Skip to content
EpicDraft Docs

Production View

Labs, Pro. Turn it on in Settings → Labs → Production view. It needs Pro, and the Writer and Director views (on unless you turned them off).

The Production view adds a third view, Producer, beside Writer and Director. It is where you plan the shoot: what each scene needs, who is in it, what it costs, the paperwork, and when it is shot.

Opening it

Choose Producer in the switch in the middle of the header, or in the View menu. The keys are ⌃⌘3 on a Mac, Alt+3 in the Windows and Linux app, and Ctrl+Shift+3 in a browser on Windows and Linux. On a phone it is at the top of the drawer. See Director View.

The Producer's Library is one list, with no Plan and Create. It starts with the Production home. Under it are your cast and crew, auditions, schedules, budgets and contracts, and the project's locations. New makes a Cast or crew member, Audition, Schedule, Budget or Contract.

The Production home

The home shows the whole script at a glance:

  • Summary: scenes, pages (in eighths), speaking cast, locations, interior and exterior, day and night, cast and crew, and your budgets, contracts and schedules.
  • Paperwork to check: contracts that are expiring or expired, insurance running out, cast with no signed deal memo, locations scheduled with no signed agreement, and drafts left too long.
  • Breakdown: every scene with its I/E, D/N, pages, cast and elements. Filter it by scene, cast or element.

Auto breakdown

Auto breakdown reads the script and suggests what each scene needs: props, wardrobe, vehicles and the rest. It reads by keywords, and with AI too when AI is set up in Settings. Each suggestion shows its department. Accept it, Dismiss it, or use Accept all in scene or Accept all. Things already in the Library are marked In Library.

Nothing is added until you accept it. Accepting tags a note in the scene, the same way Add to breakdown does on a scene's page. Beside it, the AI breakdown report has the model read every scene on its own; see AI Breakdown & Synopses. For breakdown sheets, see Library and Import & Export.

Cast and crew

A Cast or crew member page has:

  • About: cast or crew, billing (cast) or department (crew), union, email, phone, agent and day rate.
  • Plays: the characters this person plays. Appears in then counts their scenes and pages.
  • Availability: a calendar. Pick Available, Hold or Unavailable under Mark days as, then click a first and a last day. A note can go with each entry.
  • Auditions this person is in.

Asking for dates

Ask for dates makes a link you send to the person. They tap the days they can work, with no account, and you Import their answer. They see only their name and the dates you chose. Making links needs Pro with Cloud Service. Links you already sent keep working if it lapses. Locations have the same button.

Auditions

An Audition page has three tabs:

  • Roles: the characters you are casting. Pick the scenes each one reads (Suggest sides picks them from the script), and Export sides saves them.
  • Candidates: the people reading for each role, with a status (Invited, Auditioned, Callback, Passed, Cast, Confirmed), a rating and notes. Cast puts them in the role.
  • Sessions: the days people come in, with date, time and place.

Run audition has the actor read one role while every other part is read to them, in the table read's voices (the system voices, or the AI voice chosen in Settings → AI). After each of their lines they press Continue (or Space). Record this take keeps the take in the project, on this device. Use headphones so only the actor is recorded. See Table Reads & Voices.

Budgets

A Budget page has a Top sheet, a Detail view and Settings.

  • Estimate from script fills in lines from the breakdown and the schedule, or from the script's length when there is no schedule. Estimated lines use rough placeholder prices and are marked est.; editing one makes it yours. Update estimate redoes it and keeps your lines.
  • Estimate assumptions are the placeholder rates it uses (day rates, catering, location fees, insurance and so on). Replace them with real prices.
  • Settings has the currency, payroll and union fringes, contingency and tax.
  • Export PDF and Export CSV save it.

Contracts

A Contract starts from a template: actor deal memo, crew deal memo, day player agreement, location agreement, background and extras release, appearance and likeness release, music and materials license, non-disclosure agreement, insurance policy, or a certificate of insurance you received.

Fill in the Details and the text fills in from them. Edit text lets you change the wording; Reset to template puts it back. Set the Status (Draft, Sent, Signed, Expired, Void) and dates. Export PDF saves it.

To sign, export the PDF and send it with an e-signature service, or print it and sign on paper. Then Upload signed copy (a PDF, or a photo or scan of the pages) and the contract is marked signed.

Templates only, not legal advice. Have a lawyer review a contract before you use it.

Locations

In the Producer view a location's page is about securing it: status (Scouting, Tech scouted, Confirmed, Locked, Released), address, contact, owner, fee and deposit, permit, insurance, access (parking, power, load-in, restrooms, noise), scout photos, and the window the owner agreed to.

  • GPS: Use my location, type the coordinates, or Find coordinates (OpenStreetMap) from the address.
  • Nearest hospital: Find nearest (OpenStreetMap) from the GPS position, or type one in. It goes on the call sheets.
  • Availability: the days the schedule can use this location.

The OpenStreetMap buttons send the set's address or position to OpenStreetMap only when you press them. Check what they fill in.

The shooting schedule

A Schedule page has five tabs:

  • Stripboard: the scenes as strips, grouped into shoot days. Solve fits the scenes around who and what is available, and shows the result (shoot days, company moves, actor holding days). Use this schedule keeps it; Discard doesn't. You can also drag scenes between days, Add day, add a banner, lock a scene to its day, or leave it out of the schedule. A day where someone is unavailable or on hold is flagged.
  • Calendar: the shoot days by month. Click a day to make it a holiday or work it again, and show anyone's availability on it.
  • Day out of days: each cast member's days, marked SW (starts work), W (works), WF (finishes), SWF (starts and finishes in one day) and H (held).
  • Call sheets: one per shoot day, with the general call, scenes, cast and call times, locations with directions and the nearest hospital, and notes. Export this day (PDF) or Export all days (PDF).
  • Settings: first shoot day, work days, general call, hours to wrap, the longest day in pages, and holidays.