This board holds the first six shoot days of SALT FLATS, a 12-day indie road drama shooting in and around Bakersfield. Each row is a strip. The Color column is what you fill the row with in Excel or Sheets, so the file looks like a physical board when you open it. Days 7 through 12 are left for you to lay out, or you can clear the strips and start your own film.
For how to read a board you've been handed, see how to read a stripboard. For why productions use the colors they do and where they disagree, see stripboard colors explained. This page is about building one.
What's on a strip
Reading left to right, a strip has its color, the scene number, INT or EXT, the set, D or N, the page count in eighths, the cast ID numbers, the script day, and a short synopsis. That's the minimum a 1st AD needs to move a scene without opening the script. Some boards also carry background counts and a column per element (stunts, vehicles, animals). Add those columns if your film has a lot of them. SALT FLATS doesn't, so they stay on the breakdown sheets.
The cast IDs point to the header at the top of the board. On a physical board the header is a wide card with character names written vertically, and each strip has a mark in the column for each performer. In a spreadsheet, a list of numbers is easier to sort and read.
Three kinds of strips carry no scene:
| Strip | Where it goes | SALT FLATS example |
|---|---|---|
| Day break (black) | After the last scene of each shoot day | END OF DAY 4, THU 10/8/26, 6 7/8 |
| Banner | Anywhere a note needs to sit in order | LUNCH, COMPANY MOVE TO TUMBLEWEED DINER |
| Off day banner | Between shoot days | SUNDAY 10/11, COMPANY DAY OFF |
The strip and banner strip glossary entries have more on the conventions.
How to build the board
- Enter the cast ID header from the breakdown. Number characters in the order the breakdown did, usually by size of role, and never renumber after the board is shared.
- Make one strip per scene with every column filled. Pages must be in eighths. Anything that isn't a whole eighth gets rounded up.
- Color each strip from the color key. Check INT and EXT against the scene heading, and D/N against how the scene plays. A tented night interior is still blue.
- Sort the strips by location. For SALT FLATS that gives you blocks for the Ruiz House, the salvage yard, the diner, the motel, the gas station, the driving scenes, the substation, the orchard road, and the salt flats.
- Inside each location block, sort by cast so scenes with the same actors sit together.
- Apply the fixed constraints: cast availability, location dates in the agreements, permit dates, and anything that must shoot in a certain order.
- Place night blocks where turnaround allows. On this board the motel night exteriors land on Saturday (Day 6) with a 4:00 PM call, the day off follows, and the orchard night is the very last day so it doesn't cut into anyone's rest before another shoot day.
- Insert a black day break at the end of each day and total the pages above it.
- Add banners for company moves, off days, and firsts and lasts that matter, like HOLLIS STARTS on Day 2.
- Stamp the version color and date in the board header before sharing it.
Why the first week sits the way it does
The Ruiz House gets two days because Day 1 is all interiors, which gives the crew a controlled first day in one house, and Day 2 is the exteriors at the same address. Hollis doesn't appear until Day 2, which keeps him off the Day 1 payroll.
Day 5 is the motel interiors and Day 6 the motel exteriors at night. Doing the interiors first gives the art department a day inside to finish Room 14 while electric rigs the parking lot for the following night. Friday wraps around 7 PM, and Saturday's 4:00 PM call leaves plenty of turnaround. The turnaround calculator will check a sequence like that for you.
Day 4 is the one that breaks the location rule. The diner scenes are short and the diner is only available on a Thursday afternoon, so they're paired with the end of the salvage yard work, and a company move banner sits in the middle of the day. For the broader tradeoff of grouping by location versus by story, see block shooting vs. cross-boarding.
Mistakes that show up later
Total every strip and compare it with the script's page count before you print anything. SALT FLATS should come to 70 pages across 12 days, and a board that comes to 68 7/8 has lost a scene somewhere.
In a spreadsheet, the most common error is cutting a strip into the next day and forgetting that two day breaks now carry the wrong totals. Recalculate both days after every move. It's also easy to type "Blue" in the Color column and never fill the row, which leaves a night scene looking like a day interior to anyone scanning the board.
Don't renumber cast IDs once the board has been shared. The DOOD, call sheets, and breakdowns all use the same numbers, so a new character goes at the end of the list even if the role is bigger than someone already numbered.
Where the board goes next
When the order is settled, print the one-line schedule for a compact view and the shooting schedule with elements for departments. The day out of days comes from the same strip order, so every move on the board changes someone's work days.
Strips from a script in Storiara
Storiara builds the strips from an uploaded script, with INT/EXT, time of day, and page counts in eighths. You then drag the scenes into shoot days on a stripboard view, grouping them by location yourself as you go. The DOOD populates from that schedule.