When a grip needs a hotel room changed, when the pink revision pages have to reach 140 people by 9 PM, or when the stage wants a certificate of insurance before it'll open the doors, the call goes to the production coordinator. The UPM and department heads decide what the show does. The coordinator's work is getting the paperwork, people, and information in place so those decisions hold up on the day.
Opening the office in prep
Coordinators usually start six to eight weeks before the first shoot day on a feature, often in an empty office. The first week is setup: phones, internet, printers and a copier lease, a walkie order for the ADs, a shared drive with a folder structure every department will use, office supplies, a kitchen, and parking. The coordinator writes the first office contact sheet and the production's info memo: office address, hours, shipping address, how to submit expenses, the payroll company, and who to call for what.
Then crew hiring starts, and the coordinator's two most-used documents begin: the crew list and the start paperwork tracker. Each new hire gets a packet (deal memo, payroll start form, I-9, W-4, and any state forms) and nobody should work a paid day until it's back and signed. The crew contact list template shows the usual columns.
Other prep work lands here too:
- Requesting certificates of insurance for every location, vendor, and stage
- Booking travel and housing for crew and cast coming from out of town, with the travel coordinator on bigger shows
- Setting up accounts with rental houses, expendables suppliers, and messengers
- Scheduling and noticing the production meeting, tech scout, camera tests, and table read
Distribution and the paper trail
A large part of coordinating is getting the right version of a document to the right people and keeping a record that you did. Script revisions follow the standard revision colors, white then blue, pink, yellow, green, and goldenrod, and each set of revised pages goes out with a distribution log. Schedule revisions, the one-line, cast lists, the crew list, the day out of days, and safety bulletins all go out the same way.
A sample distribution log:
| Date | Document | Version | Sent to | Method | Sent by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/14 | Script pages 23, 23A, 41 | Pink, 10/13 | All cast, dept heads, ADs, producers | Email PDF, 12 printed sets to set | APOC |
| 10/14 | Shooting schedule | Rev 3 (yellow) | Full crew list | POC | |
| 10/15 | Call sheet Day 4 | Final | Cast and crew | Email and text link | 2nd AD, POC confirms |
The call sheet itself comes from the 2nd AD. The coordinator typically checks it for the office's details (the hospital, the office phone, transportation info), helps distribute it, and confirms delivery to anyone who isn't on the email list.
During the shoot
The office is open before crew call and closes after the call sheet has gone out and the day's production report is in. A typical day on a location shoot with a 7:00 AM call:
- 6:30 AM: Office opens. Check overnight emails from cast travel and vendors.
- Morning: Process start paperwork for day players, send the prior day's production report to the distribution list, and book tomorrow's shipping.
- Midday: Cast and crew travel changes, hotel extensions, a vendor needing a COI by 2 PM.
- Afternoon: Revisions come in from the writer or producer. Copy, color, distribute, log.
- Evening: The 2nd AD sends the next day's call sheet. The coordinator confirms distribution and closes the office.
Who they work with
The coordinator reports to the production supervisor or UPM and supervises the assistant production coordinator, production secretary, travel coordinator, and office PAs. Every department head calls the coordinator daily. The closest partners are the 2nd AD (call sheets, production reports, cast info), the production accountant (start paperwork, POs, petty cash), the location manager (COIs, permits), and transportation (vehicles, drivers, travel movements).
Union coverage and pay
On the East Coast, IATSE Local 161 represents production coordinators. Its 2025-28 wage scales list, for theatrical motion pictures shooting in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, or within 30 miles of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, a minimum of $420.23 a day or $1,906.79 a week effective March 8, 2026, rising to $434.94 and $1,973.53 on March 7, 2027. Long-form television, one-hour series, and work outside that region have separate minimums on the same schedule, and coordinators hired and working outside a 50-mile radius of New York City on ten-week-plus engagements have their own weekly rates.
In Los Angeles, IATSE Local 871 represents production coordinators and assistant production coordinators. Its membership page lists 30 paid union days or 100 paid non-union days, verified through pay stubs. Non-union coordinators are usually paid a negotiated weekly rate, sometimes with a box rental for their laptop and printer.
Getting the job
Most coordinators come up through the office: office PA, production secretary, assistant coordinator, then coordinator. Coordinators who do well either stay (a strong coordinator on a long-running series is hard to replace) or move up to production supervisor and UPM. What gets you rehired is accuracy and not letting anything go out wrong twice.
Where Storiara fits
Much of a coordinator's work is keeping documents in sync with each other. Storiara stores cast and crew contacts, including phone numbers and emails, and builds call sheets from the schedule that pull in the day's scenes, call times, location addresses, and the weather forecast, with a hospital field the ADs fill in. See the call sheets feature for how that works.