Every call sheet already has an advance in it: the block at the bottom with the next day or two. Most days that's enough. A 2nd AD sends a separate advance call sheet when one department needs more lead time than the daily sheet gives, and the usual trigger is a day that needs something booked from outside the company. The advance call sheet glossary entry has the short definition. This post is about when to send one, what goes on it, and what to do when it changes.
Days that earn a standalone advance
Not every day needs one. These usually do:
| Kind of day | Why the daily advance block isn't enough |
|---|---|
| First night of a night week | Cast and crew need to shift their sleep. Catering moves to a dinner and second meal schedule |
| Rain, fire, smoke, or other special effects | Special effects books water trucks, rain towers, or pyro licenses and permits |
| Stunts | The stunt coordinator books performers and rigging, and the safety meeting needs the bulletin ahead of time |
| Large background | Extras casting books counts and wardrobe days before |
| Minors | A studio teacher has to be booked, and permits checked |
| A new location, especially out of town | Transportation plans routes and parking. Locations confirms neighbor notices |
| Picture cars, animals, aircraft, boats | Outside vendors with their own lead times |
A day with two or three of these is where advances pay for themselves. If you'd have to text more than two outside vendors about the day, send an advance.
The example: a rain night on a ranch road
MILE MARKER is a fictional 20-day feature. Day 14 is Thursday, October 29, 2026, on a ranch road outside Santa Clarita, California. The 2nd AD sent this advance on Monday, October 26, three shoot days out, and put a shorter version in the advance block of the Day 12 and Day 13 call sheets.
MILE MARKER ADVANCE CALL SHEET (TENTATIVE) v1 10/26 6:10 PM
DAY 14 OF 20 THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2026
EST. CREW CALL 4:00 PM SUNSET 6:05 PM
EST. SHOOT CALL 6:45 PM CIVIL TWILIGHT ENDS 6:30 PM
LOCATION Hollis Ranch, gate 2 (map to follow on final call sheet)
Company move: none. Base camp in the ranch equipment yard.
SC. SET D/N CAST PGS
88 EXT. RANCH ROAD - NIGHT (RAIN) N 1, 2 2 1/8
89 INT./EXT. DELL'S TRUCK - NIGHT (RAIN) N 1, 2, 7 1 6/8
91 EXT. RANCH ROAD - ACCIDENT SCENE - N N 1, 2, 3, 7 1 3/8
TOTAL 5 2/8
CAST 1 DELL (W) 2 JUNE (W) 3 HOLLIS (PW, back after drop) 7 SAM, age 11 (SW)
BG 40: 18 first responders, 22 onlookers. Report est. 5:00 PM
SPECIAL Rain towers x2 + 4,000 gal water truck (SPFX). Stunt: truck slide, sc. 91.
Picture cars: Dell's pickup, 2 sheriff units, 1 ambulance (non-working lights)
Studio teacher for Sam. Sam must wrap before his permitted hours end.
SAFETY Stunt safety bulletin (#4) attached to final call sheet.
MEALS Dinner at est. 10:00 PM. Second meal as required.
Every item on it is a decision somebody else has to act on before Thursday, which is a good test for what belongs on an advance. Wardrobe sizes and the full crew list stay off, since they'll be on the final sheet.
What each department does with it
The same sheet is read by a dozen people for different reasons. Here's who acted on Day 14's advance and roughly when.
| Department | What they read | What they did |
|---|---|---|
| Extras casting | BG 40, split by type | Booked 40 plus 2 standbys on Monday night and asked for wet-weather wardrobe changes |
| Special effects | Rain towers, water truck | Confirmed the water truck and a fill location. Asked locations where runoff goes on the road |
| Stunts | Truck slide, sc. 91 | Walked the road Tuesday with the 1st AD and a picture car driver |
| Production office | Minor, studio teacher | Booked the teacher, checked Sam's work permit was current |
| Wardrobe | Rain, 3 cast wet | Pulled doubles of each wet costume for Dell, June, and Sam |
| Transportation | Picture cars, ranch gate | Arranged the sheriff units and ambulance from the picture car vendor, checked the gate width for the water truck |
| Catering | Headcount, dinner time | Planned dinner for the headcount below and a second meal |
| Locations | Ranch road, water runoff | Confirmed the ranch owner is fine with 4,000 gallons of water on a dirt road |
Catering needs a number, and the advance lets the office build one early. Day 14's count: 44 crew, 4 cast, 40 background, 2 standby background, 1 studio teacher, 2 stunt performers, 3 picture car drivers, and 1 set medic. 44 + 4 + 40 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 1 is 97. The office told catering 100 to cover visitors from the vendor and the ranch.
The sunrise and sunset line matters more on an advance for nights than on a normal day. With sunset at 6:05 PM and civil twilight ending at 6:30 PM, a 6:45 PM shooting call is the earliest the first rain shot can look like night. The sunrise and sunset planner gives those times for any date and location. Scheduling night shoots covers how to step a crew into a night week.
Calls on an advance are estimates
Printing "EST." next to every call is deliberate. Calls on an advance depend on how the days before it go, and on a night week they depend on the previous night's wrap. Day 13 on MILE MARKER was a day interior with an 8:00 AM call. If it wraps at 7:00 PM and electric is out at 7:45 PM, a 10-hour crew rest makes the earliest Day 14 call 5:45 AM, so a 4:00 PM call is nowhere near a problem. Run the rest check again on the final sheet with the real out times. The turnaround calculator handles the arithmetic.
When the advance changes
It will. On Tuesday, Day 12 ran long and Scene 83 moved to Day 14. That changed the final sheet in several places:
| Item | Advance v1 (Mon) | Final call sheet (Wed night) |
|---|---|---|
| Crew call | 4:00 PM (est.) | 3:30 PM |
| Scenes | 88, 89, 91 | 83, 88, 89, 91 |
| Pages | 5 2/8 | 6 1/8 (sc. 83 is 7/8) |
| Background | 40 | 32. Onlookers cut to 14 for time |
| Cast | 1, 2, 3, 7 | 1, 2, 3, 5, 7. DEPUTY PACE added for sc. 83 |
Check the new page total the same way as any call sheet. 5 2/8 is 42 eighths, plus 7 for Scene 83, is 49 eighths, or 6 1/8 pages.
Three habits keep a changed advance from causing a wrong arrival:
- Version and time stamp every advance, like "v2 10/27 7:30 PM," and say in the email subject line which version it is.
- When something moves, tell the people it affects directly. Extras casting heard about the cut from 40 to 32 by phone, not in a PDF, because they had eight people to release.
- Mark changes on the new version. Some offices put changed lines in bold or shade them. Either way, a reader should be able to see the differences without comparing two PDFs line by line.
Mistakes that come from advances
People treat them as final. A performer on hold who sees "Day 16: H" on an advance and books a weekend trip will be unreachable when the 1st AD swaps Day 16 and 17. The word TENTATIVE at the top of every page is there for this.
The office forgets to update them. A v1 advance keeps circulating after v2 exists, and someone prints the old one for a vendor. Send each new version to the same full list as the first, and say "replaces v1."
The advance is too thin. "Day 14: nights, ranch road" gives special effects nothing to book from. Put in anything with a lead time.
Or it's too full. Copying the entire call sheet format into an advance, crew list and all, makes it look final, and people stop reading it carefully. Keep it to the decisions.
Where it fits with the rest of the paperwork
The advance is built from the current shooting schedule, just filtered to a few days, and then replaced by the call sheet the night before. The call sheet template includes an advance schedule block, and the annotated call sheet example shows one in context. The one-line schedule is the next distance out.
Sending advances from Storiara
In Storiara, a call sheet exists for every date in the production's shooting range, so a future day's sheet can be opened, adjusted with per-day overrides, and shared as a link or printed ahead of time. Reminders can also send a day's call sheet by email on a schedule, anywhere from the day of the shoot to seven days before. Put the word tentative in the notes of any sheet sent days ahead.