A production board, stripboard, or production strip is a filmmaking term for a chart displaying color-coded strips of paper, each containing information about a scene in the film's shooting script. The strips can then be rearranged and laid out sequentially to represent the order one wants to film in, providing a schedule that can be used to plan the production. This is done because most films are shot "out of sequence," meaning that they do not necessarily begin with the first scene and end with the last. For logistical purposes, scenes are often grouped by talent or location and are arranged to accommodate the schedules of cast and crew. A production board is not to be confused with a stripboard used for electronics prototyping. Historically, strip boards were manually assembled by hand on specially-made multi-panel boards made of vinyl or wood, about 15 to 18 inches tall (38 to 45 cm), whose panels could be easily folded up. In the 21st century, such boards are obsolete, and aspiring filmmakers are no longer routinely trained in how to use them. In contemporary filmmaking, a digital version of a strip board is prepared with dedicated computer software applications, of which the most popular one is Movie Magic Scheduling from Entertainment Partners. Other popular applications include Celtx and Scenechronize. It is also possible to create a digital strip board by customizing general-purpose spreadsheet software such as OpenOffice.org Calc or Microsoft Excel.
Main purpose The production board is an essential element of the filmmaking process, because the sequence in which scenes are shot during principal photography normally does not follow their chronological sequence in the script. The sequence usually depends on organizational aspects such as the availability of the cast, crew, and locations, and, in the case of outdoor shots, factors such as the season, weather and light conditions. The production board is the project planning tool used by the unit production manager (or sometimes the first assistant director) to develop the actual sequence in which scenes will be shot. Most importantly, to save money, the production team will identify all scenes that involve the same location, cast, and crew and group them together as much as possible so they can be shot together all at once. Actually shooting together all planned shots at a location is colloquially known as "shooting out" a location. Since actors are normally paid a "day rate," it makes more sense from a financial perspective, for example, to shoot all three scenes involving a particular actor and location on a single day (even though the scenes may occur in completely different parts of the script), rather than paying the actor's day rate three times to bring back the same actor to the same location on three different days just to speak a few lines each day. Shooting scenes out of order helps avoid the cost of having to repeatedly travel back to the same locations or reassemble the same sets, but requires considerable effort from both cast and crew members—especially the script supervisor—to maintain the illusion of continuity.
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