Glossary

The words the schedule is written in.

59 terms from film and television production — what they mean, why they exist, and what breaks when they are got wrong. Written for people who have to use them on a shooting day, not for a dictionary.

Looking for ScenePaper's own vocabulary — Base Camp, Crew Call, Wrap Report? That glossary is in the help centre.

Script

Act break: An act break is the point in a screenplay where one act ends and the next begins, marked by a decisive turn that changes the protagonist's situation. In a three-act feature the main breaks fall roughly a quarter and three-quarters through; in television, act breaks often sit before commercial breaks.
B story(B-plot, Subplot): A B story is the secondary storyline in a screenplay, usually a relationship, that runs alongside the main plot and carries its theme. It often begins just after the first act break and gives the protagonist the lesson or support they need to resolve the A story.
Beat sheet(Beat outline): A beat sheet is a list of the major story events in a screenplay, in order, each written as a short line or paragraph. It lays out the structure — where the inciting incident, midpoint and act breaks fall — so the story can be tested and rearranged before scenes are written.
Breakdown sheet: A breakdown sheet is the one-page record of a single scene's requirements produced during a script breakdown. It carries the scene number, its length in eighths, the location, day or night, a one-line synopsis, and every tagged element grouped by department.
Coloured pages(Colored pages, Revision pages): Coloured pages are script revisions distributed on tinted paper so that everyone can see at a glance which draft they are holding. Each new revision takes the next colour in a fixed sequence, and only the changed pages are reissued rather than the whole script.
Dual dialogue: Dual dialogue is a screenplay format for two characters speaking at the same time, printed as two dialogue blocks side by side on the page. It is used sparingly, for overlapping lines or arguments, because it is harder to read than alternating dialogue.
Fountain: Fountain is a plain-text markup format for screenplays. A Fountain file is readable as ordinary text and needs no proprietary software, but carries enough convention — capitalised scene headings, centred character names, indented parentheticals — for software to render it as correctly formatted script pages.
Inciting incident(Catalyst): An inciting incident is the event that disrupts the protagonist's ordinary world and sets the main story in motion. In a feature screenplay it usually lands in the first ten to fifteen pages, and the story that follows is the protagonist's response to it.
Logline: A logline is a one- or two-sentence summary of a screenplay that names the protagonist, what they want, and what stands in the way. It is the first thing a producer, agent or competition reader sees, and it has to make them want to read the script before they have read a page of it.
Midpoint: A midpoint is a turning point near the middle of a screenplay that changes the direction or stakes of the story — a false victory, a false defeat, or a revelation. In a feature it falls around page 50 to 60 and keeps the long second act from sagging.
Montage(Series of shots): A montage, in a screenplay, is a sequence of short images or moments that compresses time or shows a process, written under a single MONTAGE heading with each moment as a brief line. It tells the reader that these beats play quickly, usually over music, rather than as full scenes.
Parenthetical(Wryly): A parenthetical is a short direction in brackets, placed under a character's name and above or within their dialogue, that tells the actor how a line is said or to whom. It is meant for brief clarifications — (whispering), (to Maya) — not for blocking or action.
Scene heading(Slugline): A scene heading is the capitalised line that opens every scene in a screenplay, stating whether the scene is interior or exterior, where it takes place, and whether it is day or night — for example, INT. EDIT SUITE - NIGHT. It is the line scheduling software parses to build a breakdown.
Script breakdown: A script breakdown is the process of reading a screenplay scene by scene and tagging every physical element a scene requires — cast, extras, props, wardrobe, vehicles, stunts, special effects, animals. The tagged result is what the schedule, the budget and every department's prep list are built from.
Scriptment: A scriptment is a hybrid of a treatment and a screenplay: mostly prose description of the story, with key scenes written out in screenplay form, including dialogue. It is a working document, used to develop a story's shape in detail before committing to a full draft.
Showrunner: A showrunner is the person with overall creative and day-to-day responsibility for a television series, usually its head writer and an executive producer. They run the writers' room, approve scripts, and make the decisions on casting, production and post that keep the series consistent and on schedule.
Sides: Sides are the extract of a script containing only the scenes being shot on a given day, printed small and distributed to cast and crew on set. They are a working reference for the day's pages, not a copy of the screenplay, and are usually generated from the call sheet's scene list.
Spec script(Spec): A spec script is a screenplay written without being commissioned or paid for, on speculation that it will sell or win the writer work. Specs are how most screenwriters break in: as samples that show their voice, and occasionally as scripts a studio buys outright.
Subtext: Subtext is the meaning beneath what characters say — what they want, feel or hide but do not state outright. Dialogue with subtext lets the audience infer the real conflict, which is usually more engaging than characters explaining their emotions directly.
Treatment(Film treatment): A treatment is a prose summary of a film or episode, written in present tense, that tells the whole story scene by scene without dialogue formatting. Treatments run from two to around twenty pages and are used to pitch a story, or to agree its shape, before the screenplay is written.

Scheduling

Company move: A company move is the relocation of an entire unit — cast, crew, equipment and support vehicles — from one location to another during a single shooting day. It is scheduled as a block of lost time, typically one to three hours, during which no filming happens.
Day Out of Days(DOOD): A Day Out of Days is a grid showing which cast and crew are required on which shooting days. Each row is a person, each column a day, and each cell is marked with a status code — start work, work, hold, drop, or finish. It is the document contracts and payroll are built from.
Drop and pickup: Drop and pickup is a scheduling provision that lets a production stop paying a performer during a gap between their working days, then re-engage them later. The performer is dropped after one day and picked up on a later one, with the intervening hold days not paid.
Hold day: A hold day is a day on which a performer is contractually retained and paid but not called to set. It sits between their first and last working day, keeping them exclusive to the production and unavailable to take other work.
Page eighth(Eighth, 1/8 page): A page eighth is the standard unit of screenplay length used for scheduling. Every script page is divided into eight equal vertical strips, so a scene measured at 3/8 occupies three of them. Scheduling, day counts and stripboard lengths are all expressed in eighths rather than in pages.
Second unit(2nd unit): A second unit is a smaller, separate crew that shoots material not needing the principal cast or the director — establishing shots, inserts, cutaways, driving plates, stunts — often on the same day as the main unit, under a second unit director who works to the director's plan.
Shooting day: A shooting day is one scheduled day of principal photography, defined by its call time, its planned scenes and its wrap. It is the atomic unit of a production schedule: budgets, crew bookings and location agreements are all counted in days rather than hours.
Stripboard(Production board, Strip board): A stripboard is the shooting schedule represented as one coloured strip per scene, ordered in the sequence the production will actually shoot. Each strip carries the scene number, length in eighths, cast IDs, location and day/night. Reordering the strips reorders the shoot.
Turnaround: Turnaround is the guaranteed rest period between the moment a crew member is released at the end of one working day and their call time for the next. Where union or guild agreements apply, a shortened turnaround triggers a penalty payment rather than being prohibited outright.

Set & Crew

Call sheet: A call sheet is the document issued the day before each shooting day telling everyone where to be, when, and what is being shot. It carries individual call times, the scene list, the location and its parking, weather, sunrise and sunset, hospital details, and department-specific notes.
Call time: A call time is the time an individual is required to be present and ready to work — not the time they should arrive. Call times differ by department and by person: hair and makeup are called before the cast they are preparing, who are called before the crew shooting them.
Chain of command: The chain of command on a film set is the fixed reporting structure that determines who takes direction from whom. Requests travel through department heads rather than directly to individuals, so that no one receives conflicting instructions and every change is visible to the person accountable for it.
Daily Production Report(DPR): A Daily Production Report is the record of what a shooting day actually produced, filed at the end of it. It logs call and wrap times, scenes and pages completed against those scheduled, setups, takes, film or media used, meal breaks, and any accidents or delays.
First Assistant Director(1st AD, First AD): The First Assistant Director is the person responsible for running the set and delivering the schedule. They break down the script, build the shooting schedule with the line producer, and on the day they call the shots, manage the clock and keep the unit safe and moving.
Junior artiste(JA, Background artist, Extra): A junior artiste is the term used across Indian film and television for a background performer — the crowd, villagers, passers-by or police in a scene. Junior artistes are usually booked in numbers through a coordinator or agent rather than individually, and are paid per head for each call they work.
Mood board(Moodboard, Look book, Reference board): A mood board is a collection of reference images, colours and sketches that sets the visual direction for a scene, a sequence or a whole production. The art department, director and director of photography use it to agree on a look before anything is designed, built, dressed or lit.
Wrap: Wrap is the end of shooting. Called at the end of a day it releases the crew and starts the turnaround clock; called on a location it means the unit is finished there; called as picture wrap it marks the end of principal photography for a performer or for the production.

Camera

Camera report: A camera report is the log kept by the camera department for each roll or card, recording every take with its scene and slate number, lens, filters, frame rate, and whether it was circled. It travels with the media to post.
Continuity: Continuity is the consistency of everything visible and audible across shots that will be cut together — wardrobe, props, hair, position, eyeline, screen direction and the state of the action. It is tracked on set by the script supervisor and matters because scenes are shot out of order.
Coverage: Coverage is the set of different angles and sizes shot of the same scene so that it can be assembled in the edit. A conventionally covered dialogue scene includes a wide master, matching mid shots or singles of each performer, and often close-ups and cutaways.
Shot list: A shot list is the ordered list of individual camera setups planned for a scene or a shooting day, each entry specifying the shot size, angle, movement, lens and what it covers. It is the director and cinematographer's plan for how a scene will be assembled.
Shot size: Shot size describes how much of the subject the frame contains, from extreme wide through wide, medium, close-up and extreme close-up. It is one of three properties that define a shot, alongside camera angle and camera movement, and it is the one that carries most of the emotional distance.
Slate(Clapperboard, Clapper): A slate is the board filmed at the head of a take carrying the production, scene, take and roll numbers. Its hinged arm is clapped to produce a sharp sound and a matching visual frame, giving post a point at which picture and separately recorded sound can be aligned.
Storyboard: A storyboard is a sequence of drawn frames representing the intended shots of a scene, showing composition, camera position and movement. It communicates visual intent to every department before anything is built, lit or shot.
Take: A take is a single recorded attempt at a shot. Takes are numbered sequentially within a setup, logged with a circled marker when the director considers them usable, and identified by scene, slate and take number so the edit can find them.

Budget

Above the line(ATL): Above the line refers to the budget section covering the creative principals whose deals are usually negotiated before production begins — story and rights, producers, director, and principal cast. It sits above a literal dividing line in the traditional budget top sheet.
Bata(Batta, Daily allowance, Night bata): Bata is the daily allowance paid on Indian film sets on top of a wage, originally for food and travel. Night bata is the extra allowance paid for working a night shoot. It is usually a fixed amount per person per day rather than a share of pay, and is budgeted separately from wages.
Below the line(BTL): Below the line refers to the budget section covering the technical and logistical cost of actually making the film — crew, equipment, locations, construction, transport, catering and post-production. These are the costs that scale directly with the number of shooting days.
Call slip(Day sheet, Wage slip): A call slip is the record of one person's work on one production on one day: how much of a call they worked, any overtime, and what that day pays them. Daily-wage crew are paid by adding up their call slips, so the slip — not the week — is the unit of money.
Contingency: Contingency is a percentage of the budget held in reserve against overruns rather than allocated to any specific cost. It typically runs at around ten percent, and on financed productions its size and the conditions for drawing on it are set by the financier or completion guarantor.
Cost report: A cost report is the periodic statement, usually weekly, comparing what a production has spent and committed against what it budgeted, account by account. It carries the Estimated Final Cost and the variance, and it is the document a financier or guarantor monitors the production through.
Estimated Final Cost(EFC): Estimated Final Cost is the projected total spend on a production, calculated as costs already incurred plus open commitments plus the estimated cost of the work remaining. It is the number a cost report is read for, because it is the only one that says where the production ends up.
Per diem(Daily allowance, Out-station allowance): Per diem is a fixed daily amount paid to cast and crew working away from home to cover meals and incidental costs, on top of their wage. It is paid per day on location rather than per call, and is budgeted separately from pay so a location schedule shows its real cost.
Scene budget(Scene-level budget, Per-scene budget): A scene budget is the cost of a single scene, worked out by pricing the elements on its breakdown sheet — cast, crew, location, equipment, effects, art department. It is the figure a category-based budget cannot give you, because that one is organised by account and every account feeds every scene.
Top sheet: A top sheet is the one-page summary at the front of a film budget, listing each account category with its total and showing the above-the-line, below-the-line and grand totals. The detail sits in the accounts behind it; the top sheet is what gets circulated.

Post

Assembly(Assembly cut): An assembly is the first edit of a film, containing every scene in script order and usually the preferred take of each shot, with no attempt at pacing. It is typically completed shortly after principal photography ends and is far longer than the final film.
Conform: Conform is the process of rebuilding the locked edit at full quality, relinking the offline edit's decisions to the original camera media. The result is the sequence that goes to colour grading and final delivery.
Dailies(Rushes): Dailies are the footage shot on a given day, processed and made available for review shortly afterwards — traditionally the following morning, which is where the name comes from. They are watched to confirm that what was shot is usable before the unit loses access to the location.
Picture lock: Picture lock is the point at which the edit is final and no further changes to shot selection or timing will be made. It is a formal gate rather than an opinion, because sound design, score, visual effects and colour all work to a fixed timeline that a later change invalidates.

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