A common set joke is “we’ll fix it in post,” but the reality is pre-production is the most crucial step in the production process.
The time leading up to principal photography needs to be maximized; communication, collaboration, and productivity need to be organized and a strong pre-production strategy is how you set your show up for success. That’s where the pre- production or “prep” schedule comes in. This template is designed by Jennifer A. Haire and Gilana Lobel, the co-authors of Keys to the Production Office.
Get started with our template by clicking Use Template now, or read on to learn more.
Our Prep Schedule Template: What's Included
This document is the daily schedule tracker for all things during the pre-production phase of any film or television series. Generated by the production office with input from the 1st AD, Producers and UPM, it lists all the meetings, scouts, show and tells, travel, fittings and more that are occurring in prep.
The schedule will be revised and released daily, generally in the evening so all working crew will be aware of tomorrow’s activities and what they are expected to participate in. Sometimes it will include all the weeks of pre-production such as on a feature or only the pre-production days for a specific episode of television. This allows crew members to look ahead and manage their prep time accordingly. Every department is allowed to provide information to be included on the schedule and designate who is requested to participate.
How to Use Our Prep Schedule
The prep schedule includes:
- Date & Time: When the prep activity is taking place
- What: Description of the prep activity occurring
- Where: Location where it will be occurring
- Who: What people are expected to participate
If you’re a Production Coordinator running a production office, building your pre-production schedule with Assemble can maximize your efficiency. Your production secretary or Assistant Production Coordinator can use our K2PO prep schedule template to add the week’s events and then internally share the working draft directly with the team providing input - the Producer, Unit Production Manager, Assistant Director and you, the Production Coordinator, for review.
The AD’s can live edit or tag changes on the template for the Assistant Production Coordinator to make. Once the APC makes the changes they can update the status of the document to "Awaiting Feedback" and send it to you for review. You in turn can share it digitally with the UPM or Producers to update the status to "Approved" before distribution.
Once it is ready to fly, in two clicks the final schedule can be emailed to all necessary pre production crew instantly with Assemble's review link sharing feature. Your office can also track views to ensure the crew are seeing the schedule.
Gone are the days of printing multiple drafts and deciphering through chicken-scratch hand written revisions, and the excuses of “I didn’t get that”. What used to take the APC all day to complete can now be done virtually in minutes - and saves printer ink and paper to boot!
About Keys to the Production Office
Keys to the Production Office is a book written by Jennifer A. Haire and Gilana Lobel. It is designed to be a production office operations manual that improves the workflow of the production office by providing detailed instruction for Office PA’s to support the office staff. It’s the office staff that supports the entire crew in creating movie and TV magic, and one way is by maximizing efficiency and communication.
As producers who came up through the production office, Jennifer and Gilana want to encourage all offices to find better tools, such as Assembles’ pre-built templates, for completing their never ending task lists. By working smarter, this hopefully alleviates some of the time crunch pressure by creating a healthier (and more fun?) work environment for everyone. Learn more about their book here. Happy Prepping!
Create Your Prep Schedule With Assemble
Get started today with this fully customizable prep schedule template. Follow these steps to open, customize and distribute the prep schedule to your cast and crew.
1. Open the Template
Open this template by clicking Use Template. The template will be created within a new blank project in Assemble.
2. Edit the Template as Needed
Click anywhere within the text to begin adding to or editing the template.
3. Share the Document
Click Share and select Share Document to easily distribute the document to your entire team with one click. You can even track who has viewed the document.
4. Save the Updated Template for Future Projects
Once you've updated it based on your needs, click the menu in the top right and select Save as Template to save it into your your personal template library.
Producing a Film with Assemble
Assemble enables producers to create a centralized hub to manage their entire project from start to finish - including documents, calendars, task management and asset management.
By using this prep schedule template, you'll get access to all of Assemble's powerful features so that you can not only utilize this document, but keep production moving quickly and efficiently with our advanced collaboration tools built for producers.
Get started today for free by clicking Use Template to begin exploring all of Assemble's powerful features.
