Get a Grip, the Dolly Shop, Love Your Grip and GripHQ

Who owns all this kit now and why do people keep saying, “just take those back to Penrose”?

For most of you, these names are familiar and its no mystery how they all came to live under the one roof in Cain Rd, Penrose. But for those who are still wondering where to return them to, we thought we’d say Hi, introduce ourselves and explain how these four names all came to live here in one place.

As with most departments in the film industry, gear is accumulated overtime. Each job requires something different and with Kiwi’s can-do attitude and a key grips basic understanding of engineering, unique equipment is created and a weird & wonderful name attached to it, Filmed with a ‘wok’ anyone?

Thanks to a cumulative effort and hard work from many Grips over the years, the result is an accumulation of a lot of gear. It’s a lot of scaff pipe, it’s a lot of clamps, it's a lot of weird and wonderful adaptors, offsets, bowls and boss adaptors and let's be honest it’s a shit load of wedges. When you put these grip dept staples together with equipment such as sliders, dutch heads, dollies, jibs & cranes it all goes towards the kit being available for all to use.

When Tony Keddy Aka “Spotty” bought all of this equipment together under one roof, it was a chance to make the gear available in large numbers to the industry – somewhere that ensured the kit was available for everyone, from one point of contact rather than inside trucks spread across the country at varying locations.

Welcome to GripHQ. With Spotty as Managing Director, Derek Slade as General Manager and Ange Hume on board as Operations Manager, we want to continue to support the industry as a supplier of great Grip equipment.

So what's in the pipeline for GripHQ? Well, we don’t want to stop at just being a supplier, GripHQ wants to also focus on education – the team all believe in sharing knowledge, teaching by showing and encouraging people from all walks of life to step in and get involved. Knowledge is power, and more importantly, knowledge brings confidence. So, GripHQ together with Share the Knowledge, (a not for profit organisation) who work together with industry experts to provide specialised training courses for NZ Screen industry professionals, want to invest time into giving back and helping to encourage new and upcoming talent into the industry.

It’s not just knowledge that we can share, we also want to make sure the very latest equipment is available to all levels of the industry. This strengthens the skillsets NZ can offer and we firmly believe in looking forward and fostering the talent that exists here. By growing our equipment list, we can let people have a go, by stepping up and supporting them as they transition from one position to the next. Stepping up and trying new things can be a daunting experience but we strongly believe encouraging and supporting people to broaden their skillsets will benefit the industry immensely.

GripHQ has invested significantly in Techno Cranes & Techno Tanks amongst other things, but without trying to sound like a promo ad, please know, these investments have been made in you – the industry.

However a common theme we hear is “is it ok, If we just want the gear and not your crew?” – it sure is.

If you want to come in and grab some advice as to how what and where your particular shot can be achieved – please, come on down, let's have a coffee and a yarn and see what kit is the best for your job. As a stalwart of the industry, most grips have trained with Spotty in one way or another. With a talent for challenging people’s mindsets to increase their potential, it means that GripHQ has an arsenal of talented and very clever crew that we can point you towards.

GripHQ now has over 45yrs collectively of industry knowledge in house. And of course, it’s a family affair, with Ange & Kana based in the Penrose warehouse, they have now been joined by Levi Keddy who has made the move from Wellington to see what all the fuss is about up here in Auckland & Jack Keddy makes the trip regularly from Wellington to join the crew.

Between Spotty’s experience & knowledge of the world of gripping, Derek’s business & technical expertise, Ange’s experience as an industry supplier and of course that arsenal of talented and very clever crew we mentioned earlier - we really hope we can help support your project soon.

With four fully kitted grip trucks, four dunnage trucks, mobile engineering workshop, a fleet of transport vehicles, eight technocranes, three fixed length cranes, dollies and a multitude of sliders, GripHQ has certainly come of age. You may have seen one of the GripHQ fleet out and about - we’re pretty big on branding and we hope you like it. We’re proud of the fleet and the equipment they are used to transport, that we are lucky enough to represent here in New Zealand, so we put our name on it. If you see one of the trucks around, please make sure to come on over and say hi, we’d love to meet you.

But as much as we like our branding, rest assured we are in no hurry to rebrand the pieces of Dolly Shop, Love your Grip & Get a Grip kit that reflect the history and acknowledge the years of dedication to the industry (actually, its just that we can’t find the engraver). We hope it continues to tell the story of many, many amazing Grip departments over the years and continues to remind people of what crazy things can be achieved and built, if and when needed.