Scheduling: The Web Video Version of Calculus

ICal. A Web video producer's best friend.
Let's say you have a web series. And let's say you have a cast of about 20 active actors who take part in the ongoing storylines.

Some of these actors have day jobs. Some of them are in college. Some of them are in college AND have part-time jobs. And almost all of them are involved in live theatre and independent film projects.

You want to update with a new episode every week. This means you need to know when everyone is available at all times, so you can look at the group schedule and instantly know when Actors B-G are free to film a certain sequence.

You also need to know the availability of your locations. Even if you're filming in your own apartment, there are likely to be times when you'd rather not have a dozen "friends" tromping through your bedroom. Working with actual businesses or production facilities is even more stringent -- they have narrow stretches of free time that they can squeeze you in, and they usually need to know your intentions well in advance.

So: how do you juggle 20 people's schedules PLUS location schedules WHILE writing, shooting and editing 10 minutes of a weekly web series, each week, every week? Here are a few tips, culled from my years of getting it wrong (and occasionally right).

5 Tips for Scheduling Your Web Series
1. Use iCal (or somesuch similar program) to keep each individual schedule straight. Then you can toggle each person or place's schedule on or off in your viewer, enabling you to ONLY see the availability of the actors and locations in question.

(In a perfect world, the actors would be able to login and update the schedule themselves, but as we all know, very few people are accountable on a regular basis. If you're going to rely on someone to keep your schedules straight, it's either going to be you or one person you entrust the task to, not each individual.)

2. Arrange to shoot with recurring cast members in the same location every week. This way, even people with regular jobs and other commitments can set aside a certain amount of time each week, in advance, during which time they can reliably inform their employers and significant others that they are busy. This will keep your hair from greying for at least another week.

(Side note: Be sure to actually SHOOT on these days, at these times. Otherwise, your cast is setting aside valuable time for no reason, and your locations start to believe you'r enot really serious about including them. Everyone will be far less likely to take your future scheduling requests seriously if you abuse their good graces and keep them waiting.)

3. Film as much in one location as possible. If you have seven scenes scheduled for Location A, and you have access to it for 5 hours at a stretch, it stands to reason that you can squeeze in more than one scene per shoot. Doubling or tripling up on your shoots (when possible) frees up a lot of time in the future, and gives you added flexibility in case you need to do reshoots later.

(Warning: Continuity is extremely important here. You'll need to know what everyone is wearing adn what props are needed for each scene, and provide that to the cast in advance, so they can keep it straight themselves. Otherwise, you'll end up needing to reshoot certain scenes down the line when you realize hair and jewelry don't match up.)

4. Film as much in advance as possible. Just because you're updating the series weekly doesn't mean you need to film each scene in chronlogical order. Much like the location bulking mentioned above, if one of your actors has a free day, figure out how many upcoming scenes you can squeeze into that day and maximize his / her free time. Not only will you get ahead on your shot list, but the actor will thank you later for NOT calling them at the last minute to shoehorn a shoot into the week when they're really busy.

(Warning: Again, continuity is key here. So is writing ahead. You can't film what doesn't exist, and you don't want to film scenes whose bridge scenes haven't been written yet. Otherwise, you'll end up with dialogue or actions that don't match the facts and motivation of the scenes you film later, and what seems like inspired improvisation today will become an albatross around your neck a week from now.)

5. Break your shot list down by Actors, Locations, and Time of Day. This way, when you look ahead at the 20 or so scenes you need to film in the next 2 weeks, you can see at a glance how many of them require the same actor or group of actors, the same location(s) and which need to be filmed during daylight or nighttime lighting. Then, if you need to film 3 evening scenes, or 4 scenes at Location W, you can find creative ways to fit multiple shots into the same shooting day AND you'll know, by process of elimination, when OTHER scenes must be filmed.

(For example: this week, we have 5 different locations to film in, all of which are supposed to take place in the evening. Since there aren't enough evenings in the week to film AND edit everything in time for Monday, it stands to reason that some creative manipulation of time and space will need to be done on my end.)

Hopefully these suggestions can help you better manage your time, whether you have a cast of 2 or 20. We all need to be spending as much time as possible making the best shows we can, and that means more hours spent on writing, filming and editing and less time spent on the logic problems of logistics and paperwork.