Production tools

The Production page lists tools in five groups: Script, Prep, Schedule, Shoot, and Office. Each production page has the same groups in its sidebar.

Each script has a stage. The Production page shows tools for that stage. Screencake calculates the stage from existing work:

• Development: the script, and nothing scheduled yet.
• Prep: a tagged scene, a shot, a location, or a storyboard frame.
• Scheduling: a shoot day or a crew member.
• Shooting: a shoot day has arrived, or a time card exists.
• Wrap: each dated day is past.

The stage controls navigation, but does not change access permissions. Each tool stays available through its link. Tools for later stages show under Not yet. Tools with existing work always show, regardless of the stage.

To set the stage manually, use the Stage control. The automatic option shows the calculated stage. To keep an individual tool in the sidebar, select Show anyway. The script and all collaborators use these settings.

The report reads your live script, so scene lists, counts, and tagged items stay current.

• Scenes: headings, settings, times of day, and lengths.
• Characters: speeches, word counts, scenes, and editable profiles.
• Statistics: action versus dialogue, each speaker's share, scene-length range and median, and INT/EXT and DAY/NIGHT totals.
• Breakdown: tagged items by category. Export CSV or a PDF sheet per scene. To export a subset, select scenes first.

Character profiles contain gender, age, description, and a picture. To open a profile, ⌘-click a character cue. Profiles use character names. A rename starts a new profile.

Profiles are shared with collaborators, not guest report links. Pictures also show in table-read casting. Encrypted scripts keep profiles but not pictures.

Select scenes in the Production report and select Make sides. The selected scenes keep screenplay formatting, with page numbers starting at one. You can export this set as PDF. Scene filters can also create a set.

• For an actor: select Sides on their Characters row. The set includes each scene they speak in and uses their name in the header and filename.
• For a day: select Sides for this day on a call sheet. Scenes follow shooting order, including when shared by guest link.

1. Type a SHOT element, or add a shot in the inspector's Shots tab.
2. Select a size such as WS, CU, OTS, or POV. Reorder shots or select a shot to open it.
3. Open the row's sliders button for movement, angle, lens, estimated minutes, and setup label.

Camera settings sync with the script but do not print on screenplay pages. The shot list shows them as columns. Call sheets include size, movement, and angle.

Use Setups view to group shots by setup label and total their minutes. On set, mark completed shots to update the shared count.

Add uploaded, photographed, or drawn frames to each SHOT, then play them as an animatic with sound and subtitles. See Storyboards & animatic.

Drag scene strips into shoot-day columns, then reorder them within the day. Arrow keys work from a strip's handle. Call sheets follow this shooting order.

• Colors: white INT/DAY, yellow EXT/DAY, blue INT/NIGHT, green EXT/NIGHT. A legend is below the board.
• Scene plan: in the Scene tab, enter prep minutes, shoot minutes, and story day. Add the synopsis and one-liner for PDFs.
• Daily totals: each column adds up pages and estimated minutes.
• Open the scene: a strip's scene number is a link into the script.
• Inserted scenes: the schedule uses scene identities. If you insert an earlier scene, scheduled scenes keep their assignments. To use scene identities, update older apps.

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Scheduling

Record unavailable date ranges for cast members, with an optional note. Conflicts show on dated shoot days and the scene strips for those performers.

Give Suggest days a start date to exclude unavailable dates. Character renames keep availability information. Removed characters show a warning. Dates are necessary for conflict checks.

The grid shows one row per character and one column per shooting day, with the busiest cast first.

• SW: starts work. W: works. WF: finishes work.
• SWF: starts and finishes in one day.
• H: a hold day between first and last work, with no scheduled scenes.

Each row identifies the actor. If the actor is unavailable on a scheduled day, the code shows in red. The stripboard shows the same conflict.

Each row totals work, hold, and overall days. Print the grid with its legend or share a read-only link.

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Mark a complete scene as shot from the navigator or a strip's schedule button. For detailed coverage, line the script setup by setup.

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Lining

Set a shoot day's date, location, call time, and scenes. Its call sheet gathers the speaking cast, tagged props and wardrobe, and planned shots, ready for PDF export.

Each scene row includes its story day, estimated shoot minutes, and synopsis from the Scene tab. These details show on the page and in the PDF. Changes to a scene heading do not remove tagged items or shots.

The crew grid lists department, position, name, call time, and phone. Call times use the first call time plus each person's offset. To set an individual time for that day, use Edit. To use the offset again, clear the individual time.

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Keep names, departments, positions, contact details, and call offsets in the Crew tab. Offsets are minutes after first call. Negative numbers set an earlier time. The directory syncs, works offline, and exports as CSV.

Email addresses are used for delivery, not printed on call sheets, PDFs, or guest pages.

Workspace members can reuse contacts with Add from rolodex. It combines crew across productions by email address. If an address is missing, it uses the name. Each contact lists previous productions.

The Locations tab lists production locations with names, addresses, coordinates, notes, pictures, tags, and represented script sets. Connect a location to a shoot day. If the day has empty address, parking, or hospital fields, the call sheet uses values from that location.

• Sets: assign the script's slugline locations to a place here or from the report's Locations tab.
• Coordinates: enter coordinates manually. Alternatively, select Look up coordinates to send the address to OpenStreetMap, then select a result. Open in Maps opens an external map.
• Weather and hospitals: first, assign a location with coordinates to the shoot day. Select Fetch forecast for an Open-Meteo forecast up to sixteen days ahead. The weather field receives a summary with sunrise and sunset. Select Find nearest hospital for the five closest OpenStreetMap results. These requests run only when selected.
• The library: locations from productions in the workspace, grouped by name and address. Use tags and distance to filter them. Add from library copies location data without pictures.

Contact details on a place show only to people who can see contacts (below).

The Cast tab lists characters, actors, agencies, agents, contact details, and unavailable dates. Drag entries to change their order. Call sheets print actor names beside characters. You can export the list as CSV.

Each row shows the scheduled shoot-day count and character profile summary. Select the character name to open their profile in the Characters tab.

A task has a title, notes, an assigned crew member, and a due date. It can also refer to a scene or shoot day. Your dashboard shows assigned open tasks due in the next two weeks. Task assignment does not send email.

A production can include dated events for prep, shooting, post-production, milestones, and off periods. Add events on the Call sheets page. Events show with shoot days on the workspace Schedule page. The calendar feed and schedule guest links also include them.

• Crew off periods: record unavailable dates on the Crew tab. The stripboard identifies unavailable crew on each dated day.
• Units: give a shoot day a unit name and the stripboard, day out of days and call sheet carry it.

The Credits tab creates an end roll from crew and cast. It starts with the director, writers, producers, cinematographer, and editor. Cast follow in order of dialogue amount, with actor names from the Cast tab. Departments follow the cast. Download the credits as text.

A wardrobe or makeup tag can identify a character and a change or look ("Change 2", "Look 1"). Character sheets group items by change and list their scenes. The breakdown report can group wardrobe and makeup by character. Breakdown sheets print the change after each item.

Click "Start from standard accounts" or add your own accounts. Each account has a number, a name, and a band: above the line, production, post, or other.

The page opens in "Top sheet". This view shows the estimate for each account and band, plus the grand total. If the budget is locked, it also shows the "Locked" totals.

Enter an account name or number in "Find an account". Use "All groups" to select one account group. These filters change only the visible accounts. Totals and exports still include all accounts.

Open an account to edit its number, name, and band inline, and to price its lines. A line has a description, a unit, a quantity, a rate, and a note. The units are day, week, flat, allow, and pct. A pct line is a percentage of the other lines in the budget or in its band.

Use "Move line up" and "Move line down" to reorder lines. Delete a line or an account only after the confirmation. There is no undo.

Link a quantity to the schedule: a character's working days or the total shoot days. Link a rate to a crew member's day rate or to the item costs of a breakdown category. A week line prices one day rate multiplied by "Days per week".

When the schedule, crew, or breakdown changes, the line updates. If a linked character or crew member is removed, the line uses the typed value and shows a message.

Open "Export" for CSV, Excel (.xlsx), PDF, or Print. CSV and Excel (.xlsx) include one row per line. The columns are scenario, currency, group, account number, account, description, unit, quantity, linked to, rate, rate currency, fringe percent, fringe, total, locked, actual, committed, estimate to complete, EFC, variance, and note. Print includes every account and its lines.

Import a CSV or .xlsx file with the same columns, or a Movie Magic style export with the columns Account, Description, Amount, Units, X, and Rate. The import shows a count of new accounts, lines, and skipped rows before you click "Add to the budget". Imported lines go to the base budget without links.

Select "Cost report" to show actuals, commitments, forecast, and variance. With Studio, enter an actual cost, a committed cost, and an estimate to complete on each line. When a line has no actual or committed cost, the forecast is the budget and the variance is 0.

Otherwise the estimated final cost (EFC) is the actual plus the committed plus the estimate to complete. The variance is EFC minus budget. A positive variance is over budget.

Studio adds fringes. A line can take a fringe percentage, or a named fringe from "Budget settings". A named fringe has a name, a percent, and an optional cap on the base amount. Pct lines take no fringe.

Studio adds scenarios. A scenario is a named alternative. With a scenario selected, quantity, rate, and fringe changes apply to that scenario only. You can also exclude a line. A line added in a scenario shows a "scenario" chip and exists only there. Actuals, commitments, and estimates to complete on base lines stay shared across scenarios.

Click "Compare scenarios" to see each scenario beside the base with its difference. Click "Export Excel" to export the comparison as .xlsx. Budget exports use the selected scenario and name it in each row.

Studio adds currencies. Select the budget currency in "Budget settings": USD, CAD, GBP, EUR, AUD, NZD, MXN, BRL, INR, ZAR, JPY, or KRW. A line can hold a rate in another currency. Enter the "Exchange rates" table as "1 EUR = … USD" to convert such rates. A rate in a currency with no entry stays as typed. JPY and KRW amounts show no decimals.

Studio adds the lock. In "Budget settings", "Lock the budget" keeps current totals in the "Locked" column on the top sheet and in each account. Editing continues after the lock. The page shows who locked the budget and when. Click "Unlock the budget" to remove the column. Each lock and unlock goes to the workspace audit log.

Workspace owners and admins, project writers, and producers see the budget. Readers do not, the same as crew day rates. Click "Share" to make the read-only "Budget top sheet" guest link. Select "Export" → "PDF" to download the top sheet for the selected scenario. Studio workspaces can also read the budget through the API.

Studio supports productions with budgets above $100,000. It includes unlimited collaborators, the workspace audit log, security policies, single sign-on, and the API.

Share reports, shot lists, storyboards, sides, call sheets, daily progress reports, and the budget top sheet by guest link. Guests read in a browser without an account. Scripts and storyboards also offer comment links.

• Add a passcode or revoke the link whenever needed.
• Sides carry the link watermark and optional recipient name.
• Use the share menu to set that name and allow or disable PDF download.

These tools are available with Production. The budget cost report, fringes, scenarios, currencies, lock, and API are available with Studio. The free desktop app includes writing and screenplay export. For offline availability, see Sync & offline.

Reports, sides, breakdowns, schedules, shots, and budgets work on your device with encrypted scripts.

• No guest links: the server cannot render a readable copy.
• No call-sheet PDFs: print from the page. Schedule PDFs are also unavailable.
• No budget PDF, guest link, API, or archive CSV: the server cannot read an encrypted budget. The budget page, print, CSV, and .xlsx export work on your device.
• No storyboards: pictures use server storage.