How to build a stripboard

Storiara's stripboard is manual. You decide the order and it keeps the math straight: day length, overlaps, and what's left unscheduled. There's no automatic scheduling, so the thinking about company moves, cast days, and day/night splits is still yours.

You need scenes in the story and a production schedule with dates and daily hours. If the schedule isn't set, the page shows Production Schedule Required with a button to set it.

Steps

1. Open Schedule and make sure Stripboard is selected, not Day-Out-Of-Days.
2. Find the first shoot day. Each day has a header with the date and its running count of scenes, shots, and total time.
3. Click the Scene button (marked with a plus sign) on that day to open Schedule Scenes.
4. To grab everything at one location, use Select scenes from location. It adds that location's unscheduled scenes. You can also search by scene number or name.
5. Set Duration (per scene). The default is 1 hr. Any option that would run past the day's hours shows (Overtime) and is disabled.
6. Click Schedule 3 Scenes (the number matches your selection). The strips land at the end of the day.
7. Drag a strip by its grip to change the order or drop it on another day. The arrows icon (Move to another day) does the same through a menu: pick a Target Shooting Day, then Move Item.
8. Click a strip's time to change its length in Edit Duration, its shoot location to change it in Edit Location, or its scene to replace it with Swap Scene.
9. Add meal breaks or a wrap marker with the Break button. Give it a Break Name (Optional) such as "Lunch", set Break Duration (30 minutes by default), and click Add Break.

Each strip shows SCENE, I/E, SCENE SETTING, D/N, SHOOT LOCATION, and TIME. Strip colors are assigned per scene so neighbors are easy to tell apart. They don't follow the white, yellow, blue, and green day/night convention.

Using the availability panel

On a wide screen, the panel to the left of the board shows cast, crew, locations, and props availability for the day your cursor is over. It's there to read. The board won't stop you from scheduling someone on a day they marked unavailable.

If it doesn't work

• A strip that won't drop onto a day means the day is full. Shorten a strip or move one out.
• Every duration disabled means that day's hours are used up. Check the hours in Schedule Settings.
• A scene missing from the Schedule Scenes list is already on another day. The list only offers unscheduled scenes.

See how to set production dates to change the day length, and the Schedule guide for the rest of the page.