Whether it is with your cast or your crew, scheduling can be very challenging. Keeping your crew to a minimum can help things stay organized as long people are not wearing too many hats on set. I generally like to work with a crew of myself and maybe 1 or 2 more people if I’m doing a short. This usually means myself or another person is behind the camera and then there is a boom operator. I can go a hell of a lot more into detail about why small crew sizes are sometimes easier to work with and what role each person can play, but that’s not what this blog is about. The point is, if you have a small crew, it’s a lot easier to schedule times that work for everybody.

For actors, hopefully if you’re doing a small independent film and you have very little money, the script you are working with has a very small amount of characters. By keeping the amount of characters and locations limited, you can make your production easier and go faster, so keep this in mind if you’re writing your own script.

The best thing to do when scheduling, is have everyone involved in the production in one place at the same time. I personally think the best place is around someone’s kitchen table. Throw out some coffee, too, because these meetings can last a while sometimes. The benefit of having everyone at one place at the same time is if something doesn’t work for one or more people, a better time can be found immediately. It is a good idea for everyone to have their daily planners or electronic calendars with them- some scheduling tool that people carry with them often.

It is a very bad idea to schedule production dates over the phone individually if you have more than three people involved. Here’s why:

“Hello, Tracy? We’re shooting on Sunday at three. That’s good for you? Great.”

“Hello, Todd? We’re shooting on Sunday at three. Oh you can’t? Damn. When is good for you? Monday at 4? Ok.”

“Hello, Tracy? Todd can’t do Sunday. Can you do Monday at 4? No? Damn.”

You can see how things can get messy fast and that’s only two actors. What if you’ve got a scene with five people and you need to make sure everything is good for your crew too? Yeah, everyone at one place at the same time works better. Hopefully you don’t have to kill yourself trying to make that happen.

If you can’t get everyone at the same time, the 2nd best way to schedule is to send out a mass email or text message and have people give you dates and times when they are available and find, I guess in math’s terms, what would be the least common denominator. Another thing to keep in mind would be scheduling as far ahead as possible so that people are able to schedule around shooting days and people have more days available. Often people don’t have little things scheduled weeks or even months ahead of time. Have them place their dates around yours. There will of course be conflicts here and there, but it’s better than calling someone on Sunday night for a shoot during the week and they don’t even have a single hour to spare.

Okay, so here’s the Final Cut:

1. small cast/crew= easier scheduling
2. Schedule with everyone in person at same time
3. Everyone should have scheduling tool handy
4. Phone scheduling can get messy…fast.
5. Mass email/text scheduling is 2nd best way