The shooting schedule decides in what order and on which days the scenes will be shot. Done well, it saves entire days. Here's the method and the constraints to respect, then how to get it automatically.
In short
- The shooting schedule organizes the shooting order of scenes into days, to minimize costs and constraints.
- Key rules: group by set, shoot interiors and exteriors at the right time, limit actor callbacks, respect ~8-10 h per day.
- It follows from the breakdown and feeds the budget (number of shooting days).
What is a shooting schedule?
A film is never shot in screenplay order. The shooting schedule reorganizes the scenes to group them intelligently: by set, by actor, by lighting condition, to shoot as fast and as cheaply as possible.
The resulting number of shooting days is the main budget lever: each day costs the crew, the equipment, the logistics.
The constraints to respect
A good shooting schedule is a compromise between several often-contradictory constraints.
- Group scenes from the same set on the same days (you don't set up a set twice).
- Shoot real night scenes (night exteriors) together to avoid alternating hours.
- Minimize actor callbacks: fewer days present = fewer fees and per diems.
- Respect a reasonable working span (often 8 to 10 h of useful shooting per day).
- Account for actor and location availability, weather and travel between sets.
The method, step by step
By hand, you start from the breakdown and manipulate strips or a spreadsheet to group the scenes.
- 1. List all scenes with set, day/night and estimated duration.
- 2. Group by set then by condition (day/night).
- 3. Split into days while respecting the hours limit.
- 4. Adjust to minimize actor callbacks and travel.
- 5. Lock real dates (availability, weather, public holidays).
Generate and recalculate automatically
Optimizing a shooting schedule by hand over 80 scenes is a headache, and it all has to be redone as soon as one scene changes. It's an optimization problem the machine solves well.
Soldum builds the shooting schedule from your breakdown (grouping by set, actor and location constraints, travel) and recalculates it automatically with every change. It also derives the real number of days, used for the budget.
What's your pre-production challenge?
Frequently asked questions
In what order is a film shot?
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Rarely in screenplay order: you group by set and lighting condition to avoid re-setting a set or paying a crew twice. That's the role of the shooting schedule.
How do you estimate the number of shooting days?
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It depends on the number of scenes, their complexity and grouping by set. An optimized schedule gives the real number of days: Soldum computes it automatically from the breakdown.