The film industry needs customs brokers too

It’s no secret that film production is an international affair. Take James Cameron’s “Avatar,” which has been remastered and rereleased in theaters. The 2009 blockbuster was filmed in California, Hawaii and New Zealand, and the movie’s iconic floating mountains included footage from China’s Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. Cameron’s upcoming sequel, “Avatar: Way of Water,” has also been an international project, with locations in the U.S. and New Zealand.

But filming around the world also means shipping stuff around the world, and that’s where customs brokers like Olivia Van Dyke come in.

Van Dyke is the CEO of Film Logic Customs Brokers, which, as the name implies, caters to Hollywood. “We ship camera equipment, we ship props, wardrobe, sound equipment,” Van Dyke said. “Right now, we have an account where we are regularly shipping horses.”

For Van Dyke, timing is one of the biggest challenges involved in managing imports for the entertainment industry.

“Productions work on a very strict schedule. And right now, there are so many delays, so many challenges, and just having to make sure that we are not failing the production by delaying a shoot an entire day that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars,” she said. “That is a lot of pressure.”