Airports can be tricky hurdles for production managers, despite months of prep, because it’s almost always a new space in a foreign country the film crew members haven’t encountered before – and those logistics can cause headaches especially after a long red-eye flight to South America.
Even if you aren’t using a comprehensive local film fixer service on the ground during shooting, Pudu can still assist you navigate the airport and your initial touchdown to help your production begin smoothly. Our familiarity and experience with the entry points into Chile can help make this first part stress-free, and let your team focus on the filming days ahead.
If you need production assistance at Chile’s Santiago international airport (SCL), then Pudu can help with whatever you need, including:
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If you have a lot of film or photography equipment, we can send runners with a Pudu local producer and production vehicles to meet you off your flight and help move your equipment from the airport to your local hotel.
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Bring in your Chilean government accreditation for filming inside Chile on a tourist visa. These passes will allow you to avoid paying for special visas or work permits for foreign media professionals working on a production inside Chile. More on that in our blog post dedicated to visas and permits for film producers and media professionals in Chile.
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Organise transport for your crew and equipment from the airport to your local hotel
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Deliver locally-sourced rental equipment
If you need more than just assistance with navigating the airport and initial arrival of your crew and equipment, Pudu is a full production support and fixer service for Chile, and can assist your film, tv, branded or photography shoot in a number of ways, from basic travel and accommodation logistics, to providing local crew, casting for talent and location scouting, all the way up to providing a fully-remote filming and production service, taking direction via calls or a live link to your director, showrunner or key producers, back home.
Due to individual requirements or budget demands, we’ve worked with several clients who only needed help with those initial steps around the airport or when their crew were passing through Santiago airport purely as an entry point to Chile, on a quick layover before heading out to film in popular regional locations like Atacama and Patagonia. But because SCL airport is the Port of Entry (POE) and the capital city where the government is based, important logistics such as processing ATA Carnets, or obtaining government-issued accreditation as a workaround to work or film permits, need to be handled here.
The Pudu team recently provided airport assistance for a major new Apple TV+ series involving a celebrity wildlife photographer and crew members arriving on different dates in Santiago, with varying outbound and return flights to the regional locations where they were filming. Due to the specialist nature of the filming project, they didn’t require fixer assistance on location (in some hospitable places including Antartica), but they did have a complicated staging process around the airport, with a staggered arrival of key crew members and a huge amount of specialised filming equipment including over 100 lithium batteries and 38 peli cases.
To make things easier for their crew and talent, the production manager in the UK contracted Pudu to help their team tackle the logistics of getting their crew and equipment from the plane, through customs and the ATA carnet process, and on to their overnight hotel at Santiago airport’s Holiday Inn hotel. Then we did the whole thing in reverse as the crew boarded their domestic flights to the regional filming locations.
Our team used their experience of knowing where the right offices were for the carnet process and battery clearances, as well as offering some good old muscle power to help move a fleet of trolleys necessary for all the equipment, taking it to a secure lockup we had arranged in advance with the crew’s hotel close to the airport.
In case you have a film, TV or other media crew traveling through Santiago airport, now known as Nuevo Pudahuel and also (confusingly) sometimes called Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport, here’s a few tips on how to navigate with your production logistics in mind:
Landing at SCL
Once the team land at SCL the crew will have to move through the brand new International Terminal, which opened in 2022. The new buildings over 320,000 m2 total, and is referred to as Terminal 2, serving only international flights. Terminal 1, which used to be the entire airport, now handles domestic flights only. It has good signage, the latest airport technology and high capacity elevators, easy connections, and a reduced carbon footprint. Both the domestic and international terminals are equipped airport assistance for disabled passengers in case any members of your crew or talent live with a disability. There is also complementary and unrestricted WiFi internet access covering the entire site. More info can be found at the airport’s official website https://www.nuevopudahuel.cl/
Once descending from the plane and clearing immigration / border patrol, where your passport will be stamped, your crew will move to the baggage reclaim hall, and if using a carnet for film and photography equipment, they will then pass through the ‘items to declare’ customs gate where they should present any ATA Carnet documentation to a customs officer. ATA Carnet is an international customs document, accepted in more than 70 countries including Chile (the only one in Latin America), and allows the free temporary admission of high-value goods (like fancy cameras with big lenses), without being subject to the payment of import duties and taxes such as VAT. In case you didn’t know, ATA stands for a combination of the French and English words: “Admission Temporarie/Temporary Admission”).
Once finishing your carnet, you may be randomly selected for a final bag check with the SAG agricultural department (who are only checking you aren’t bringing things like fresh food, untreated wood or seeds into Chile), before you emerge into the arrivals hall, where, if you’ve commissioned us, the Pudu team can be ready to meet you. Our mission will be to provide fast and friendly assistance, and help with whatever your crew needs, from the basics through to full production assistance, all from local film and media professionals with experience working on international productions.
Holiday Inn Santiago Airport
Conveniently for films crews who are only in Santiago for a quick layover flight, there is a good Holiday Inn located on the airport site itself, just a 7-minute walk from the International Terminal (T2) and 1-minute from the National Terminal (T1). We’ve helped plenty of crews who’ve stayed here and always heard good feedback, with a swimming pool, bar/restaurant, gym and friendly bilingual staff. It can provide a good rest with breakfast for around $ 150 USD per night per person, with group rates accepted. As mentioned, they also have a secure lockup space for filming equipment.
Domestic Departures
If your crew is carrying a lot of equipment, we advise showing up at least 2.5 hours before the flight departure to allow enough time to check extra baggage and handle any complications around batteries for cameras and other film equipment. Some of the crews we work with arrive with a preprepared document to take their batteries on board, which is approved by the air operators and called the OPERATOR APPROVAL LETTER – CARRIAGE OF LITHIUM ION BATTERIES Letter. This letter will be required by many airlines for travel within Chile and entry/departure from the country. Regarding heavy, oversized or delicate luggage, these are loaded from a separate belt where they are scanned, weighed and shipped separately and securely.
International departures
For international flights we recommend arriving to SCL four hours prior to departure from T2 – an hour longer than the airport recommends to regular passengers – to allow time for the ATA Carnet departure process. We’ve also noticed that many of the airlines take a long time to check bags and equipment for crews with lots of peli cases, and sometimes query and want to check batteries even when you have your documents in place . As mentioned above, international flight carriers will likely require you to have a letter of approval for travel with large wattage or lithium batteries.
In case you’re hungry?
There are plenty of restaurants, bars and cafes at Santiago Airport, both airside and in the arrivals and departures halls. The food isn’t cheap (airports never are, are they!), but in case you don’t want to destroy your production budget on 15 almond croissants, there are some cheaper options, too.
For domestic flights, we definitely recommend eating inside the departures hall before you go through security, as options are limited around the gates (however, there is a small cafe, two Starbucks, and a McDonalds).
For international flights there is more variety, with good coffee available, and upmarket restaurant options like Gatsby if you need something more substantial paired with a Chilean red wine. Wine-lovers take note, you are in the right place wherever you are in Chile, one of the world’s major wine producers.
