Teamsters Local 399 (Hollywood)

Overview

Teamsters Local 399 is the Hollywood local of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing transportation captains, picture car coordinators, drivers, animal trainers, and casting directors working in film and television production in the Los Angeles area. Founded in 1928, Local 399 is one of the most distinctively varied union locals in the entertainment industry, covering job classifications that range from the logistics of moving production equipment and talent across locations to the specialized craft of animal training for film and television.

The Teamsters' role in film production is substantial but less visible than IATSE's craft union presence. Every production vehicle -- the trucks that carry equipment to locations, the star's trailer, the camera truck, the grip and electric trucks -- is driven by a Teamsters-covered driver. The transportation department's coordination of production vehicle logistics is a significant below-the-line budget category and operational component of any production that moves beyond a single studio stage.

Transportation Department

The transportation captain heads the transportation department, coordinating all vehicle movement and driver logistics for the production. This role involves planning vehicle requirements for each shooting day, managing the pool of Teamsters drivers, coordinating with the locations department on parking and access logistics, and ensuring that all production vehicles comply with applicable regulations.

For location-heavy productions -- action films, road movies, productions shooting across multiple distant locations -- the transportation department represents a major operational and budget component. Understanding transportation costs and logistics helps producers plan location-heavy productions accurately and avoid the transportation cost overruns that frequently affect productions that underestimate this below-the-line category.

Picture Cars and Specialty Vehicles

The picture car coordinator -- a Teamsters-covered classification -- sources and manages the specialty vehicles that appear on screen in film and television productions. Period vehicles, customized cars, specialized vehicles of all kinds that appear in the frame are the picture car coordinator's responsibility. This work is distinct from the production vehicle logistics that the transportation captain manages: picture cars are storytelling tools that must be visually appropriate, mechanically reliable, and available in sufficient quantities for continuity across production days.

For productions set in specific historical periods or featuring distinctive vehicles as visual elements, the picture car coordinator's network of vehicle sources and expertise in period-appropriate vehicle selection is a specialized craft that directly affects production quality.

Animal Trainers

Local 399's coverage of animal trainers reflects Hollywood's long tradition of animal performance in film and television. Certified animal trainers working under Local 399 agreements must meet American Humane Association standards for the treatment of animals on set, with AHA representatives monitoring productions that include animals under an agreement with the major studios.

For productions involving animal performance, Local 399's animal trainer community provides both the specialized training skills and the welfare compliance framework that protects both the animals and the production from the reputational and practical risks of inadequate animal care.

Casting Directors

Local 399 also covers casting directors working in Hollywood film and television. This coverage -- unusual for a transportation union -- reflects the historical organization of certain casting directors into the Teamsters rather than into IATSE or a dedicated casting professionals' organization. Most casting directors identify professionally with the Casting Society of America (CSA), which provides professional community and standards alongside the Teamsters' labor representation.

What Filmmakers Should Know

For producers budgeting productions that will move between locations, Teamsters Local 399 transportation rates and the number of drivers required are significant budget items that must be accurately estimated in pre-production. Union scale for drivers and transportation captains, plus the cost of production vehicles, represents a meaningful percentage of below-the-line budgets for location-intensive productions.

For productions involving animals, understanding the AHA's monitoring requirements and the Local 399 animal trainer community's professional standards helps producers plan animal sequences with appropriate advance time for training and safety preparation.

See Also

For the IATSE craft locals that share the production workforce with Teamsters, see IATSE in this directory. For casting directors working alongside Teamsters coverage, see Casting Society of America (CSA) in this directory.