PORCH LIGHT is a fictional short: 9 scenes, 11 4/8 pages, three actors, one rented house in Pasadena and the street in front of it. The producer has the house and the crew for Saturday, October 17 and Sunday, October 18, 2026. Here's how the schedule gets built, from the scene list to the call sheet times.
Start with the scene list
Before you think about days, get every scene onto one list with its page count, day or night, and cast. This is your stripboard in its simplest form.
| Sc. | Set | D/N | Pgs | Cast |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EXT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - PORCH | N | 1 2/8 | 1, 2 |
| 2 | INT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - KITCHEN | N | 2 1/8 | 1, 2 |
| 3 | INT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - KITCHEN | D | 1 4/8 | 1, 3 |
| 4 | EXT. MARENGO AVE. - STREET | D | 6/8 | 1, 2 background |
| 5 | INT. JUNE'S CAR (PARKED) | D | 1 1/8 | 1, 3 |
| 6 | INT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - BEDROOM | D | 1 3/8 | 1 |
| 7 | INT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - LIVING ROOM | N | 1 5/8 | 1, 2, 3 |
| 8 | EXT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - PORCH | DAWN | 5/8 | 1, 2 |
| 9 | INT. HALVORSEN HOUSE - LIVING ROOM | D | 1 1/8 | 2, 3 |
Cast 1 is June, cast 2 is her father, cast 3 is Marcus. Check the total before going further. In eighths: 10 + 17 + 12 + 6 + 9 + 11 + 13 + 5 + 9 = 92. Divide by 8 and you get 11 with 4 left over, so 11 4/8 pages. If your list doesn't match the script, find the missing scene now. The page count calculator helps if you're adding a long list.
Find the things that can only happen at one time
A short usually has three hard constraints: the sun, the cast, and the location's hours. Write them down first.
The sun. Pull the times for the real address and dates from the sunrise sunset planner or the U.S. Naval Observatory's one-day sun data. For Pasadena, the USNO gives Saturday's sunset as 6:16P with civil twilight ending at 6:41P. On Sunday, sunrise is 7:00A and civil twilight begins at 6:35A. Sunday's sunset is 6:14P.
The cast. Marcus (cast 3) is a working actor who can do one day. That pushes every cast 3 scene (3, 5, 7, 9) onto the same day.
The location. The owners want the crew out by midnight both nights.
Now look at scene 8, the dawn porch scene. Shooting real dawn on Sunday means a crew call around 5:00A, and that's impossible after a Saturday night wrap. The fix is to shoot it at dusk on Saturday, in the half hour between sunset at 6:16P and the end of civil twilight at 6:41P. The light in that window can pass for early morning if the wardrobe and sound (birds, no traffic) sell it. The catch is that you get roughly 25 minutes, so the director plans two setups: a wide from the yard and a two-shot on the steps.
Split the pages between the days
With Marcus on Sunday, the Sunday scenes are 3, 5, 7, and 9. That's 12 + 9 + 13 + 9 = 43 eighths, or 5 3/8 pages. Saturday gets the rest: 1, 2, 4, 6, and 8, which is 10 + 17 + 6 + 11 + 5 = 49 eighths, or 6 1/8 pages. The two days add back to 92 eighths.
Saturday is heavier on paper, but three of its scenes are small (the street scene, the bedroom scene with one actor, and the dusk scene with two setups). Before locking the split, check setups the way how many script pages you can shoot in a day describes. For PORCH LIGHT the shot list gives Saturday 17 setups and Sunday 15, which the DP thinks is doable with a small lighting package at one house.
Both days end with night work, and that shapes the call times. If Saturday called at 7:00A and ran to the end of the porch night scene, the day would be well past fourteen hours. So Saturday starts late.
Saturday: call times and order of scenes
Order inside the day follows the light. The bedroom is a day interior with one window, so it goes first. The street scene needs daylight and a couple of background actors. The kitchen night scene has one small window that the grips can black out with a tent, so it can shoot in the late afternoon. Then the dusk scene, then the night exterior once it's dark.
| Time | Saturday, Oct. 17: Day 1 of 2 |
|---|---|
| 11:00A | Crew call at the house. Breakfast |
| 11:00A | June (1) to hair and makeup |
| 12:00P | Sc. 6, INT. BEDROOM - DAY (1 3/8) |
| 1:45P | Sc. 4, EXT. MARENGO AVE. - DAY (6/8). Background on set 1:30P |
| 1:45P | Father (2) to hair and makeup |
| 3:00P | Tent kitchen window. Sc. 2, INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT (2 1/8) |
| 5:00P | Lunch, 30 minutes |
| 5:30P | Set porch for dusk. Rehearse Sc. 8 on the steps |
| 6:15P to 6:40P | Sc. 8, EXT. PORCH - "DAWN" (5/8). Two setups only |
| 7:00P | Sc. 1, EXT. PORCH - NIGHT (1 2/8) |
| 10:15P | Camera wrap. Cast dismissed after wardrobe by 10:45P |
| 11:15P | Crew wrap out |
Lunch lands at 5:00P, six hours after the 11:00A call, which is where most productions plan the first meal. Plan it there rather than letting the kitchen scene run long and pushing the meal into the dusk window. The call sheet template has space for the sunset and twilight times; print them, because the whole crew needs to know the 6:15P scene can't wait.
Sunday: the turnaround math
Take each person's release time and add the rest period. Under SAG-AFTRA's theatrical rules, performers in the studio zone get 12 hours from dismissal to the next call. PORCH LIGHT is non-union, but the producer uses the same numbers so nobody drives home exhausted and comes back in eight hours.
- June and her father were dismissed at 10:45P. Plus 12 hours: earliest call Sunday is 10:45A.
- The crew wrapped out at 11:15P. Plus 10 hours: earliest crew call is 9:15A.
- Marcus didn't work Saturday, so he can be called any time.
Sunday's crew call goes at 10:30A and the actors at 11:00A. The turnaround calculator will do this for a longer list of names and release times.
The order: scene 9 first because it's a daylight living room scene, then the kitchen day scene, then the car in the driveway while the afternoon light is still good. Scene 7 is a night interior in a living room with big windows. Tenting those is more rigging than a small crew wants, so it waits for dark.
| Time | Sunday, Oct. 18: Day 2 of 2 |
|---|---|
| 10:30A | Crew call. Breakfast |
| 11:00A | Father (2), Marcus (3), June (1) to hair and makeup |
| 12:00P | Sc. 9, INT. LIVING ROOM - DAY (1 1/8) |
| 1:30P | Sc. 3, INT. KITCHEN - DAY (1 4/8) |
| 3:00P | Sc. 5, INT. JUNE'S CAR (PARKED) - DAY (1 1/8), driveway |
| 4:30P | Lunch, 30 minutes |
| 5:00P | Light living room for night. Sunset 6:14P |
| 6:30P | Sc. 7, INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT (1 5/8) |
| 9:30P | Camera wrap. Picture wrap on the short |
| 10:45P | Crew wrap out, house returned |
Sunday's crew day runs from 10:30A to 10:45P, a little over twelve hours with lunch, and it clears the house before the owners' midnight deadline.
Decide on the fallback before Saturday
A weekend shoot has no Monday to borrow. Settle these with the director during prep:
- Which setups get dropped if a day runs late. On PORCH LIGHT, scene 4 can play in a single wide, and scene 9's reverse on Marcus can become an over-the-shoulder already in the plan.
- What moves if Saturday falls apart. The kitchen night scene (2) can also shoot on Sunday night after scene 7, with the kitchen dressed for it from Saturday. That turns Sunday into 7 4/8 pages, which only makes sense as a rescue plan.
- What happens if the dusk window is missed. The director agrees in advance to shoot scene 8 as a night scene with the porch light on, and rewrite one line.
Put the first two on the back of the call sheet for the 1st AD and the DP. Nobody should be negotiating it at 6:10P with six minutes of sun left.
The week before the weekend
A lot of a weekend shoot is decided on the weekdays before it. Lock the house and get the location agreement signed. Check whether the city requires a permit for the street scene and for parking crew vehicles; filming in public without a permit covers what can go wrong. Confirm gear pickup and return times with the rental house and ask how they bill a weekend. Walk the house with the DP and gaffer so the kitchen tent, the porch lights, and the breaker panel aren't surprises. And send the call sheet Friday by early evening, with the sunset time and the address in the first lines. The short film budget template has lines for the meals, the tent materials, and the location fee this plan depends on, and the short films page collects the other planning guides.
Building the same board in Storiara
If PORCH LIGHT's script is uploaded to Storiara as a PDF, Word, or Final Draft file, the scenes come in with INT or EXT, day or night, and page counts in eighths. You'd drag scenes 6, 4, 2, 8, and 1 into Saturday and the rest into Sunday, and the cast Day Out of Days would show Marcus working one day. The call sheet for each day pulls from that schedule and can be emailed Friday evening or shared as a link.