Find the dark window first
LOW BEAMS is a fictional feature with a week of night exteriors in Atlanta, the week of Monday, October 19, 2026. Before touching call times, the 1st AD pulls the sun data for the location from the U.S. Naval Observatory's one-day tables or the sunrise sunset planner:
| Night | Sunset | Civil twilight ends | Next morning, civil twilight begins | Next sunrise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 10/19 | 6:59P | 7:24P | 7:21A | 7:47A |
| Wed 10/21 | 6:56P | 7:22P | 7:23A | 7:48A |
| Fri 10/23 | 6:54P | 7:20P | 7:24A (Sat) | 7:50A (Sat) |
Between the end of evening civil twilight and the start of morning civil twilight, LOW BEAMS has roughly twelve hours of dark each night. That's generous. The same shoot in June would have a much shorter window, and every scene would have to fit inside it. On a summer night schedule, the dark window, not the crew's twelve hours, is what limits the pages.
A 12-hour night that starts at a 5:00P call doesn't get twelve hours of dark photography. The first two hours are before full dark. Use them for rigging, rehearsing, a tented night interior, or a dusk shot, and plan the first real night exterior for after 7:20P.
The rule that shapes every night schedule
For performers under SAG-AFTRA's theatrical terms, the rest period in the studio zone is 12 hours from dismissal to the next call. IATSE Local 80's published FAQ lists 10 hours between shifts for its members. Your agreements may differ; use yours.
Here's the arithmetic that follows. Tomorrow's earliest call is today's call, plus the length of the day from call to dismissal, plus the rest period. If a performer's day from call to dismissal is 12 hours and their rest is 12, tomorrow's call can be the same time as today's and no earlier. To move the call two hours earlier tomorrow, today's call-to-dismissal has to be two hours shorter, 10 hours. To move it later, nothing is required.
That's why flipping into nights is easy and flipping back is hard. Pushing calls later happens naturally. Pulling them earlier costs you shorter days or a weekend.
Why scattering nights through the week fails
Say the first draft board alternates: Monday day, Tuesday night, Wednesday day, Thursday night. Tuesday's night wraps with cast dismissed at 5:00A Wednesday. Twelve hours of rest puts Wednesday's earliest cast call at 5:00P. Wednesday's "day" exteriors now start less than two hours before sunset. The day work is gone, and Thursday's calls slide later still.
Grouping the nights into one block fixes it, for the turnaround reasons above.
A night week that works
LOW BEAMS runs the week as one day, one split day, and three nights. Every row assumes 12 hours of work plus a 30-minute meal for the crew, camera wrap 30 minutes before cast dismissal, and crew wrap-out an hour after camera wrap.
| Day | Crew call | Camera wrap | Cast dismissed | Crew wrap | Earliest next cast call (12 hrs) | Earliest next crew call (10 hrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon 10/19, day | 7:00A | 6:30P | 7:00P | 7:30P | 7:00A Tue | 5:30A Tue |
| Tue 10/20, split | 12:00P | 11:30P | 12:00A | 12:30A | 12:00P Wed | 10:30A Wed |
| Wed 10/21, night | 5:00P | 4:30A | 5:00A | 5:30A | 5:00P Thu | 3:30P Thu |
| Thu 10/22, night | 5:00P | 4:30A | 5:00A | 5:30A | 5:00P Fri | 3:30P Fri |
| Fri 10/23, night | 5:00P | 4:30A | 5:00A Sat | 5:30A Sat | See weekend rest | See weekend rest |
Tuesday's split day starts in daylight (the parking lot scenes before sunset at 6:58P) and finishes after dark with the first night exterior. It moves everyone five hours later in one step, which Monday's 7:00P cast dismissal allows easily.
Wednesday through Friday have exactly twelve hours of rest for cast. There's no slack. If Wednesday's camera wrap slips 30 minutes, Thursday's call becomes 5:30P, and if every night runs 30 minutes long, Friday's call is 6:00P and wrap lands after 6:00A Saturday. That's the slow drift crews call a Fraturday. The only defenses are holding the wrap, or building a lighter Thursday so it can absorb a late Wednesday. Use the turnaround calculator every night with the actual out times from the sign-in sheets.
Meals move with the call. With a 5:00P call, plan lunch around 11:00P, six hours later, and a second meal before the next six hours run out if the night goes long. Check the meal rules in your agreements and the meal penalties guide for the cost when that slips.
The weekend after nights, and Monday
Friday's cast is dismissed at 5:00A Saturday. SAG-AFTRA's weekly rest is 56 hours, reducible to 54 if the first call of the new week is 6:00A or later. Local 80's FAQ lists 54 hours after five consecutive days.
- Cast: 5:00A Saturday plus 54 hours is 11:00A Monday.
- Crew: 5:30A Saturday plus 54 hours is 11:30A Monday.
If the Friday drift described above happened and cast weren't dismissed until 6:30A Saturday, Monday's earliest cast call is 12:30P. Either way, the company doesn't work a normal Monday morning. People plan the night block at the end of the week so the weekend absorbs the flip, and it does, but it leaves a late Monday behind.
There are three workable ways to handle it, and the choice depends on the rest of your board:
- Make Monday a noon-ish call with scenes that suit an afternoon: interiors, or a day exterior that plays in afternoon light, and keep the day to 10 hours so Tuesday can pull back toward a morning call.
- End the night block on Thursday night and make Friday a short split day that wraps early, so the weekend starts sooner and Monday is normal.
- Put more nights on Monday of the following week, if the script has them, and flip back to days at the next weekend.
Every step back toward mornings follows the rule above. With 12 hours of rest, Monday's call-to-dismissal has to be 10 hours or less for Tuesday's call to come two hours earlier.
Night costs the page count doesn't show
Light takes longer at night. An exterior that uses the sun as a key needs condors, a generator, and time to set them. Budget fewer setups per hour than a day exterior, and treat the pages per day math accordingly.
Neighbors and permits come with conditions. Residential streets can come with limits on noise, lights, and generator placement after certain hours, and a neighborhood notification is often part of the permit. Check the conditions before you plan a 3:00A car stunt under someone's bedroom window.
Children usually can't do it. California's Labor Code 1308.7 bars minors in entertainment from working after 10 p.m. before a school day, and allows work until 12:30 a.m. before a non-school day. Night scenes with kids tend to move to Fridays and Saturdays, to day for night, or to a stage. See scheduling around child actors.
People drive home at dawn. After a week of 5:30A wraps, crew are tired behind the wheel. Productions that can afford it offer rides or nearby rooms for long commutes. At minimum, don't add a sixth night to save a day.
Putting it on the board
Night strips are blue for interiors and green for exteriors on most boards, so the block should read as a solid run of color on the stripboard, with the split day showing yellow into green. Put a banner above the block with the dark window ("DARK 7:20P TO 7:24A") and one after it with Monday's earliest call. Night shoot in the glossary covers the basics, and turnaround rules compared goes deeper on how different agreements count rest.
Storiara lets you place scenes into shoot days with start times and durations, and it flags a day that runs past the maximum length you set. It doesn't check rest periods between days, so run the week's calls through the turnaround calculator before the call sheets go out.