Expenses for dismantling sets, lights, and grip gear after wrap — labor, transport, storage. Often underestimated; calculate separately from production budget.
After the last take comes the silent invoice. Strike costs arise in the phase that nobody likes to plan because they don't visibly end up in the film — yet they regularly consume 5–15% of the total production budget. It's about everything that disappears after shooting: dismantling sets, de-rigging lighting and grip equipment, transport, storage of materials that are still rented out, cleaning of locations.
In practice, the greatest chaos happens here. The Production Designer meticulously plans the construction, the Production Manager calculates the standby time of cranes and lighting equipment — but during the strike, an overworked UPM often sits with timesheets that double daily because no well-thought-out de-rigging plan existed. Grips take longer to dismantle sets than to build them, especially if constructions were meant to be stable (and must be). Every day of delay during the strike costs rental fees for equipment that should have been returned long ago. Warehouses for props and set dressing that haven't been finally accounted for continue to accrue costs. Transport logistics fail because nobody coordinated who picks up which pallet when.
On set, strike costs should already be considered during shooting schedule planning — not as an afterthought. Realistic budgeting includes separate strike days for large productions, with their own strike crew chief who coordinates the de-rigging like a Director coordinates a shoot. This avoids drama in the final weeks. Rental agreements for lighting and grip should explicitly define strike time windows, otherwise, you pay for days you don't even use. For location shoots, foresight is critical: restoring the original condition is often contractually binding and becomes expensive if you start too late.
Practical rule: Strike costs are calculated as a separate line item in the budget, not as a diffuse surcharge. With experience, it becomes clear that clean planning saves more here than on any other production item — those who don't plan, pay double.