Local Fixer Services

Fixing in China is a relationship business. Guanxi, the long-standing reciprocal relationship network that opens doors and clears paperwork, is the operational advantage that separates a working fixer from a directory listing. Our Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong fixers have spent careers servicing the international productions that route through China: Discovery and National Geographic documentary units, BBC and History Channel features, Netflix and Disney+ specials, Apple TV+ and Amazon Prime series, and the major studio runs that have shot here over the past two decades.

Here is how this works in practice. Mission: Impossible units, Bond locations, Marvel China shoots and the corporate work for the Western brands that flag in for Chinese New Year campaigns. They bridge Mandarin, Cantonese and English on the same shooting day, and they hold direct relationships at NRTA (the National Radio and Television Administration), CFCC (the China Film Co-Production Corporation), the Cultural Relics Bureau for heritage sites, CAAC for drone permits, and the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio and TV, Shanghai Film Bureau and provincial film bureaus that issue location-specific permits. Z-visa and M-visa work coordination through the National Immigration Administration, ATA Carnet and temporary import permits for camera packages, and the Chinese co-production partner arrangements that foreign productions need all run through them.

Day-to-day the fixer absorbs the regulatory load so the production can stay on the page. Our fixers prepare the script submission and production-plan dossier that NRTA reviews, coordinate the CFCC co-production permit through its four to twelve week certification window, route Public Security Bureau coordination for road work and crowd scenes, and handle the sensitive-area paperwork for Tibet, Xinjiang and military-adjacent zones where extra approvals apply.

The picture on the ground is more specific. They book studio space at Hengdian World Studios, Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis and the Wanda Qingdao stages, source Mandarin-speaking crew, manage cross-border data and SAFE foreign-exchange paperwork against the Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law and 2021 PIPL framework that govern footage moving in and out of the country, and stand between the production and the local film bureau monitor on set.

A few details matter here. When something breaks — a permit recheck, an air-quality red alert in Beijing, a sudden Cultural Relics Bureau time-slot shift at the Great Wall, a Golden Week or Chinese New Year shutdown collision with the schedule — our fixers solve it in Mandarin inside the same shooting day.