Production Rigger Jobs in California (NOW HIRING)

ABOUT DHAR MANN STUDIOS
Dhar Mann Studios is one of the most-watched digital media companies in the world, creating mission-driven content for the social media generation. Our short, inspirational videos centered on life, business, and relationships generate more than 1 billion monthly views and have amassed over 70 billion views across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Led by Dhar Mann, a mission-driven entrepreneur with a global audience of over 160+ million followers, the company exists to do more than entertain. We create stories that make an impact. We are not just telling stories, we are changing lives.
BIG PICTURE
Dhar Mann Studios is entering one of the most important operational transitions in the company's history: moving from our current Burbank production footprint into a new San Fernando Valley studio facility designed to support the next era of high-volume scripted content. To ensure the move becomes an operational upgrade, not just a real estate upgrade, we are looking for a world-class production operator, studio move consultant, or production efficiency expert to help us design one of the most cost-effective, high-output scripted content studios anywhere.
Today, Dhar Mann Studios operates roughly 10 crews across 3 stages and 2 homes in Burbank, with approximately 65 standing sets, producing 5+ hours of scripted content per week. A typical 25-minute episode currently shoots over approximately 5 days. Our next operating leap is to ask a much harder question: what would it take to move toward dramatically faster production cycles, potentially even 1-day scripted episode shoots, while maintaining a high creative bar?
The new facility is a 4-acre lot with a 145,000 sq. ft. studio, including 5 soundstages totaling roughly 50,000 sq. ft., 95 offices/production spaces, and another 50,000 sq. ft. of usable space. The opportunity is massive. So is the risk. A bigger facility can either unlock step-function efficiency or quietly multiply waste. The right person will help us avoid the second outcome.
This is not a traditional studio buildout role, and it is not the day-to-day project manager role. We are looking for the expert who helps us decide what the future operating model should be: what to reuse, what to rebuild, what to eliminate, what to pre-rig, what technology to test, and what workflows must change before we lock ourselves into a larger version of today's constraints.
You will evaluate the space, pressure-test ideas, challenge assumptions, and make practical recommendations across stages, standing sets, technical infrastructure, equipment packages, department layout, and production workflow. The Project Manager will own execution tracking; you will own the expert diagnosis, strategic recommendations, and operating design that execution is built around. This role requires someone practical, scrappy, deeply experienced, allergic to unnecessary spending, and strong enough to challenge assumptions from every department.
HOW YOU'LL SPEND YOUR TIME

• Audit the current production operation across stages, homes, standing sets, props, wardrobe, art, lighting, camera, sound, facilities, storage, offices, and crew flow.
• Establish current production baselines and future KPIs, including shoot days per episode, reset time, stage utilization, cost per finished minute, crew flow, and bottlenecks.
• Evaluate the new facility and recommend how stages, offices, production spaces, storage areas, department zones, shared infrastructure, and crew pathways should be configured.
• Identify which current sets, assets, equipment, workflows, and infrastructure should be reused, modified, rebuilt, retired, or replaced.
• Assess whether virtual production, green screen, LED walls, AI tools, game engines, pre-lighting, pre-rigging, or other emerging technologies could realistically make DMS faster, cheaper, or more creatively flexible.
• Recommend stage layouts, standing set strategies, modular set systems, swing sets, redress systems, storage approaches, lighting infrastructure, camera packages, sound workflows, and other practical production improvements.
• Help leadership understand the tradeoffs between speed, quality, cost, flexibility, culture, safety, and capital investment.
• Build a capital spend/ROI framework so every major investment is tied to measurable efficiency, quality, or cost savings.
• Pressure-test new technology, processes, and operating modes through practical pilots before major spend.
• Partner with production, art, wardrobe, hair/makeup, props, facilities, booking, finance, post, creative, and executive leadership to understand current pain points and future needs.
• Challenge existing processes that may be comfortable but inefficient, especially where the move creates a chance to rebuild the system correctly.
• Translate recommendations into clear operating plans, diagrams, vendor scope recommendations, staffing implications, budget logic, decision frameworks, and implementation guidance for the Project Manager and internal teams.
• Identify ways the art department can create many distinct looks without adding unnecessary complexity, cost, or reset time.
• Support vendor evaluation, contractor conversations, equipment planning, and buildout prioritization where your expertise is needed.
• Create the strategic documentation, operating principles, and handoff materials required for internal teams to execute and sustain the new operating model.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

• DMS has a clear, cost-conscious production efficiency and relocation strategy before major money is spent.
• Leadership understands exactly what must move, what must change, what should be eliminated, and where capital should be deployed.The new facility is designed around high-output digital production, not traditional studio functions.
• Existing assets are reused intelligently without recreating old inefficiencies.
• Stage layouts, standing sets, department locations, equipment packages, and workflows are designed for speed, repeatability, quality, and cost discipline.
• The company has a credible path toward reducing shoot time per episode while protecting quality.
• Recommendations are practical enough for a Project Manager and internal department owners to execute.
• Capital spend is disciplined, justified, and tied to measurable production outcomes.

WHAT YOU HAVE

• 10+ years of experience in studio operations, physical production, production consulting, production efficiency, scripted content operations, studio buildouts, or high-volume media operations.
• Proven experience building, running, optimizing, or consulting for a high-output content studio, production company, creator studio, broadcast operation, or scripted production environment.
• Strong practical judgment around low-budget, high-volume production, not just premium TV, film, or commercial production.
• Deep understanding of the full production lifecycle, including pre-production, production, art, sets, props, wardrobe, hair/makeup, camera, lighting, sound, facilities, scheduling, and post-production handoffs.
• Experience improving production throughput, reducing waste, simplifying workflows, and designing repeatable operating systems.
• Ability to evaluate physical spaces and translate them into efficient production, office, storage, and department layouts.
• Strong understanding of standing sets, stage planning, production design, lighting grids, technical infrastructure, equipment workflows, and crew movement.
• Familiarity with virtual production, green screen, LED volume, AI production tools, game engines, and emerging production technology with the judgment to know when they are useful versus expensive distractions.
• Strong budgeting instincts and the ability to separate nice-to-have ideas from investments that actually move the business.
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills and the ability to work with executives, department heads, creatives, operators, vendors, and crew.
• Direct, decisive, low-ego communication style with the confidence to push back when the current plan is expensive, impractical, or operationally weak.
• Strong documentation skills, including roadmaps, scopes, layouts, operating plans, SOPs, cost-benefit analyses, and executive summaries.
• Willingness to be on-site regularly in Los Angeles throughout the planning and execution process.

WHO OVERSEES YOU
This role reports to Sean Atkins and works closely with executive leadership, Head of Production, production management, art department leadership, facilities, finance, creative leadership, and department heads across the studio.
This role requires strong peer leadership. You will need to influence teams that do not report to you by creating clarity, earning trust, challenging assumptions, and following through.
WHO YOU OVERSEE
This is an individual consultant role. You may coordinate with internal stakeholders, vendors, contractors, department leads, and project-based resources as needed. You will work closely with the Studio Relocation Project Manager, who will own execution tracking, task follow-up, documentation upkeep, and timeline management.
WHERE IT ALL GOES DOWN
This role is based in Los Angeles, CA, with regular on-site work at both the current Dhar Mann Studios facility and the new studio facility. This is not a remote strategy role. The work requires walking stages, auditing spaces, pressure-testing workflows, and seeing the operation firsthand.
WHEN THE MAGIC HAPPENS
This is a project-based consulting engagement expected to run 3 months initially, with potential extension through buildout, relocation, launch, and post-move optimization. Schedule will vary based on project phase, but candidates should expect regular weekday availability, on-site walkthroughs, leadership meetings, vendor coordination, and occasional off-hour support around production or move-critical windows.