Stripboard scheduling explained: building a shoot schedule that survives the weather

Before scheduling software, a stripboard was a physical board of thin cardboard strips, one per scene, colour-coded and slotted into a frame. Assistant directors rearranged the strips by hand until the days made sense. The software versions keep exactly the same idea, because it works: the schedule is a sequence of scenes, and a scene is the smallest unit you can move.

What goes on a strip?

Each strip summarises one scene from the breakdown: scene number, set name, INT or EXT, day or night, page count in eighths, a one-line synopsis and the cast numbers of everyone in it. Strips are colour-coded by time and place so you can read the shape of a day at a glance. A common convention:

Conventions vary between countries and teams, so pin your key to the top of the board. Between groups of strips sit day breaks, which mark the end of a shoot day and usually total its pages, and banners for things like company moves, holidays or a unit split.

How do you order strips into shoot days?

Work through the constraints in roughly this order. Each pass narrows the options for the next.

1. Location. Group every scene at the same location together. A company move means packing trucks, travelling, re-rigging and re-lighting, and you lose hours to it. Shoot a location out before you leave it.
2. Fixed dates. Mark the immovable days first: a location only available on weekends, an actor's other commitment, a festival you cannot shoot through, a permit window.
3. Cast. Within a location, cluster scenes by actor so that each actor works a continuous run. Every day an actor is held between work days usually costs money and always costs goodwill.
4. Day and night. Keep nights together and plan the transitions. Moving from night work back to days needs a turnaround break; a rest day is the cleanest place to flip.
5. Complexity. Put the hardest scene of the day early, while the crew is fresh and there is time to recover if it runs long.

What is a day-out-of-days report?

The day-out-of-days (DOOD) is a grid of cast against shoot days that shows when each actor starts, works, is held and finishes. The usual codes are SW (start work), W (work), H (hold), WF (work finish) and SWF (start and finish on the same day), with T for travel. It is the fastest way to see the cost of a schedule: a single scene moved can turn one actor's three-day run into a two-week hold.

Look at the DOOD every time you move strips. If an actor's line is full of H, ask whether two of their scenes at another location can be moved together.

How do you build a schedule that survives the weather?

You cannot schedule the weather, but you can schedule around it. The principle is simple: always know what you will shoot instead.

Hold cover sets

A cover set is an interior you can move to at short notice when an exterior day is rained out or the light is wrong. Choose scenes whose cast, location and kit are available on the days you are at risk. A cover set that needs an actor who is not on call that week is not cover.

Front-load the exteriors

Schedule weather-dependent exteriors early in the shoot, and keep a stock of interiors for later. If you lose an exterior day in week one, you have weeks of interiors to swap in. If you lose it in the last week, you have nothing left to move and you are buying an extra day.

Know the season and the light

In much of India, shooting through the monsoon means planning for rain on most exterior days, not some of them. Elsewhere it might be short winter daylight or afternoon storms. Check sunrise and sunset for every exterior day, and for golden-hour scenes plan the window precisely, with the setup rehearsed before the light arrives.

A weather plan is not a forecast. It is a list of scenes you can shoot instead, with the cast already on call.

Write the decision rule down

Decide in advance who calls the switch, by when and on what information: for example, the 1st AD and producer decide by a fixed time the evening before, based on the forecast for the call time and the first hours of the shoot. Put the cover scenes on the call sheet as a weather alternative so departments prep for both.

What breaks a shooting schedule?

• Ignoring turnaround. A night wrap followed by an early call leaves cast and crew short of rest, and tired crews are slower and less safe.
• Optimistic page counts. Stunts, children, animals, vehicles and crowds all slow a day down. Schedule them as such.
• Forgetting prep and wrap. Big set builds and strikes take time on the location before and after the shoot days.
• Not re-checking after changes. One swap can break a cast run, a location contract or a turnaround. Check the DOOD and the calendar after every edit.

Revisit the stripboard every evening during the shoot. Scenes that slipped have to land somewhere, and the earlier you move them, the more options you keep.