My name is Michael Kopilec and I'm with Movievehicles.com, a company that provides cars and trucks for movies.
We are currently looking for model t owners and cars to work at Warner Brothers studios in Burbank December 1st as well as other days and locations the first 2 weeks of December and the whole month of January 2016. If you or anyone you know is interested please email me at mkopilec@yahoo.com for more information and pay rate. Thank you!

Let me know when you're shooting at a Kansas or Oklahoma location.

Gee, I wonder if they would pay all my gas and expenses to trailer my car from Canada. Sounds like a great vacation.

Ford paid me $200 once!! Bud in Wheeler,Mi.

I worked as the veteran vehicle wrangler on a TV series, just moving vehicles around on location, and back to storage. They paid my hourly workshop rate, plus giving my son some work and on camera driving. I was considered too old to be in the first World War!

Allan from down under.

Beware - one of our local guys rented his car collection to a studio several times "his cars were most of the ones used in o brother where art thou", and when he jacked up his car 6 months after a different studio rented it there were angle brackets welded all over the frame - they did not tell him they were going to mod the car and added camera brackets all over underneath. He has never rented out again.


Travis
Topeka Kansas.

My car has been used in a movie and in a TV mini-series. In both cases, it was a package - me and the car together. I got paid as an extra, the car got paid more, I ate well and got to see how a production company makes a film....

Ditto what Dick said above, except no mini series.
The movie was "The Great Gatsby" filmed here in Australia. Worked for 3 weeks. A very rewarding experience all round. Would do it again in a heartbeat.

Currently there is a 1927 era picture being filmed in the Boston area. They needed a lot of cars and drivers for the scenes they were filming. Today alone they needed 30 cars. I provided them with three of mine. As in Dick Lodges case, they pay for both the car and the driver, on a per day basis. The cars get several times more per day than I do. Being on the set during filming allows me to keep track of the cars and what is being done to them. Two of the cars just sit on the set and don't move all day. The movie company made some bows out of conduit for my TT grain bed truck and put a canvas over them. The Truck is being used as a "blocker", that is, it hides something from the sight of the camera that can't be removed or changed.

I noticed that several people essentially make a living at this. They have a large collection of cars (in one case 35 of them) and they rent out the appropriate year cars to meet the needs of the movie company. The work is not steady, but I am told it is lucrative. The first 7 months of the year there was no work for picture cars, but in the last 2 months there have been 3 films made, and those films will earn enough income to for this owner to live for another 7 or 8 months, until the next job comes around.

Respectfully submitted,

Trent Boggess

>>>In both cases, it was a package - me and the car together. I got paid as an extra, the car got paid more...<<<

Hi Michael -

The above sounds like the kind of deal I'd be interested in if they're ever filming in Cincinnati.

I haven't seen the movie but I've been told my car was a prop in the 1963 Otto Preminger flick, The Cardinal, starring Tom Tryon about a priest in Boston after the turn of the century so apparently, my car's resume includes some acting experience.

(Message edited by jesselashcraft on November 22, 2015)

I've rented my cars dozens of times in the NY/NJ area. I don't leave my cars. I stay with them. Sometimes I have to get the car to the set. Sometimes they pick them up. Either way, I stay on the set with the car. I've driven in at least 10 movies but I've yet to see myself on the big screen. It's fun meeting other car owners and some of the actors. I have heard of a few problems with people that do not stay with their cars. I have not had any problems. Do it if you get a chance. I've had much fun doing it.

For those who have done this, how do you get connected with the production company? Do they contact you or do you answer a casting call?

It has been many decades since Ma Green (my '30 sport coupe)has been in a film. Once was for a TV movie, "Standing Tall" where we drove over to Fort Jones for the set location, about a 1-1/2 hour trip at the time, wore period "poor folks" clothes for a late 30s era. Saw my car for about 2 seconds in the picture, when the "Hero" zoomed past it in a chase scene. Forgot what we got paid, but remember good food.
The film movie it was in was "Baby Blue Marine" and I was at college during the filming, so a friend of my Dad's drove her (pic below on the set in McCloud, Ca). In that film, she's the car right behind the main characters in a scene going down the road & in a few other scenes--but the topper is the end of the film is taken down McCloud's main street and there's Ma Green right in the center, while the scene changes to a Norman Rockwell type painting. Wish I could find a copy of that! Funny thing about the painting, the photo is looking south and there's Mount Shasta looming over the street--when it's actually due north of the scene! Ah, movie magic!
My sister & some of her friends are in the bleachers during the football game sequence. Actually, they debuted the film in Redding at the Cascade theatre, and the place was filled with us locals looking to see if we made the pic. I'd gotten married between the filming & the release, and Linda was amused that the entire audience was going, "Here, there I am!!" Oh, there's so-and-so!" I don't think any of us actually watched for the plot of the film!

I got payed $50 dollars once years ago to use one of my Fordson tractors and a double bottom plow in a Birdseye food TV commercial. It was worth it just to watch them film it, especially when the actors from NYC decided to walk through the cornfield early in the morning. Needless to say they came out sopping wet.

I have had at least 10 cars in four different movies.
The most was three cars a day at $350 for each car. $1050 is good money for doing nothing, and getting free meals too.
Never had any trouble, but once a friends Maxwell got the side keyed.
He had a friend there with a truck in the movie that owned a body shop.
They told the Maxwell owner to get an estimate. The bodyman said he'd do it for $5,000.
The movie company gave him a check for $5000 and told him they were sorry and would try better to keep spectators away from the cars.

I got paid $750 for the three seconds my TT was on screen in the movie "Life" with Eddie Murphy. It was used to hide a modern fire hydrant in the depression era film. It was a fun experience and the food was outstanding. I can see now why it costs fifteen bucks to see a movie.

Re Food. I remember on the NBC miniseries "A Will of Their Own," the guy from the production company who was in charge of all the vehicles insisted that the drivers (whose cars were being used) would eat with the cast and crew rather than with the extras. There was plenty of food for everyone, but cast and crew had a better selection and fancier food. Besides, it was kind of neat to have lunch with Lea Thompson...

They used my '26 Touring in the film "Water for Elephants" starring Reese Witherspoon and Rob Pattison. It was mainly used for effect (parked at the curb).

The thing that got me was, when the director called "Cut, let's take a 15 minute break" all the extras in the general area of my car decided to use it as seating. I mean fenders, running boards, wherever their backsides would fit.

When one of them started to open the rear door, I'd had enough. I walked over to my car and said "Hey, this isn't a ride at Knott's Berry Farm. Get off of my car." Some of them were amazed that I actually owned the car. Apparently, the owners don't always accompany their vehicles.

When I found the vintage vehicle person that had hired me I told him what had happened and that if it happened again, I was outta there.

That was the end of that problem.

Universal really made an impression on me when I had my truck used. They had catering trucks for food. Not mom and pop taco vans, these were 40' Aeromax semis serving up a buffet with roast duck and prime rib. I sat with a bunch of big black guys playing a chain gang labor detail from the 30's, complete with the black and white striped uniforms and chains. It was fun to watch these guys sip Napa Merlot and complain that they couldn't run graphics fast enough with their Mac or that their mutual funds were underperforming.
When some of the guys with old cars needed gas, one of the studio guys handed them $200 and said to get fuel for everyone and don't bother him with change, he was busy.
I would do it again for sure.

I would question the production company about insurance, should something happen to your car. I would guess that many of our historic vehicle insurance companies would have stipulations about coverage while the vehicle is being used for hire.

This is why I no longer use my cars for weddings, unless I personally know the people involved, and even then...