Strings - Scheduling a Film

I wanted to discuss a little bit about how i went about scheduling for the film Strings.

To begin with I created the schedule for the film using Google Sheets, I had set up a Drive on Google that all the crew members could access, store and share any documents or files relating to the film. I choice this because in previous years and projects this has been the easiest way to share documents as everybody could access it as long as they had an email address.

Here is an early rendition of the schedule and though it served it function I couldn't help but feel as though that it wasn't as efficient or as clear as I would have like it to be.

I was then told about the smartsheet. A very intuitive data input and spreedsheet website.

Not many of my crew members intuitively use this, which is fine. I find it very use full in term of keeping on top of the production because of the gant sheet we show along the calendar we have to finish a specific task. And also the producer I'm always updating, adding and changing the information on the schedule, Smartsheet is a lot more intuitive than Google Sheet and feels a lot less monotonous. The only downside to Smartsheet though is that is it an industry tool and is therefore not free, there is a month long free trial available but i have run out of that and i'm now paying out of my own pocket to carry on using this.

At the end of this week though we will get the opportunity to try using Shotgun the industry standard software for production scheduling and pipeline tracking. I'm really excited to try this as it is what is used out in industry and anyway we can streamline and better the production of the film is a welcome thing for me.