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What Is A Call Sheet? Don't Worry, You Are About To Learn All About It Here In Phase 9!
"What is a call sheet?" you ask. Relax and don't feel intimidated.
A call sheet is really just a straight forward way to get a schedule planned and shared with your actors.
Now that you have completed your rehearsals, it's time to move into production. First things first, you are going to need to get a call sheet prepared.
But this stage takes some preparation so this page is going to teach you a little bit about a call sheet and how to prepare to write yours.
This phase will teach you:
Before We Get Into How To Settle On Scheduling, Let's Answer The Pressing Question: What Is A Call Sheet?
In the next phase, you are going to learn about how to make a call sheet. But first let's talk about what a call sheet is in general.
So, what is a call sheet? A call sheet is the one document that is going to ensure that you, all of your actors, and crew members are on the same page about what is happening when.
Putting shoots down in calendar form can be confusing, especially if it's sent to all of your actors. A call sheet is only sent to the people in the scene and gives an air of importance to it, discouraging discussion over shoot days.
This is your project and you get to have control over when you are shooting. Of course, if someone has a serious pre-commitment, you can and should reschedule for them, but for the most part, your call sheet should be respected.
In order to avoid schedule conflicts, be sure to get your call sheet sent out as early as possible.
What is a call sheet?
A call sheet is a simple (comparatively) way to tell you and your actors when, where and how long you are going to be shooting.
Although it may feel like overkill, trust me, a call sheet is very instrumental in organization and professionalism (because, hey, you want your movie to be as professional feeling as possible, right?)
It makes you and your actors feel like "Okay, this is serious."
The most important job of a film call sheet is to prevent schedule conflicts.
A call sheet is very important to filmmaking. It's the job of the assistant director to ensure that it gets created and out to the actors.
If you are the creative influence behind the moviemaking, you are the director.
As the director you have a lot of duties, so it is very important to find someone who you will be able to work with as the assistant director.
Many hours goes into making a call sheet. You need to spend your time and energy working with the actors, thinking about camera angles, and set design.
So this call sheet phase is for your assistant director to consider.
1. Based On Set Availability And Complexity, Pick The Order Of Your Shoots
Shooting scenes in the order that they occur in the film is the least efficient way to shoot. The best way is to start with your most used set and work down to your least used set.
In the tools tab in FinalDraft screenwriting software there is a "Location Report" under "Reports". This tool allows you to see which set is most required as well as how many times and which page the scenes begin on.
Once you have this list, you can begin to plan the order of your shoots. Keep your location report handy for when you write your call sheet.
Therefore, this task has only two items on the checklist:
Task 1 Checklist:
1. Get a location report (whether or not you use FinalDraft).
2. Arrange your scenes from the most to least used sets.
2. Deciding How Long A Scene Will Take To Film Will Greatly Aid In Planning, Proving To Prevent As Much Frustrating Postponing Of Shoots As Possible
A reasonable shoot day is five hours long, eight max. How do you decide how long a shoot day will take?
Well, each page of script is about 1 minute of edited film, 1 hour of filming.
So, if you have a three page scene, it will take about three hours to film. This timing takes into account make-up plus a short snack.
The exception is one page scenes. If you have a one page scene (that you are not fitting into a full shoot schedule), plan two hours because it can take a little bit to get going.
Don't Make This Mistake!
Don't make the mistake of thinking that a one page scene is going to take 1 hour to film! With Hair and Make-Up, a one page script will usually take three hours.
After you are done with one page, each additional page of script only takes about a half hour.
If this were a Saxon Math problem, it would look something like this:
If it takes three hours to film one page of script and an additional half hour per additional page, how many hours does it take to film a 5 page scene?
If you are filming more than three hours, you really do need to plan a lunch break. This will add (at least) a half hour to your shoot day.
Remember that if two (or even three!) short scenes take place at the same set, you really can shoot them together. If the two scenes require different characters, you have two options:
- Take a break after the first scene (lunch or a snack) to let the first set of actors change out of their costumes and leave (you can't shoot while cars are moving around) and the second set of actors to arrive and costume. Or,
- Have everyone arrive at once and get ready at the same time.
I would personally recommend the second option. "It will waste people's time!" you may say.
Please listen to this reasoning: When everyone arrives at once, it makes them all work more like a team. They feel more responsible to each other to do well. Plus having actors arrive in the middle of a shoot day interrupts the flow of the day.
Where you can usually break for lunch and get right back to shooting, now you will have to costume and makeup a whole new set of actors. This can make it very difficult to get going again. So really, in the end, having people arrive mid-shoot attributes to wasted time.
Now to start talking about how spaced and how long to have your shoot days.
A shoot that lasts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. is really a sweet spot for filming. It makes it so that you are not super pressed in the morning to get ready (ugh, I am so not a morning person!) and gives you your afternoon to review footage and to wind down before dinner time.
That's what works for us, and will probably be best for you and your actors as well, especially if you are using someone's home for a set.
Eight-hour days only work well if you have a pretty mature (13+ years) dedicated cast. That being said, if a scene is much longer than 5 pages, it is best to find a place to divide the scene between two days.
You don't need to tell your actors that you are dividing it, just be personally prepared to not get the whole scene done in one day. Plan to have a second shoot day to complete the scene and just list it (Scene 13) for both days. Of course, if you need to do one eight-hour day, that's not too big of a deal, just make sure it isn't your norm.
Now, as far as when to place your days, choose a schedule that works for you. Is it Monday, Wednesday, Friday? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday? Friday, Saturday, Sunday?
Whatever days you pick, make sure you always leave one day a week open for possible reshoots or reschedules. This strategy makes it so that you will not be left with reschedules and reshoots being pushed to the end of the project because you crammed too much shooting too close together without any room for mistakes.
And, of course, don't forget to consider the availability of your sets. Plan with owners what days work for your schedule and theirs. Do you need to tear down a set and build another one before you can continue shooting?
Make sure you compensate for that, too!
Task 2 Checklist:
1. Decide which days of the week and how long your typical shoot days are going to be to work for you and your group.
2. Keeping in mind that one page of script is one hour of filming, decide which scenes you will be shooting on the same day and which ones you will need breaking up.
3. Build a rough schedule, remembering to leave a few days open for possible reshoots and reschedules.
4. Check with set owners for availability!
All right, now that I have answered your "what is a call sheet" question and you have decided the order of your shoots and have your schedule roughly mapped out, it's time to move on to Phase 10 where you are going to learn how to:
Still Have Questions About The Use Of Call Sheets?
Did I miss something on this page? I am going to cover how to write a call sheet in the next phase, but do you have any more questions that I didn't cover in my explanation of what a call sheet is? Please leave it below. I'd be happy to help you with them!
Even if you don't want to ask a question and just want to tell us about what you are up to with your project budget, we would be happy to hear about it and celebrate your accomplishments with you. So, please, don't hesitate to tell us what you are thinking!