the broadcast and media technology sector.

Coulam affirms, “The old ways are not lost. They are still here and more relevant than ever before, especially during a skills shortage and when the world is looking to the UK as a leading producer of high production value, high barrier to entry programme making. We need to train up the next generation to safeguard our global position, and in a way that reflects not just our community but the UK as a whole. As company owners in this space, we recognise that we have our hands on the tiller of long term progress.”

HOTCAM’s television projects include recently completing the first season of the UK production of Netflix’s Love is Blind, having supplied 17+ high-end camera packages, audio, comms and crew including camera assistants, tech, logistics, support and project management at locations across Europe.