What makes a good wrap gift for a film crew

A trucker hat from a camp that doesn't exist is still the best crew gear I can think of.

In season three of Stranger Things, Dustin comes home from science camp in a green and yellow trucker hat that says CAMP KNOW WHERE. The camp doesn't exist. You can still buy a copy of the hat online.

I think about that hat every time a production asks me for wrap gift ideas. It's a mesh-back snapback. We sell that kind of hat for about $11.50 each when you order 150, which makes it one of the cheapest things we make, and it's the one everybody remembers.

You already know these

The red beanie from The Life Aquatic. Everybody on Team Zissou wears the same one, a nod to Jacques Cousteau's crew, and people still dress up in it. The Dude's cardigan. The green tracksuits in Squid Game. Maverick's jacket with all the patches.

None of those are hard to make or expensive. Somebody decided exactly what went on them and then put the same one on everybody. A wrap gift works the same way, you just have less money than a costume department.

Nobody keeps it for the show name

Most wrap gifts get ordered backwards. Someone picks a hoodie, puts the show name across the chest in big letters and hands them out on the last day. Then they go in a drawer, because nobody wanted the hoodie in the first place.

Dustin's hat has a real design on the front and somebody sat down and picked those colors. You'd wear it if you'd never seen the show. That's why people still do.

Same goes for the item itself. If nobody on your crew has ever worn a quarter-zip, 80 quarter-zips won't change that.

The best one I ever got was a tote bag

Can You Ever Forgive Me? is about Lee Israel, who forged letters from dead writers like Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward and sold them to collectors. At wrap I got a tote bag with one of the letters printed on the outside.

The title's on there too, but it's on the inside flap, so you only see it if it's your bag. On the street it's a tote with a weird old letter on it. If you worked on that movie you know exactly what it is.

I still use it. And whoever came up with it didn't get the idea from watching the movie, because there wasn't a movie yet. They read the script.

What to put on a crew hat

On a hat, the front is what makes somebody want to wear it. Put something there with some thought behind it, like a joke the crew's been running since week two, or the fake business from episode four. The show name and season go on the back, small.

We charge per logo, so yes, the second one costs more. One logo is $7.50 to $10 a piece and two is $15, so on 80 hats you're adding $400 to $600. That's less than you'd lose on 80 hats nobody wears.

Spend $25 a head on one good thing

The other great wrap gift I got was a waterproof Patagonia duffle with the show's name on it. That was six years ago. It still looks new and I still use it. I couldn't tell you what else I got that year.

Say you've got $25 a head for 80 people. That's $2,000. You can split it between a tote and a keychain for everybody, or spend it on one thing that's a little nicer than people expect. They'll use the second one.

Where wrap gift orders go wrong

Sizes, mostly. Don't order an even spread from small to XXL. Order what your crew wears. The ADs have the list.

Then timing. Our two weeks assumes stock items and artwork we already have. A 250-hat run in a specific color, or a brand we have to go find for you, takes longer, and the last week of production is a bad time to find that out.

Back to the hat

Dustin's hat is a cheap mesh trucker from a camp that doesn't exist, and it's still the one everybody remembers. Somebody cared what went on the front. Do that for your crew and the hats stay out of the drawer.

Films and series named above belong to their makers and are mentioned here as examples. Green Location Signs is not affiliated with any of them.