Creating, reading, sending, distributing, and receiving shooting schedules can be a real hassle. They often don’t provide all the necessary information about the shoot, yet a lot of time and energy are dedicated to creating them. Moreover, they often contain unnecessary and unused information.
Shooting schedules can be quite boring. But they are also absolutely essential. When I started creating my first shooting schedules, the more experienced people on my team immediately realized that I was an amateur. Shooting schedules are there to inform people about what they need to know. Where to be. What time. What they will be doing.
On a large-scale project, with professional actors and technicians, creating a shooting schedule is absolutely necessary. We can help you by providing some excellent FREE shooting schedule templates and free shooting schedule software options. (Please, never pay to create a shooting schedule).
BUT, let’s imagine you are working on something smaller and there is no one who really needs a shooting schedule. For these projects, we will explain what alternatives you have to the old and boring traditional shooting schedule.
Because we understand. If you are trying to shoot with just five people, and you want to spend the previous day preparing in a meaningful and efficient way, you don’t want to create a shooting schedule.
So let’s talk about what you can do instead to achieve the same goals.
What is a shooting schedule?
A shooting schedule is a daily document that describes the shooting timeline, including the location and time at which actors and the production team must be present. It is created by the assistant director and the assistant director’s department based on the director’s plans and shot list.
But a shooting schedule contains much more information. Weather. Sunrise time. Nearest hospital. Parking details. Phone numbers. The meaning of life.
On a large shoot, there is an assistant director who spends a significant portion of their day creating the shooting schedule for the next day. It may seem like a huge waste of resources, but for a truly important project, it is necessary. However, Hollywood is not exactly known for spending money frugally.
But we are not here to talk about Hollywood’s financial management today! We are here to help you understand what type of shooting schedule you need and how to create it.
How to create a shooting schedule?
Creating a shooting schedule is not complicated. But mistakes can accumulate and become costly.
The key to success lies in good communication with the rest of the team, so you can do it efficiently. Be precise, double-check everything, and have someone else proofread it.
Let’s break down each section and explain what you need for each of them.
TITLE
Enter the film title here.
CALL TIME
Specify the call time for the general crew at the top of the schedule. You can provide individual call times below, but this is usually the time when everyone should be present.
DATE
You can probably guess what this is about.
SHOOTING DAY
This information is important for some people in your team to have an idea of how much time is left before they can interact with the outside world. Are we close to the end? Are we in the middle? What’s my name? How did I get here? This is not my beautiful C-stand.
LUNCH
It is convenient to give a few key times in the shooting schedule. This indicates that you want to respect these times and that you won’t forget to feed everyone. Don’t keep everyone on set forever. Specify the wrap time, and even “tail lights” (which indicates to everyone that it’s not the end of the last shot, but they can actually LEAVE the set and cry in their car wondering why they got into production in the first place. Sorry, it’s getting dark.
NEAREST HOSPITAL
You need to include this information in your shooting schedule because even though you hope you never have to use it, it is probably the most important thing to include. Let’s be honest, life on set can be dangerous and everyone can forget that. In case of an injury, you need to know where the nearest emergency medical facility is. Don’t make the mistake of just finding the address of a nearby medical clinic on Google Maps. You might end up driving someone seriously injured to a closed dental office.
LOCATIONS
List all the locations for the day, including the address and contact information of the person in charge at each location. Also mention…
PARKING
Every shooting location should have parking options clearly indicated for actors and the production team. Don’t waste time because someone can’t find a parking spot. Don’t spend time helping someone find a parking spot. Don’t spend money paying a parking ticket received by the Director of Photography. Plan for this in advance.
SCENE AND DESCRIPTION
It can be very helpful to have a mini breakdown here so everyone can check it the day before and see what will be needed for the day. Who knows, someone might do it one day.
CASTING
Casting information is useful because each actor may have a different call time, so you can stagger their schedules. If some actors need time to get ready and you only have one hairstylist, you will need to stagger the schedules. Or maybe you have a character that requires intensive makeup and needs to arrive very early for that. Either way, this is where you can indicate these details, also specifying the time you want them ready to shoot.
ADVANCE PROGRAM
This section gives people an idea of what will happen in the coming days, so they can prepare or have something to cry about when they go home.
INDIVIDUAL SCHEDULES
Shooting schedules often list all the personnel from each department at the end, along with the time they should be called to set. If you have a large team with many elements to manage, the individual schedules in this section can be very helpful. If your team is small and everyone is arriving at the same time, you may not need to bother with all of this.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Shooting schedules often also include the contact information of various team members here.
You need to confirm with each person if they agree to have their phone number listed on the shooting schedule. In theory, you would have the contacts of department heads and certainly someone from the production team, but don’t include the star’s phone number on the shooting schedule.
That covers the basics of a traditional shooting schedule. Now, let’s talk about how to do away with most of these elements.
The quick and simple alternative to a shooting schedule
Let’s talk about ways to save time. You have a shoot with less than ten people and you don’t want to spend your time, or anyone else’s, creating and managing a full shooting schedule.
The first thing to do is make sure that all cast and crew members are willing to work without a formal shooting schedule. They may not be. In which case… sigh… you will have to create a complete shooting schedule.
BUT assuming everyone is ready to do things quickly and simply, you need to quickly prioritize the information you will send to everyone and write it down to send both by email and SMS.
We suggest including the following information in the following order:
- Call time.
- Date.
- Location address.
- Parking information.
- Scenes being shot.
- Nearest hospital.
That’s it. Put all this information in bold and big. Send it by email AND SMS. Simple, easy, quick, and it covers the essentials.
The best part? With the traditional shooting schedule process, it is common to “follow up” with everyone via SMS or phone call. Just to make sure everyone has received it. You can even ask them to confirm once they’ve received it, and you will get a notification.
But this is much simpler for them and for you. All they have to do is “like” your SMS. Or reply “received” to your email.
Modern technology makes things easy. Why add extra steps? Wouldn’t you rather start thinking about shooting or maybe take a break?
Of course, you would. All of this may seem obvious in a way, but we’re explaining why.
On a large shoot, you really need the big shooting schedule. It is the only document that contains all the relevant information for the day.
On a small shoot, you still need to convey these essential details, but it is actually faster to do it individually and select the KEY elements.
