Town guide

Filming in Cranford, New Jersey

A production guide to Cranford’s film permit as the Township actually publishes it. Filming here runs through the Police Department rather than a film office, and the permit form carries the insurance schedule, the indemnification and the conduct code in one document.

Cranford is a Film Ready certified locality in Union County. Its insurance wording is stricter than most, and its filing deadline is the one thing the published documents do not agree on.

Everything below comes from the Township’s own permit form, read in full on August 26, 2026. Where Cranford does not publish something a production needs, this page says so rather than filling the gap from another town’s ordinance.

Information checked August 26, 2026

Checked Aug 26 2026

County: Union County
Film Ready status: Film Ready certified locality. Cranford appears on the NJ Motion Picture & Television Commission’s current certified-localities list, checked August 26, 2026. Certification does not guarantee approval, property access or location availability
Municipal starting point: Cranford Police Department. The Township’s film permit form lists three police contacts and no separate film office
Application: “Township of Cranford Film Permit”, a fillable PDF published by the Township and linked from its permits and forms page
Police Chief: Ryan J. Greco · 908-272-2222 · police@cranfordnj.org
Detective/Sergeant: Russell Luedecker · 908-709-7335 · r-luedecker@cranfordnj.org
Detective: James Knight · 908-709-2184 · j-knight@cranfordnj.org
Lead time: Unresolved. Allow at least 15 business days and confirm the current deadline with the Township. See the filing note below
Permit fee: Not stated on the application. Ask the Township. Absence of a published fee is not confirmation that no fee applies
Street closures: An off-duty officer must be hired. Cranford routes officer hiring through Jobs4Blue, a third-party vendor, 877-425-8330
Insurance, organizations: Commercial General Liability $1,000,000 each occurrence; $2,000,000 general aggregate; $2,000,000 products and completed operations aggregate; $1,000,000 personal and advertising injury
Insurance, vehicles: Commercial Automobile Liability $1,000,000 per accident, covering owned, leased, non-owned and hired vehicles
Insurance, workers: Workers’ Compensation per New Jersey statute, plus Employers Liability at $100,000 bodily injury by accident, $500,000 policy limit by disease and $100,000 each employee by disease
Certificate wording: Township of Cranford named as Additional Insured on a Primary and Non-Contributory basis, and Waiver of Subrogation applies, on both the general liability and the automobile policy
Individuals: A certificate of liability with personal liability under a homeowners or similar policy, minimum $1,000,000. Primary and excess may be combined. A special event policy of at least $1,000,000 naming the Township and its officials is accepted instead
Neighbour notice: Required in a neighbourhood or commercial district, covering parking, base camps and meal areas. The Township may ask for a written list of who was contacted
Filming hours: Not published. The application sets no permitted hours. Confirm prep, filming and wrap hours with the Township
Last verified: August 26, 2026

How to begin

Cranford handles filming through its Police Department rather than a dedicated film office or the Clerk. The Township’s own permit form names three police contacts, and those are the people to approach first.

Police Chief Ryan J. Greco · 908-272-2222 · police@cranfordnj.org
Detective/Sergeant Russell Luedecker · 908-709-7335 · r-luedecker@cranfordnj.org
Detective James Knight · 908-709-2184 · j-knight@cranfordnj.org

Download the Township of Cranford Film Permit, a fillable PDF. It is also reachable from the Township’s permits, forms, applications and licenses page. We link the Township’s copy rather than hosting our own, so you always get the current version.

The attached letter is not optional

The form is short, but it requires a separate letter covering:

Filming locations with dates and times
Total number of cast
Total number of crew
A detailed description of the scene to be filmed
A detailed list of cars, box trucks, trailers, campers, vans and any other vehicles
A detailed list of special production equipment, including cranes and drones

Productions that submit the form without this letter are submitting an incomplete application. Build it before you file, not after someone asks.

Filing: what is actually settled, and what is not

Confirm this before you schedule

The lead time is genuinely unresolved, and we are not going to pick one for you.

Cranford’s published filming page states a 15-day filing expectation. The Township’s film permit form, which we read in full on August 26, 2026, states no lead time at all. There is a live question about whether the 15 means calendar days or business days, and the two documents cannot settle it between them.

Plan on at least 15 business days, which is the conservative reading, and get the current deadline confirmed by the Township in writing before you schedule around it. Fifteen business days is roughly three calendar weeks; fifteen calendar days is two. On a tight prep that difference is the whole margin.

We could not open the Township’s filming page directly. It is built to render in a browser and returns an empty document to a plain fetch, so we are not treating a search engine’s summary of it as a source for a number a production would schedule against. The page is here; open it yourself and confirm.

Insurance, in the Township’s own words

Cranford publishes its insurance schedule on the application itself, which is more than most New Jersey municipalities do. Two requirements catch productions out, and both are stated expressly:

Certificate wording

The Township must be named as Additional Insured on a Primary and Non-Contributory basis, and a Waiver of Subrogation must apply. That wording is required on both the general liability and the commercial automobile policy.

Send that sentence to your broker verbatim. A certificate that names the Township as additional insured but omits primary and non-contributory, or omits the waiver, does not meet what Cranford asks for.

Coverage	Minimum required
Commercial General Liability, each occurrence	$1,000,000 bodily injury and property damage combined
General Aggregate, other than products and completed operations	$2,000,000
Products and Completed Operations Aggregate	$2,000,000
Personal and Advertising Injury	$1,000,000
Commercial Automobile Liability	$1,000,000 per accident, owned, leased, non-owned and hired
Workers’ Compensation	As required by New Jersey statute
Employers Liability, bodily injury by accident	$100,000
Employers Liability, bodily injury by disease, policy limit	$500,000
Employers Liability, bodily injury by disease, each employee	$100,000

Filming as an individual rather than a company? Cranford accepts a certificate of liability with personal liability under a homeowners or similar policy at a minimum of $1,000,000, and says a combination of primary and excess limits may be used to reach it, with declarations pages as evidence. A special event policy of at least $1,000,000 naming the Township, its elected and appointed officials, employees, officers, agents, volunteers, boards, commissions, representatives, professionals and insurers as additional insureds is accepted as an alternative.

The application also carries a full indemnification and hold-harmless clause. It survives even where the Township is alleged to have contributed to the claim, except for the Township’s own willful misconduct or sole negligence, and it extends to attorneys’ and other professionals’ fees. Read it before you sign rather than after.

The Township expressly reserves the right to impose additional requirements before issuing a permit, and to revoke a permit if unforeseen circumstances make that necessary.

Police, street closures and Township services

The application asks two separate questions that drive cost: whether Township services are required, giving hiring police and reserved parking as the examples, and whether a street closure is requested.

Officer hiring

A street closure requires hiring an off-duty officer, and Cranford routes that hiring through a third-party vendor rather than handling it in-house.

Jobs4Blue · 877-425-8330. The Township names this vendor on the application form itself.

No rate is published. The Township does not publish a standard hourly rate for officers, traffic control or other departmental services, and neither does the application. Contact the listed police contacts, and Jobs4Blue for officer cost, for a project-specific estimate before scheduling filming. Do not read the absence of a published rate as an indication that these services are free.

Moving or towing the public’s vehicles is prohibited without express municipal permission, and production vehicles may not park in or block driveways without permission from both the municipality and the driveway owner.

Declared activity, notice and conduct on location

Declare these on the form. Cranford asks you to tick any that apply, and each of them can pull in a separate approval or a separate department:

Animals
Firearms
Fireworks
Special effects
Pyrotechnics
Amplified music

The form also asks you to identify any celebrities or high-profile individuals, which is a crowd and traffic question rather than a courtesy.

Neighbour notice

When filming in a neighbourhood or commercial district, Cranford expects proper notice to each merchant or resident directly affected, and it counts parking, base camps and meal areas as affecting people.

The notice must state the name of the company, the name of the production, a company contact, the kind of production, and the type and duration of activity.

In certain situations the Township may require a written list of who was notified, with name, address, contact information, the date contacted and whether they are willing to work with the production. Keep that list from the beginning; reconstructing it later is painful.

Students and news crews. A student film requires proof of current enrolment and evidence that the request relates to a course or curriculum requirement. News media is separately defined on the form as photography or filming for a television news broadcast, or reporting for print or digital media by reporters, photographers or cameramen.

Cranford attaches the Filmmaker’s Code of Professional Responsibility to its permit and asks the producer to sign it. It covers crew passes, parking discipline, meal areas, trash, signage, vegetation, sidewalk use, smoking and resident access. One item is worth flagging for scheduling: in residential areas and after 10:00 p.m., noise levels are to be kept as low as possible, and generators and exhaust-producing vehicles placed as far as practical from residential buildings.

That 10:00 p.m. line is a noise instruction, not a curfew. The application sets no permitted filming hours at all. Do not plan a night shoot on the assumption that 10:00 p.m. is your wrap, and do not assume it is not. Ask the Township to confirm your prep, filming and wrap hours in writing.

What we are not publishing for Cranford

Three things a production will want that Cranford does not currently put in writing, stated plainly rather than guessed at:

A permit fee. The application names none. That is not the same as filming being free. Ask.
Filming hours. No permitted hours appear on the application.
Police and departmental rates. None published. Officer cost runs through Jobs4Blue.

We also do not publish a Township Clerk or film liaison for Cranford, because the controlling document we could read routes filming through the Police Department and names no one else. If the Township has since designated a film liaison, that is a change we would want to know about.

Common questions

Who issues a film permit in Cranford?

Cranford routes filming through its Police Department rather than a dedicated film office. The Township's own film permit form lists Police Chief Ryan J. Greco, Detective/Sergeant Russell Luedecker and Detective James Knight as the contacts, with direct phone numbers and email addresses. Start with them.

How far in advance should a production file in Cranford?

This is not settled by the documents we could read. Cranford's filming webpage states a 15-day expectation, while the film permit form itself states no lead time at all, and there is an open question about whether the 15 means calendar days or business days. Allow at least 15 business days, which is the conservative reading, and confirm the current deadline with the Township before scheduling.

What does Cranford require on the insurance certificate?

The Township must be named as Additional Insured on a Primary and Non-Contributory basis, and a Waiver of Subrogation must apply, on both the general liability and the commercial automobile policy. Minimum limits are $1,000,000 per occurrence with a $2,000,000 general aggregate, $1,000,000 per accident on automobile liability, and Workers' Compensation with Employers Liability. Individuals may use a homeowners or special event policy of at least $1,000,000 instead.

Does Cranford charge a film permit fee?

No fee appears on the Township's film permit form. That is not a statement that filming is free, and it should not be budgeted as one. Ask the Township directly. Separately, a street closure requires hiring an off-duty officer through Jobs4Blue, and no rate for that is published.

What are the permitted filming hours in Cranford?

Cranford does not publish permitted filming hours, and its application sets none. The Filmmaker's Code attached to the permit asks that noise be kept as low as possible in residential areas after 10:00 p.m., but that is a noise instruction rather than a curfew. Confirm your prep, filming and wrap hours with the Township in writing.

Official sources

Checked August 26, 2026 against the Township of Cranford Film Permit form served by cranfordnj.org and the State certified-localities list. The Township’s filming webpage is client-rendered and could not be read by a non-JavaScript fetch, so no figure on this page is sourced from it Report a correction or updated permit requirement.

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Reviewed by Sam Moskowitz, producer & director of photography

This guide is researched and reviewed by Sam Moskowitz, a New Jersey-based producer and DP who runs BLL Films. Sam’s production and cinematography credits include work for Netflix, History Channel, Hulu, the NFL and Google. Every changing fact on this page carries a verification date; see how this site is researched for the full process.

More town production guides

Comparing municipalities? See every Film Ready town in New Jersey, or search a specific town’s published permit, fee and contact details in the New Jersey Film Permit Finder.