Production board

A production board, stripboard, or production strip is a

The production board is an essential element of the filmmaking process, because the sequence in which scenes are shot during principal photography normally does not follow their chronological sequence in the script.^[2] The sequence usually depends on organizational aspects such as the availability of the cast, crew, and locations, and, in the case of outdoor shots, factors such as the season, weather and light conditions.^[2] The production board is the project planning tool used by the unit production manager (or sometimes the first assistant director) to develop the actual sequence in which scenes will be shot.^[2]

Most importantly, to save money, the production team will identify all scenes that involve the same location, cast, and crew and group them together as much as possible so they can be shot together all at once.^[2][4][5][6] Since actors are normally paid a "day rate," it makes more sense from a financial perspective, for example, to shoot all three scenes involving a particular actor and location on a single day (even though the scenes may occur in completely different parts of the script), rather than paying the actor's day rate three times to bring back the same actor to the same location on three different days just to speak a few lines each day.^[7] Shooting scenes out of order helps avoid the cost of having to repeatedly travel back to the same locations or reassemble the same sets, but requires considerable effort from both cast and crew members (especially the script supervisor) to maintain the illusion of continuity.^[8]

Many variables affect the sequence of scenes as they are arranged and rearranged on a strip board. Outdoor scenes subject to fickle weather conditions^[2] and difficult stunts and special effects are sometimes scheduled early in principal photography, so there is time to recover and make necessary changes if problems arise.^[6] For maximum scheduling flexibility, a common filmmaking trick is to film day for night or night for day, but small independent productions cannot always afford the necessary lighting setups and must rely on whatever light is already available on location.^[9] Some scenes need long lead times to set up properly, such as in-car dialogue scenes for which a car is usually fitted with movie cameras and towed during the filming.^[6] Some producers prefer to schedule intimate scenes later in principal photography, to give the lead actors some time to become comfortable with each other.^[6] If any actor is a bankable star at the peak of their career with tightly limited availability, the production must work around that star's schedule.^[6] Child actors are often subject to legal restrictions on the number of hours they can work per day.^[6]

Shooting in a cost-efficient manner only gets even harder if the production team decides to use unionized talent. For example, in the United States, the Screen Actors Guild requires payment for "hold" days in between nonconsecutive shooting days at remote locations,^[2][4] as well as a minimum of 12 hours of turnaround time between shoots, which means the same actors cannot be scheduled for a day shoot at dawn the next day after a night shoot expected to run past midnight.^[6]

Common contents

Information on the strips can include:^[1]

• The scene number
• The
  day
  (Sunrise/Morning/Noon/Afternoon/Evening/Sunset/Night)
• The number of pages in that scene
  • This is commonly counted in eighths of a page.^[10]
• The set that is described in the script
• The actual location that will be filmed
• The characters in that scene
• Miscellaneous notes on the production

Color Conventions

Production strip boards are often color-coded according to the following convention:^[11]

Scenechronize uses a sightly modified convention:^[12]

Finally, Movie Magic Scheduling has its own standard:^[13]

See also

• Production schedule
• Shooting schedule
• One liner schedule
• Filmmaking

References