Documentary Production Scheduling

[Michael LaFortune]

I'm looking for examples of a good documentary production schedule either in Excel or other format but haven't been able to find any in the last two days. I've tried Celtix and it's not what I'm looking for. I thought maybe a weekly schedule would work but I haven't been able to find an example to draw from. A little background information-- 46 week documentary project that needs to be somewhat in-depth for submission.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Maybe you have this covered:
Different projects have different requirements. A schedule basically lists what you will be doing on any particular day. However, for every schedule, you have to assign a priority to one or two 'items' that are the most important.

If you're making a 'complete' schedule, for example, your columns will number 46 (weeks). What your weekly priority is for each week will determine the number of rows and what to fill in them. Is it location? Is it manpower? Equipment?

The second page can be a breakdown of each week. So you'll have 46 pages (one for each week). Again, you might have seven columns (for days - if you have off days, then mark that). What is your priority for these days? That determines the number and info on rows.

If you want to go even deeper you can schedule each day. You can break this down by hours in the columns and your activities (or whatever the priority is) as rows.

The point I'm trying to make is that there are NO standards for this sort of thing. Every project is different, and has different priorities. Let's say you are interviewing a head of state for your documentary, and his/her schedule falls on a particular day. You have no choice but to schedule other events around this - which will have ramifications on your budget and other activities. Plus, you are submitting this for approval, so it might be better to ask whom you are submitting to for hints on what their priorities are, so you can land the deal.

Hope this helps.

[Michael LaFortune]

Thanks Sareesh. That's good information. What I ended up doing is basically what you've described.

I've made a "preliminary" production schedule on a spread sheet. It has five columns with each month divided into four columns formatted to fit horizontally on a 8.5 x 11 A4 paper. To the right of the months are the weeks. The first column under the months has the primary objectives for that week broken down in to "pre-production", "production", "post-production" subtitles. Those range from meetings, research, edit, shot location etc. To the right of those weekly objectives, colored bars extend for the duration of that activity. At the end of the forty-six weeks is the final delivery date.

That is the preliminary schedule break-down that I will submit for consideration. I also have a more extensive detailed production schedule that is broken down into day and even hour which I could submit if requested.

Thanks for the feedback--