talent—so scheduling a day of shooting in the ballroom of the most expensive hotel downtown is probably not going to be an option. With $200,000, however, the ballroom is something you can realistically consider. Keeping your budgetary limitations in mind is the key to creating a realistic schedule.

Producing

“Producer” is probably the most confusing job title in the entertainment industry. First of all, there are many different types of producers. So what exactly is a producer? Some producers are financiers. They either invest personally in films or they raise money from other investors. Other producers deal with the “business” of making a film. They manage the budget, the schedule, and the staff. Other producers are creative producers. They make decisions about everything from story to casting to marketing. In television, the term “producer” can be someone who takes on the role that most people traditionally consider to be the director’s job, and it can

also be the writer. The TV series equivalent of writer-director is known as the “showrunner” and that person usually has a title of “executive producer.” There can be upward of five executive producers on a TV show, but typically only one or two of them are actually running the show. The upshot is that a producer can wear many hats, especially when the project is lower budget and has a smaller staff as a result.

Just as producers wear many hats, there are many software-based tools that producers find useful:

nSpreadsheet software, such as Microsoft Excel

nTask management software, such as Omni Focus

nCalendars

nProject management software, such as Microsoft Project, Movie Magic Scheduling, Gorilla, or Celtz

nDocument organization or paperless office software, such as DevonThink Pro

nOutline creation software, such as Omni Outliner

nOnline document sharing, such as Google Docs (although some prefer a private network solution)

nAccounting software, such as Intuit QuickBooks and Movie Magic Budgeting

nFilm-oriented document templates, such as those available at subscription-based Web sites like www.filmproposals.com.

Breaking Down a Script

The first step in creating a shooting schedule is to analyze your script to determine exactly what you’ll need in terms of cast, crew, locations, props, and other resources. Fill out a breakdown sheet for every scene in your movie, using a form like the one shown in Figure 2.5. Script breakdown marks the first time that you’ll need to translate your vision of each scene into a list of tangible things. Be meticulous as you make these lists, so that you don’t leave out anything important. It’s also a good idea to consult with your director of photography, art director, costume designer, and so forth during this process.

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Figure 2.5

A sample breakdown sheet. To begin scheduling, you need to fill out such a sheet for each scene in your script. (A template for this breakdown sheet, Breakdown Sheet.pdf, is included on the Chapter 2 page of the companion Web site.)

Now a breakdown exercise. Read the text of the scene from Shakespeare’s Richard III, which is on the www.thedigitalfilmmakinghandbook.com Web site in standard screenplay format (Richard III.pdf on the Chapter 2 page), and determine how you want to interpret the scene. Will you create a period piece set during the actual reign of Richard III? Will you transpose the scene to the modern-day White House? Or maybe an inner-city gangster drama? Use your creativity and come up with something you’d enjoy directing. Then print out the script breakdown sheet, also on the Chapter 2 page of the Web site (Breakdown Sheet.pdf ) and start filling it out. Who are the cast members? Will there be extras? What props do you need? Where is the location?

Choosing a Shooting Order

Once you’ve determined the resources you’ll need for each scene, you can start to organize your shoot accordingly. You might organize the shoot in terms of your locations, shooting all of the scenes in the main character’s house first, then all of the scenes at his job, and so on. Or you might organize the shoot based on the availability of cast members, or the need for special shooting conditions, such as a blue-screen stage or a rainstorm. Or you might want to schedule the biggest, most expensive, most complicated scene first to guarantee that it gets shot before you run out of money, or last to make sure that you don’t blow your entire budget on a single expensive scene.

If you organize the shoot in one of these ways, you’ll be shooting out of sequence. It’s very common to shoot out of sequence, but many people prefer to shoot as close to the script order as is reasonably possible to get better performances from the actors. Just imagine if you were an actor and had to shoot a scene where you celebrated your first wedding anniversary one day, and then shot the scene where you first met your wife on the next day. On the other hand, if your movie includes a subplot about a terrorist who never interacts with the main characters until the final scene, you can easily shoot all those subplot scenes out of order without making things difficult for the actors.

Scheduling Preproduction

A rule of thumb is that you need the same number of days for production prep time (securing locations, props, wardrobe, permits, travel plans, and so on) as you need for the shoot itself. So if you are planning a 15-day shoot, you’ll need 15 days of prep time to set it up properly.

How Much Can You Shoot in a Day?

Traditionally, most film productions aim to shoot a certain number of pages each day. Studio films often shoot about two pages per day, whereas many independent filmmakers must opt for a less luxurious schedule, often shooting upward of eight pages per day. Of course, this all depends on what you are shooting. Typically, a page of dialogue requires much less time to shoot than a page of action does. A page that includes special effects or complicated camera moves will require even more time.

To plan your day’s shoot, you can use these basic rules of thumb:

nOne script page takes an hour to shoot (not including setting up the lighting, and so on) so most productions can count on shooting 5–8 pages per day.

nChanging the lighting setup, or moving all the lights around so that you can shoot from another angle, usually takes an hour.

nChanging locations, sometimes called a company move, takes about three hours, assuming the next location is nearby.

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Chaos Theory

Why is good scheduling important? Consider the following production schedule scenario for a medium-budget production with a union cast and crew:

You’re shooting a Western on location in Arizona. Everything’s good to go, you have a bunch of extras, four actors, and a union crew. After getting everyone from the airport to the location— which counts as a day of paid labor plus per diem money for cast and crew—you awaken at your desert location the next day to a giant thunderstorm. It’s short-lived, but now the dusty town isn’t very dusty. Luckily, you’ve prepared for just such an event by scheduling alternate “cover sets” throughout your shoot. Therefore, you move everyone into the saloon to shoot the gambling scene. Unfortunately, you don’t need your lead actress for this scene, but you’ll have to pay her anyway, since anything less than a 10-day break is considered a “holding” day in a SAG (Screen Actor’s Guild) agreement. To “hold” her, you’ll have to pay her.

Because of the delays due to changing locations, you’re only going to shoot one page of script instead of the three that you were aiming for that day. Moreover, you have a very early, 3:00 A.M. call tomorrow for some crew members, and you have to give them 12 hours of “turnaround”— the time between the “wrap” of one day’s shoot and the “call” of the next day’s shoot. This means that your lighting crew and art department must leave the set at 3:00 P.M., to have enough turnaround time before you need them at 3:00 A.M. the next morning.

It’s hectic, and you’re patting yourself on the back for having it all under control, when your lead actor takes you aside and explains that shooting the gambling scene out of sequence is a big problem for him, motivation-wise, so he’d prefer to shoot the scene in the barn where he has a heart-to-heart talk with his horse. Unfortunately, the horses don’t arrive until tomorrow.

WHAT TO WATCH

Lost in La Mancha is a documentary about the attempted making of a feature film based on “Don Quixote” by director Terry Gilliam. It is probably the most extreme example of what can go wrong during the filming of a movie, and it was all captured on videotape by a secondary crew. Also good are Burden of Dreams and Hearts of Darkness.

Production Boards

Shooting schedules for feature films use a tool developed long before the advent of computers: the production board. Production boards provide a method for tracking a very large amount of information in a way that’s modifiable and portable. Using the information that’s entered in the breakdown sheets (refer back to Figure 2.5), you create a production strip for each scene in the film. Each production strip contains the duration of the scene (in script pages), the slugline of the scene, and a one-line description of the scene. The production strips are placed in a set of production boards. The result is a spreadsheet with rows of cast member names and other important elements, and columns for each scene in the movie (Figure 2.6).

At the intersections of the rows and columns, you can see which cast members are involved in a scene, and when those scenes will be shot. In addition to cast members, you can list special props and equipment. The final set of production boards is a hard-backed folder that is taken onto the set for easy reference. Because each scene is on a separate, removable strip, you can easily rearrange the scene order on the fly if, for example, an actor gets sick or the location is rained out. Production boards allow for the type of thinking on your feet that’s always necessary during a shoot. Old-school production boards can still be purchased at stationers who specialize in serving the entertainment industry.

Film Scheduling Software

No matter what your project, film production scheduling software such as Movie Magic Scheduling, Gorilla, or Celtz can be invaluable. These apps can import properly formatted screenplays and automatically create breakdown sheets (refer to Figure 2.5) and production boards (Figure 2.6).

Figure 2.6

Production boards organize the details of your shoot in a simple- to-read spreadsheet format.