At Filmwerks International, Inc., when employees brainstorm about the next big thing, they’re talking serious tonnage.

The film and event equipment rental business serves clients all over the U.S. with hefty equipment that provides temporary power generation, lighting, air conditioning and staging. Its projects are diverse and often vast.

Bill Link, Filmwerks’ shop manager, reels off a few highlights since he started at the company in June: delivering and setting up mobile air conditioners at the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show, and providing the stages for the Muscadine Festival in Kenansville, as well as for the Fourth of July celebration at Camp Lejeune. As he spoke, a super-sized semi was pulling out of Filmwerks’ Rocky Point lot with two 40-ton generators to power a Zac Brown Band concert in Charleston.

“One of these generators can run a whole store for a couple of days,” he said. “During the power outage from Hurricane Irene, they were in Harris Teeter stores.”

Link also supervises the company’s metal fabrication facility that enables the Filmwerks crew to take an idea, create a design, and build the product.

“So, what we don’t have, we make,” he said.

Filmwerks’ managing partner Michael Satrazemis seems to have a knack for anticipating the needs of producers, whether in film, television, or live entertainment. He has developed two successful companies by meeting those needs.

Satrazemis started his career in California at Hollywood Rental, a lighting supplier and grip company for the movie industry. Over a period of years he did a significant amount of lighting and set design in North Carolina, and urged the company to open a branch location in Charlotte.

When Hollywood Rental went public soon afterward, Satrazemis decided to go into business for himself. Choosing North Carolina as his base of operations, he founded Motion Picture & Events, which supplied high-quality equipment, mostly to clients in the film industry.

“Then NASCAR took off,” he said. “When ESPN came in to televise it, they sought us out because there was no adequate source of the right power equipment. TV, particularly if it’s live, requires high-quality power, just like film.”

When Motion Picture & Events was sold to United Rental, Satrazemis signed a non-compete agreement that prohibited him from renting generators. He turned to a new endeavor, founding Filmwerks (with business partner Steve Thompson, a gaffer and cinematographer) to supply mobile stages and studios for the TV industry. Locally, “Dawson’s Creek” and “One Tree Hill” used their equipment from their inception; so did other TV shows and a growing number of outdoor concert producers.

With the end of his non-compete agreement, Satrazemis saw much of his former business return, so Filmwerks now handles a full range of equipment to support movies, TV and more. It maintains locations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and Miami, working with a host of sub-contractors all over the country. In addition to its giant air conditioning units, generators, mobile stages and lighting towers, the company offers such specialty items as 4,000-watt umbrella ball lights and custom inflatable structures.

“We’re doing the World Series, NFL Football, and Carrier Classic, which is a basketball tournament being held on an aircraft carrier in San Diego,” Satrazemis said. “We recently got an Emmy in technical supervision for CBS Golf.”

Satrazemis loves living in Wilmington and is committed to keeping his base here, even though it’s pricey to move equipment from his five-acre plant in Rocky Point to customers’ sites all over the country.

His roots are in film, and his company has a close working relationship with Screen Gems. Filmwerks has had a hand – or machine – in virtually every feature that has been shot locally, including current project “Arthur Newman.”