Free template

Free production stripboard template

The stripboard is how film productions have scheduled shoots for close to a century: one thin strip per scene, colour-coded by interior/exterior and day/night, physically reordered until the shoot days make sense, with a black strip marking the end of each day. The tool predates computers because the idea is sound — a schedule you can rearrange by hand.

This template is the classic board as a printable PDF: strip rows with scene, I/E, D/N, page count, synopsis, cast numbers, and location, the traditional colour legend, and example strips showing a completed day.

Free for any production, commercial or personal. No signup required.

How to read a stripboard

  • One strip = one scene, carrying everything scheduling cares about: number, I/E, D/N, pages in eighths, cast, location.
  • Colour = shooting condition at a glance. White INT/DAY, yellow EXT/DAY, blue INT/NIGHT, green EXT/NIGHT. A board heavy in yellow is weather-exposed; green means overnight crew turnarounds.
  • Black strips = day breaks, with the day’s total page count. Consistent 4–5 page days mean a plan; a 9-page day between two 2-page days means a problem.
  • Strip order = shooting order, which is the entire point: scenes shot out of story order, grouped by what is cheap to shoot together.

The grouping logic, in priority order

  • Location first — company moves burn half-days; shoot out each location completely before moving.
  • Cast second — group an actor’s scenes to shorten their engagement; day-players especially.
  • Light third — batch day and night work; a split day of both is a schedule of neither.
  • Then the human factors: schedule stunts and emotional heavy-lifting early in the day, never break turnaround, and respect child-performer hour limits absolutely.

Paper strips, digital board

The paper board’s weakness is arithmetic: every reorder means re-adding page counts, re-checking cast days, and re-writing the day-out-of-days by hand. Production Slate’s stripboard keeps the strip metaphor — colour-coded, drag-to-reorder, works on a phone — while doing the arithmetic live: page totals per day, cast day counts, and a Day-out-of-Days report generated from the same board that builds your call sheets.

How to build a shooting schedule with a stripboard

  1. 1Break down the script: one strip per scene with I/E, D/N, pages in eighths, cast numbers, and location.
  2. 2Group strips by location so each location shoots out completely before a company move.
  3. 3Within each location, batch day scenes together and night scenes together.
  4. 4Check cast: consolidate each actor’s strips to minimise their engagement span.
  5. 5Insert black day-break strips, keeping daily page counts realistic (3–5 pages for narrative work).
  6. 6Stress-test: turnarounds after night work, weather cover for exterior days, and a plan B for every EXT day.

Common questions

What is a stripboard?

A stripboard (or production board) is the classic film scheduling tool: one colour-coded strip per scene, arranged in shooting order and divided by day-break strips. The colours encode interior/exterior and day/night; strip order is the shooting schedule.

What do the stripboard colours mean?

The traditional scheme: white for INT/DAY, yellow for EXT/DAY, blue for INT/NIGHT, green for EXT/NIGHT, and black strips for day breaks. Some productions vary the palette, but the I/E × D/N encoding is universal.

What are page eighths?

Scripts are measured in eighths of a page — a scene’s length written as 2 2/8 means two and a quarter pages. Eighths are the standard unit for estimating how much a production can shoot per day.

What is a Day out of Days?

A report showing which days each cast member works, starts, and finishes — derived directly from the stripboard. It drives cast booking and is generated automatically in Production Slate.

Production Slate’s digital stripboard keeps the colours and drag-to-reorder, and does the page math and Day-out-of-Days for you.

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