PRODUCTIONS WITH A SMILE
Your Ibiza production crew — briefed Monday, on set Wednesday.
Island-native department heads — DP, gaffer, key grip, HMU, stylist, DIT, production coordinator — assembled fast from a bench we’ve been running since 2012. Fashion-fluent, English-first, NDA default. Zimmermann, Zara Woman, Nili Lotan, H&M, Fiorucci — all crewed out of the same Santa Gertrudis base. Reply in < 4h, island time.
Ibiza is small. Good Ibiza crew is smaller. In July the same four gaffers are on hold for four different swimwear campaigns and the only Phase One DIT on the island is doing a Vogue Germany editorial on Es Vedrà. The fixer the London agency found on Instagram hasn’t lit a luxury resort pack since before Zimmermann moved to May drops. We run a deep bench of island-native department heads who have already lit, gripped, styled and tethered for the brand categories on your mood board — and a Berlin bench for the overflow weeks.
Department heads we assemble
DP / Director of Photography
Ibiza-resident DPs who shoot luxury resort, swim and ready-to-wear on Arri Mini LF, Sony Venice 2 and Phase One XF IQ4 — with a Berlin bench for overflow weeks. Fashion-literate, English-first, NDA-default. We supply the DP or we brief yours.
Gaffer + lighting team
Island-native gaffers who own the Santa Gertrudis lighting pack — SkyPanel, Nanlux Evoke 1200, Profoto Pro-11 — and know which fincas need generators by noon and which cliff locations need a double HMI by 16:30.
Key grip + rigging
Key grips fluent in Ronin 2, EasyRig, dolly, jib, cliff-edge rigging and yacht mounts. Spanish road-closure rigs arranged in-house. Ibiza terrain is second nature.
HMU (hair and makeup)
A bench of six HMU artists briefed on luxury resort, swim, beauty and editorial registers. English, Spanish and French on set. Continuity across multi-day, multi-location packs.
Stylist + stylist assistant
Editorial-grade stylists for on-island fittings, steam tent, returns triage and rack-building. Luxury house etiquette — unpacking, garment-bag protocol, NDA-default — all standard.
DIT — photo + film
On-set DIT with Pomfort Silverstack, Capture One live-tether, calibrated monitor cart, LTO offload and client-gallery turnaround inside the shoot day. Arri, Sony, Phase One workflows.
Production coordinator
On-island coordinator running call sheets, travel, catering, permits touchpoint and talent wrangling — the human your London producer dials at 07:30 and trusts to have it handled.
Transport + security
Black-plate vans, 4×4s for cliff and finca locations, talent vehicles, and discreet close-protection for luxury or celebrity-model shoots. Licensed, Spanish-registered, English-speaking operators.
Recent work
How we work
Brief
Brief-in call or paragraph, shoot-window dates, mood board and brand category. We check the bench against existing holds inside four hours and come back with availability.
Book
Department heads named, holds confirmed, NDA signed, per-diem schedule and call-sheet draft confirmed fast from brief-in. Nothing moves without sign-off.
Produce
Coordinator on the ground at T-1, vans staged, kit checked, talent picked up. The producer stays on WhatsApp from call-time to wrap — same person, same number.
Wrap
Kit back, DIT drives delivered, wrap report and final invoice — with IVA broken out clearly — inside five working days of wrap.
Ibiza — our base
Santa Gertrudis base, day-trip radius to Cala d’Hort, Es Vedrà, Ses Salines and the Parque Natural. Formentera on the 9am ferry, Mallorca on the 8am Iberia. The crew sleeps on-island, not in Palma hotels, and the truck is already parked at the finca by first light.
| BEST LIGHT WINDOW | May – early October, 06:30 + 19:30 |
| NEAREST AIRPORT | IBZ · 25 min to base |
| PERMIT LEAD TIME | 5–14 days (longer for Parque Natural) |
| CREW BENCH SIZE | Full department-head coverage on-island, Berlin overflow on call |
If your brief is a resort pack, a swim campaign, a luxury lookbook or an editorial cover shot on-island, we are almost certainly the right bench. Lovely CPS has been crewing fashion shoots out of Santa Gertrudis since 2012 — ibiza production crew for Zimmermann, Zara Woman, Nili Lotan, H&M, Fiorucci, Johnstons of Elgin, Simone Perele, Flook the Label and Spell, all crewed by the same department-head bench. English-first, NDA-default, IVA broken out on every invoice, and a producer who replies in < 4h, island time.
The bench covers every department a fashion shoot actually needs — DP, 1st and 2nd AC, gaffer, key grip, HMU, stylist and assist, DIT, production coordinator, drivers, private security. Locations we crew weekly include Cala d’Hort, Es Vedrà, Ses Salines, Dalt Vila, Sant Joan fincas, the coastal north, Formentera (Illetes, Espalmador) on the ferry, and Mallorca day-trips on the early Iberia. Kit partners cover Arri Mini LF and SkyPanel, Sony Venice 2, Phase One XF IQ4, Profoto Pro-11 and a full Broncolor pack — a full ibiza fashion crew delivered from a single contract.
When the window is tight, we flex. For July heat weeks when every island gaffer is on hold, we fly department heads in from our Berlin bench on the early BER→IBZ — vans parked at arrivals, same producer, same contract. That overflow is the reason agencies who already have a DP and a stylist on hold still call us for the other twelve seats on a production crew ibiza brief.
Questions we get a lot
Can you really assemble a full crew in 48 hours?
Yes, for standard fashion packs of 8–14 crew inside the May–October window — the bench is already ours, not a directory. Brief-in Monday, holds confirmed by end-of-day Tuesday, call sheet Wednesday. We’ve gone from brief to set inside two days for major campaigns. July heat-weeks are tighter — tell us first so we can shuffle holds before someone else does.
Can you crew around an existing DP, stylist or talent we’re flying in?
Yes, that’s most of our work. You fly in the DP, stylist, casting; we crew everything below and around — 1st and 2nd AC, gaffer, grip, HMU, DIT, coordinator, drivers, security, catering, villa base. We brief your DP’s 1st AC on the Arri or Phase One kit we’re supplying, send a kit list in advance, and split the call sheet so your London crew sees only their side.
What are Spanish overtime norms and how do you handle them?
Spain is non-union in the fashion-crew sense. The industry norm on fashion shoots is 10-hour days with a 1-hour meal break; Spanish labour-law-standard overtime applies, and overtime tiers are listed on every crew line in the quote, so there are no surprises on the wrap invoice.
Where does the crew sleep and do you handle cars and villas?
Crew sleeps on-island, not in Palma. We run a bench of villa and finca accommodations in Santa Gertrudis, Sant Joan and Santa Eulària; most sit 8–12 crew with parking for a van and two talent cars. Cars come with the crew package — black-plate vans, 4×4s for cliff locations, talent vehicles on request. Villa plus cars plus drivers is usually calmer and more cost-effective than a hotel block.
Can you handle talent-agency access and model coordination locally?
We don’t cast on-island, but we work regularly with UNO, Traffic, IMG, View and Premier out of Madrid and Barcelona for Spanish residents and transfer-in talent. For international talent we coordinate with your agency directly — travel, pickup, chaperone, dietary — and align with talent-agency riders before the call sheet goes out. NDA and image-use are on file before the model lands.
Do you provide private security for luxury or celebrity shoots?
Yes. Close-protection is a line item, not an afterthought — licensed, Spanish-registered operators, bilingual, discreet wardrobe, no-photo contracts for villa staff and drivers. We can walk you through the typical setup for a luxury shoot during the brief call.
What do we need to know about crew contracts in Spain?
Spain is non-union in the fashion-crew sense — no IATSE or BECTU parallel. Crew contract as autónomos or through our Spanish S.L.; we handle Seguridad Social declarations, IVA and IRPF withholdings on your invoice. If your agency requires union-equivalent language on the crew contract, we’ll discuss options at brief-in.
How far ahead do we need to lock a fashion DP in Ibiza?
Our top resort-register DPs are in hold-conversations 8–14 weeks out from May to mid-July, the peak window. Outside peak — April, late September, October — the lead-time compresses to 2–3 weeks. If your preferred DP is on your side of the water, we fill every other seat quickly; if you need us to source a fashion DP on-island, aim to brief 4 weeks out for July dates.
Send us the brief
Send us the brief. We’ll come back with a crew list and the names of the department heads on hold — reply in < 4h, island time.
We keep everything under NDA by default. Signed NDA on request before the crew list goes out.
