A practical guide to making shoot day logistics work, with Robin Malyon of Tic Tak Ltd.
There’s a particular kind of shoot day where everything just works. The kit arrives when it should, the sofa fits through the door, the brief shifts at 2pm and somehow nobody panics. The pack-down is calm rather than chaotic and every single piece goes home without a hitch.
These shoots don’t happen by accident. They happen because someone, somewhere, did the unglamorous bit brilliantly.
For our latest journal piece, we wanted to lift the lid on the part of production that often only becomes visible when it goes wrong: logistics. So we sat down (over email, around busy transport schedules) with Robin Malyon, founder of Tic Tak, a specialist logistics company that has been quietly making interiors and lifestyle shoots run smoothly for more than three decades.
If you’ve ever flicked through Living Etc or Homes & Gardens, chances are Tic Tak has had a hand in getting the furniture there. Here’s what Robin shared with us, and what every Creator should take from it.
“Budgeting and forward planning are just as important as creating beautiful imagery.” When asked what makes a smooth shoot day, Robin says the answer is always the same: preparation. It’s the real work that happens before anyone shows up to shoot.
When transport is booked well in advance, the Tic Tak team has time to properly understand the brief, ask the right questions and flag anything that needs adjusting. Last-minute bookings are where things can start to slip.
The behind-the-scenes work on the day itself, like managing timings, coordinating supplier collections, planning vehicle access, packing items properly and hitting tight deadlines, is largely the product of decisions made days or weeks earlier.
If there’s one takeaway here for Creators it’s this: book your logistics partner early. Treat it as core production planning, not an afterthought you tack on the night before.
One of Robin’s most useful observations is something every Creator should keep in mind, whether you’re booking a private home, a studio or any unfamiliar space: “Photos can be deceptive. We’ve often arrived at a property only to realise spaces are much smaller than expected or access is difficult.”
This is where Styled Home Studio’s curation really earns its keep. On larger, less curated marketplaces, you’re often working from whatever a Host has chosen to upload, and the reality on the day can sit a long way from the gallery. Our curated platform raises the bar: properties are vetted, details are checked, and Hosts are encouraged to be open about access, quirks and the practical things photos struggle to show. Even then, no listing can show you every doorway, every staircase or every kerb.
Robin’s advice is simple – visit the location in person where you can. If you’re shooting with large furniture or high-value pieces, do a physical recce before delivery day.
Tic Tak now offers this as a service. For high-end furniture suppliers and designers, Robin will visit a location ahead of a shoot to check that pieces will physically fit through doors, navigate staircases and land safely in the rooms they’re meant for. It provides reassurance for the client, and it saves the kind of doorway disasters nobody wants to caption.
If a physical visit isn’t possible, the next best thing is a proper conversation with your Host. Ask about door widths, lift access, stair turns, parking restrictions, loading zones, and whether there’s a sensible time frame to bring items in without disturbing neighbours. The best Hosts will know all of this and share it openly on their listing, and when it’s not obvious, ask them.
For Creators shooting with delicate, expensive or borrowed pieces, this is where logistics turns from a transport question into a trust question. Robin’s answer is three-part: experience, proper wrapping and packing, and keeping photographic records.
“Every shoot and every location is different, so experience really matters. After more than 30 years doing this, you build an understanding of how to approach difficult spaces, awkward access and delicate items safely.”
He’s especially direct about the value of photographic records. With phone cameras now good enough to document anything, there’s no reason to skip this step.
“Photographic records can easily be made before items leave suppliers and again once they return from shoots. That process is really important because it avoids what I call the ‘afterlife’ of a shoot – dealing with missing items, damages or confusion once everything is over.”
The “afterlife” of a shoot might be the most quietly useful concept in this whole conversation. Most Creators think of a shoot as ending when the last frame is captured. For anyone responsible for borrowed or high-value items, it ends when everything is safely back where it came from, and any questions about damage or missing pieces have been settled. A few minutes of photos at collection and return can save days of awkward emails later.
They can, and they do. The brief shifts, a light fails, talent runs late, a piece arrives at the wrong angle. The question isn’t whether logistics will be tested, it’s how the team responds when they are.
Robin’s view is pragmatic: “The best thing is when teams allow a little breathing space in schedules so that if something unexpected happens, everyone can adapt and solve the issue together rather than panic.”
Breathing space. Two words worth printing on every call sheet. If your schedule is so tight that one delay collapses the whole day, the schedule itself is the problem, not the delay.
The other factor he comes back to repeatedly is communication. When everyone is in the loop, decisions can be made quickly and calmly. When information is held tightly or only flows in one direction, small problems become big ones.
Asked what good logistics looks like in practice, Robin’s answer is quietly telling: “When logistics are done well, people often don’t notice them.”
The signs of a well-run shoot, in his experience, are calm communication, realistic timings, good preparation, and a stylist or producer who is confident managing the day while keeping the whole team working together.
He has a lovely observation about the people who tend to run shoots best: “Stylists who started out as assistants tend to run shoots very well because they’ve done the groundwork and understand every part of the process.”
There’s something in that for any Creator earlier in their career. The unglamorous parts of the job, the loading, the packing, the timing spreadsheets, are where the real craft of producing a shoot is learned.
When we asked Robin for his top three pieces of advice for a Creator or producer planning a shoot at a new or unfamiliar location, the answer was characteristically direct: “Preparation. Preparation. Preparation.”
Beneath that headline, he offered four practical anchors:
Booking through Styled Home Studios works well when mapping Robin’s experience directly onto how to get the most out of a platorm booking. We’ve put together a checklist of essentials, in one place. Pin it on the wall, screenshot if for your next call sheet, share it with your team.
Tic Tak’s story starts in the mid-90s, when Robin took a job as a driver for national magazines, returning fashion pieces to PR companies and shops after shoots. Within a few months the workload had ballooned, he was bringing other drivers in to help, and a serious knack for logistics and shoot coordination had quietly revealed itself.
“The magazines then offered me the opportunity to run these contracts as a freelancer, and from there the business grew quite naturally.” He took over a small yard in South London, built direct relationships with stylists, PR companies, brands and shops across fashion, and over time noticed a gap in the market.
“There weren’t many companies specialising in moving furniture and interiors for shoots. It’s hard work and requires a very specific skill set around handling, safe transport, timing and problem-solving.”
That gap pulled Tic Tak gradually away from fashion and deeper into interiors. Today, a typical week might involve multi-supplier collections, overnight storage, delivery to location shoots, hands-on support during the day, and the safe return of every piece afterwards. Every shoot is different, which is, in Robin’s words, what keeps it interesting.
Tic Tak Ltd specialises in moving furniture and interiors for photoshoots, film and content production. The team handles everything from multi-supplier collections and overnight storage to on-location delivery, on-site support during shoots, and safe returns afterwards. They also offer pre-shoot location checks for high-value or delicate pieces, a service well worth knowing about if you’re shooting with anything you can’t afford to lose.
Find out more about Tic Tak and get in touch at tictak.co.uk.
With huge thanks to Robin Malyon for sharing his time and three decades of shoot day wisdom so generously.
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