A week of one-liner, top to bottom
BRASS BAND is a fictional 15-day feature shooting in Cleveland in November 2026. Here is the header and week one of its one-line schedule as it went out on the Friday before shooting.
BRASS BAND. ONE-LINE SCHEDULE. WHITE, 10/30/26. Cast: 1 WALT, 2 DENISE, 3 KOFI, 4 MRS. PAVLIK, 5 BANDLEADER, 6 OFFICER DUNN.
| Sc. | Set / synopsis | I/E | D/N | Pgs | Cast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DAY 1 | MON 11/2. ST. CASIMIR HALL. CREW CALL 7:00A | ||||
| 12 | PARISH HALL. Walt auditions for the band | INT | D | 2 3/8 | 1, 5 |
| 13 | PARISH HALL. Denise hears him play | INT | D | 1 1/8 | 1, 2, 5 |
| 15 | PARISH HALL, KITCHEN. Kofi and Walt on break | INT | D | 7/8 | 1, 3 |
| END DAY 1 | 4 3/8 | ||||
| DAY 2 | TUE 11/3. ST. CASIMIR HALL. CREW CALL 7:00A | ||||
| 44 | PARISH HALL. Rehearsal falls apart (20 BG) | INT | D | 3 | 1, 2, 3, 5 |
| 46 | PARISH HALL. Walt alone with the tuba (after dark) | INT | N | 1 2/8 | 1 |
| END DAY 2 | 4 2/8 | ||||
| DAY 3 | WED 11/4. PAVLIK HOUSE, SLAVIC VILLAGE. CREW CALL 7:00A | ||||
| 20 | PAVLIK HOUSE, LIVING RM. Walt fixes the radiator | INT | D | 1 5/8 | 1, 4 |
| 21 | PAVLIK HOUSE, KITCHEN. Pierogi and the rent | INT | D | 2 | 1, 4 |
| BANNER | LUNCH. COMPANY MOVE TO FLEET AVE. | ||||
| 23 | FLEET AVE. BUS STOP. Walt misses the bus (sunset 5:18P) | EXT | D | 4/8 | 1 |
| END DAY 3 | 4 1/8 | ||||
| DAY 4 | THU 11/5. PAVLIK HOUSE. CREW CALL 12:00P | ||||
| 60 | PAVLIK HOUSE, LIVING RM. The wake (12 BG) | INT | N | 2 6/8 | 1, 2, 3 |
| 61 | PAVLIK HOUSE, PORCH. Denise walks Walt out | EXT | N | 1 1/8 | 1, 2 |
| END DAY 4 | 3 7/8 | ||||
| DAY 5 | FRI 11/6. E. 55TH ST. CREW CALL 2:00P | ||||
| 70 | E. 55TH ST. Dunn pulls Walt over | EXT | N | 1 4/8 | 1, 6 |
| 71 | POLICE CRUISER (PARKED). Walt in the back seat | INT | N | 1 | 1, 6 |
| END DAY 5 | 2 4/8 | ||||
| BANNER | SAT 11/7 AND SUN 11/8. NO SHOOTING | ||||
| END OF WEEK 1 | 19 1/8 |
How the lines get built
The one-liner is a printout of the board, so nothing on it should be typed from memory. Settle the order on the stripboard, then produce the lines.
Day headers carry four things: the day number, the weekday and date, the location the crew knows it by, and the crew call. Day 4's "CREW CALL 12:00P" is the most useful thing on that line. A grip reading it on Monday knows Thursday is a late day without asking.
Scene lines keep the synopsis to five or six words. "Walt fixes the radiator" identifies scene 20 for everyone. "Tension builds" would describe half the film. Add a parenthetical only when it changes the day for someone: the 20 background actors in scene 44, the sunset time on the Fleet Ave. exterior, "after dark" on scene 46 so electric knows that scene waits until the windows go black at the end of the day (civil twilight in Cleveland ends at 5:48P that Tuesday, per the U.S. Naval Observatory).
Banners go exactly where they happen. The company move on Day 3 sits between the last house scene and the bus stop, because that's when trucks move. The weekend banner keeps the calendar continuous so nobody wonders whether Saturday was dropped.
End-of-day lines carry the page total, and it has to be recalculated every time a strip moves. Check Day 3: 1 5/8 + 2 + 4/8. Whole pages 1 + 2 = 3, eighths 5 + 4 = 9, which is 1 1/8. Total 4 1/8. For the week, convert everything to eighths: 35 + 34 + 33 + 31 + 20 = 153 eighths, and 153 / 8 is 19 with 1 left, so 19 1/8. The page count calculator will catch an addition slip if you'd rather not do it by hand.
Reading it from different chairs
The one-liner goes to nearly everyone, and each department reads a different column.
The gaffer looks at D/N and the day headers. Days 4 and 5 are night work with late calls, and Day 4's wake is a night interior in a practical house, so the electric department plans a pre-rig on Wednesday while the company is already there for scenes 20 and 21.
Costume reads cast and synopsis. Walt (1) is in every scene of the week, and "the wake" on Day 4 tells them he's in his funeral suit that day, while the Thursday call means fittings for the 12 background actors can happen that morning.
Transportation reads banners and locations. One company move all week, on Day 3 at lunch, from Slavic Village to Fleet Ave. They'll scout parking for the trucks near the bus stop before Wednesday. The company moves guide covers what goes into that half hour.
The line producer reads the day totals against the plan and looks for light days. Day 5 carries only 2 4/8 pages because it's a night exterior with a police car, and scenes that involve a picture vehicle and a practical police location take setups the page count doesn't show.
The 2nd AD reads the whole thing backward from Friday. Day 4 wraps late, so the Friday call at 2:00P has to hold a rest period for Walt and Denise, and Friday's late wrap runs into Saturday morning, which pushes how early Monday of week 2 can start. The turnaround calculator handles that math once the actual wrap times are known.
Reissuing it without confusing anyone
The one-liner changes more often than any other schedule document, and an old copy is worse than none. Three habits keep it straight.
Put the version color and date in the header line, the same way script pages get revision colors. The first issue above is WHITE, 10/30/26.
Send a short note with each revision that says what moved. For example: "BLUE 11/4: Sc. 23 moves from Day 3 to Day 6 (bus stop permit). Day 3 is now 3 5/8. Sc. 88 added to Day 6." Nobody should have to compare two versions line by line.
Tell people to throw out the old color. The advance schedule at the bottom of each call sheet should match the current one-liner, and if the two disagree, the crew will believe whichever one they read last.
Which schedule goes to whom
| Document | Detail | Usually goes to |
|---|---|---|
| One-line schedule | One line per scene, day headers, totals | Whole crew, cast reps, producers, director |
| Shooting schedule (long form) | Every element under each scene | Department heads, coordinators |
| Day out of days | Work, hold, and travel days by cast member | Producers, casting, accounting, 2nd AD |
| Call sheet | One day, every call and address | Everyone working that day |
Making one in a spreadsheet or a scheduling program
In a spreadsheet, use the one-line schedule template: paste the strips in board order, add day header and total rows, and write a sum in eighths for each day. The trap is editing the one-liner directly. Make changes on the board and regenerate the list, or you'll end up with two schedules that disagree.
Scheduling programs build it as a report. In Movie Magic Scheduling, the One-line Schedule report shares its layout with the board, can export to PDF or Excel, and can combine several units' sub-boards into one document ordered by date. That's handy when a second unit shoots on some of the same days.
In Storiara, scenes arrive from the uploaded script with INT or EXT, day or night, and eighths filled in, and you arrange them into shoot days on the stripboard. The schedule prints from the browser, so you can save it as a PDF and send it with the version color in the file name.