FPS — Preparation

Preparation

Turning a locked script into a schedule, a budget and somewhere to point the camera

Screens shown for shape, not for sign-off

This area is an outline. Preparation is where the Script Manager’s output becomes a plan and a number, and it is the part of FPS with the most existing software to argue with — Movie Magic, Scenechronize, StudioBinder. What follows is the shape of the door so the portal reads in the order a film actually happens, with the questions that would need answering before it is specified properly.

Days to camera

first day 29 September

Scenes broken down

64 / 91

70% — elements tagged

Locations confirmed

9 / 14

two awaiting permission

Budget against script

V2d

budget still drawn on V2b

Strip board — week one

Draft schedule

Sc 9Int. Chapel Room — Emergency Door — Day2¼

Sc 19Int. Chapel Room — Day1⅛

Sc 25Int. Chapel Room — Moments Later2⅜

Sc 29Int. Chapel Room — The Food Pile1⅝

Sc 41Int. Chapel Room — The Food Pile — Same Time1¾

Sc 17Int. The Brother’s Kitchen — Day (Flashback)½

Sc 64Int. The Lower Levels — Continuous — INTERCUT2¼

Sc 66Int. The Lower Levels — Deeper — cannot be carded as written4⅞

Scene 66 is 4⅞ pages doing four things at once, with a flashback nested inside an intercut that opens in Scene 64 and closes in Scene 66. It is the strongest writing in the draft and it will not fit on a strip. Coverage recommends breaking it for the board without changing a word — see Reduction 4.1 and CPS-Q17.

Breakdown — what the script is asking for

Element	Count	Where it bites
Cast	5 principals	Plus three licensed minors and three creature performers
Background	≈12	Chapel only, and removed entirely at the exodus in Scene 43
Hero props	14	Chime, wrench, rope, tablet, two wristbands, pager, three photographs — all cheap, all continuity-tracked
Practical handsets	hundreds	Racks in Scenes 74–75; the hidden department
Water	11 scenes	Sustained standing water, one full immersion, one performer held under
Stunts	4	Chasm crossing, rope suspension, a fight ending at a drop edge, a fall
SFX	mist, tentacles	Persistent mist is a friend — it hides set extents in five scenes

Breakdown tags come from the script, so a revision that adds an element shows up here rather than in somebody’s memory.

The gate, seen from prep

Unpriced

Scenes 78 to 88 — the cavern — are 18.4 per cent of the film in one bespoke build with standing water. Coverage will not give the film a budget figure until a production designer and a special effects supervisor have answered one question on paper: tank build, dry-for-wet, partial build with extension, or location.

Everything else in this script is knowable today. Preparation is where that becomes a purchase order, and it is the first thing this area would have to handle properly.

Commission the build-and-tank plan Reduction options, Tier 1

Cast

3 of 12 cast

Every role in the script, who is playing it, who represents them, what they are owed and when. Roles come from the character index, so a rewrite that removes a character removes it from casting too.

Cast and signed	3
Offer out or auditioning	4
Nobody attached	5
Licensed minors, none cast	3

No casting director is appointed. Offers are going out from the line producer, which is slower and worse, and the three child roles need one before anything else can start.

Open the cast portal

What sits behind this door

Cast

Roles, offers, deals, day out of days, and agent invoicing. Built.

Breakdown

Elements tagged on the script — cast, extras, props, wardrobe, vehicles, SFX, stunts, animals, music.

Strip board and DooDs

Ordering the shoot, and the day-out-of-days that falls out of it.

Locations

Recces, permissions, unit bases, parking, and the restrictions that become blocking start pack items in Crew Pay.

Budget versions

One budget version per script version, so a cost change traces to the page that caused it.

Crew and kit

Who is needed when, which feeds contract issue rather than being retyped into it.

Questions before this is built

Does FPS schedule, or does it hand off?

Movie Magic is entrenched and a 1st AD will not give it up lightly. Interchange may be worth more than replacement.

What does a locked script release?

Breakdown, board and budget all key off it. Same question as CPS-Q01, arriving from the other side.

Who owns a location restriction?

The listed-building acknowledgement is written here and enforced in Crew Pay. One of them owns it.

Does a proposed cut show its cost?

The most valuable thing this area could do, and the hardest. CPS-Q18.

Where it plugs in

← Script Manager

Scenes, pages, cast and elements from the locked draft.

→ Production

The board becomes call sheets, movement orders and the cost report.

→ Crew Pay

Scheduled days per person are the days Crew Pay prices.

→ Investor Portal

The budget an investor sees is the one prep signed off.