The calendar above covers all six weeks of SALT FLATS: three weeks of prep, two shoot weeks, and a wrap week. The shoot days use the same days, locations, and calls as the one-line schedule for the film, and the prep weeks show the deadlines that had to be met for Day 1 to happen on Monday, October 5.
A production calendar answers different questions than a schedule. The schedule tells you which scenes shoot on Day 7. The calendar tells you that the DOOD has to exist before the budget can lock, and that the tech scout on 9/30 is pointless if a location is still unsigned.
How the calendar is laid out
The main grid is one row per week and one column per weekday. Each cell starts with the date so it can be read without a separate header, then says what happens. Prep and wrap cells name tasks and deadlines. Shoot cells give the day number and location, plus the call when it isn't the normal 7:00 AM.
The milestones table pulls out the deadlines that other work depends on, with an owner and a "depends on" column. That column is the useful part. If the salvage yard agreement slips from 9/18, you can read down and see that it pushes the schedule lock, which pushes the budget.
The department dates table gives start and end dates for each department head and crew group. The line producer uses it for payroll weeks and the coordinator uses it for deal memos and start paperwork.
How to build it
- Fix Day 1 and the last shoot day first. Everything else is counted from those two dates.
- Add the shoot days from the schedule, one cell each, with location and any unusual call. Mark company days off.
- Block out wrap after the last shoot day: equipment returns first, then vehicles and locations, then wardrobe and props, then final paperwork.
- Work backward from Day 1 for the last week of prep: camera prep, rehearsals and travel, production meeting, tech scout.
- Place the schedule lock and budget lock. The schedule has to lock before the budget, since cast costs come from the DOOD and location costs from the number of days at each place.
- Place location agreements before the schedule lock. On SALT FLATS the two locations that carry four shoot days (Ruiz House and the salvage yard) were signed first.
- Add casting: callbacks and offers early enough that availability is known before the schedule locks.
- Add department start dates, working back from when each department needs to deliver. Costume starts 9/24 so fittings can happen before 10/2.
- Fill in the milestone table with owners and dependencies.
- Version the calendar with a date and reissue it at the production meeting and whenever a milestone moves.
Reading SALT FLATS' prep weeks
Week 1 is scouts and paper. The location manager signs the two longest-running locations by Friday, while casting runs callbacks for the smaller roles.
Week 2 is the lock week. The white schedule and DOOD come out Wednesday 9/23, and the budget locks Friday 9/25. The production designer starts on Monday so the art department's input goes into the schedule before it locks.
Week 3 is when the blue revisions come in, which forces a blue schedule and DOOD the next day. The tech scout on Wednesday takes department heads to every location, the production meeting on Thursday walks through the whole shoot, and Friday and Saturday are camera prep, travel, and rehearsal. There's no slack. A late revision or a location that falls through in week 3 lands on Day 1.
Calendar gaps that hurt later
A budget locked before the schedule is common on indies, usually because investors need a number. If that's your situation, put both dates on the calendar and write down what schedule the budget number assumes, so the first schedule change doesn't quietly break it.
Wrap week is the part most often left blank. Returns, location walk-throughs, final Exhibit Gs, and the wrap report take time and people, and if nobody's end date runs past the last shoot day, nobody is paid to do them.
Script revisions need follow-on dates. When the blue pages land on 9/28, the calendar should already show the blue schedule and DOOD the next day, with call sheet changes after that.
Watch the long runs, too. SALT FLATS has Saturday scouts in prep and six-day shoot weeks, with only Sundays off from 9/14 to 10/17. The calendar shows that before it shows up as a tired crew.
Certificates of insurance are easy to leave until the day before. Many locations won't let a company in without a certificate of insurance, so it gets a date and an owner like everything else.
The checklist and schedule behind the calendar
The calendar's prep weeks track the tasks on the pre-production checklist. For the full list of what needs doing before Day 1, see the indie film pre-production checklist. The shoot weeks come from the shooting schedule, and wrap week ends with the wrap report.
In Storiara
In Storiara the shoot days come from the schedule, which you build by dragging scenes into days. When scenes move between days, the DOOD and call sheets follow, so the shoot weeks on this calendar can be read straight from the current schedule.