Reading Time: 4 minutes

The one liner schedule helps you keep on track during a busy shooting day. It’s a scheduling tool distributed by the 1st assistant director on both film and commercial sets. In essence, creating schedules ensures that your whole crew knows what to expect from the shoot.

Plus, creating a schedule these days is relatively easy with new software. Below, we explain how to make a one liner schedule, featuring script breakdown and planning tips.

Book Locations For Photography & Filming on Scouty

Discover and book photo shoot and filming locations on Scouty. We have music video locations, photography locations, green screen studios, houses, warehouses, and other unique places for photo shoots and filming.

Explore Loc ations

What is a One Liner Schedule?

In short, the one liner schedule is a list of scenes for each shooting day. It includes basic information on each scene, including time of day, description, and page length. Using the liner schedule allows the crew to view their daily tasks at a glance.

The one liner schedule is also known as the stripboard schedule. These mini schedules break down the shoot into easy-to-manage chunks. It’s typical for the 1st assistant director to attach the one liner schedule to the back of a film call sheet.

What is on Your One Liner Schedule?

The one liner schedule includes details on each shooting scene. Details include the scene number, the time of day in the story, actors and page length. You order the list by scene shooting order, and if including a scene description, it’s kept short and one line long.

You can also tailor the one liner to each production’s needs. For example, a video with visual effects might include details on the VFX. The one liner will also include a physical location or film studio. Basically, whatever information to help the crew understand where they need to be and what to expect from each shooting day.

One Liner Schedule Details –

Scene number
Scene description
Location name
Interior, exterior (INT/EXT)
Day, night (D/N)
Page length
Character, actors

Who Makes The One Liner Schedule?

The 1st assistant director completes the shooting schedule and one liner schedule. Of course, this might change for smaller video shoots where the producer takes over the task. The decision for the final schedule affects all departments on a film set, so everyone gets a say on the end schedule, including the director and location manager.

Traditionally, the 1st AD would create the schedule with paper strips attached to a noticeboard. Thus, the alternative name stripboard schedule. Now, there are two popular ways of doing it, either with Excel or by using scheduling software. By using software, all you need to do is import your script, and it automatically breaks down your scenes.

One Liner Schedule Software –

Yamdu
Assemble
Studio Binder
Movie Magic
Gorilla Scheduling

Book Locations For Photography & Filming on Scouty

Discover and book photo shoot and filming locations on Scouty. We have music video locations, photography locations, green screen studios, houses, warehouses, and other unique places for photo shoots and filming.

Explore Loc ations

Breaking Down Your Script

Before creating a one liner schedule, you need to break down your script. To do this, go through every scene and write down what you need to make each one. The list will include elements such as actors, costumes, props, set dressing, makeup, stunts and VFX.

In addition, you will also include details of your location. When booking multiple locations, you might want to hire sites close to one another so you can shoot on the same day. Or you can hire a location with various rooms and background choices.

After breaking down your script, you can see what scenes fit well together. For example, shoot all of your night scenes together. Another factor contributing to the schedule is the actor’s availability. So, you will need to gather a lot of information before finishing the schedule. As such, it’s typical for there to be many schedule revisions before filming.

Script Breakdown elements –

Cast members
Make-up, costume
Vehicles, props
Special Effects
Set Dressing
Music, sound

Creating a Shooting Schedule

As mentioned, you can use either a personalised document or software to create your schedule. The software makes it easier to break down scenes. Either way, after gathering all the scene elements, it will take time to create a working shooting schedule.

There are a number of factors that affect a working schedule, for example, the actor and location availability. The more complicated your script, the more you need to compromise. You will also need to consider factors such as transportation links and plan for lunch breaks.

In addition, you should put special care into scenes with special effects or stunts. Before shooting, you should consider doing a risk assessment of each location. This planning stage is all about anticipating problems and finding solutions in advance.

Schedule Planning Factors –

Actor, crew availability
Location availability
Weather setbacks
Shooting delays
Health and Safety

Creating a One Liner Schedule

Lastly, after creating your main schedule, you can begin to make a one liner schedule. Remember that the one-liner is a concise breakdown of your main schedule with scenes deconstructed so that they fit onto one line. Now, all you need to do is turn each of your scenes into one line of information and place them into shooting order.

The 1st assistant director will then place each daily one-liner schedule on the back of the call sheet. Basically, you can’t over-schedule a film production. The one liner is updated daily along with the main schedule, which will likely alter. So, by keeping the one-liner organised, your cast and crew will clearly understand what to expect each day.