Movie Magic Scheduling remains the uncontested industry standard for film and television production planning, widely trusted by Assistant Directors and Unit Production Managers to translate scripts into actionable shooting plans. Developed by Entertainment Partners, this specialized application enables production teams to break down scripts element by element and organize thousands of logistical details into a coherent timeline. The software visualizes the complex puzzle of principal photography, allowing professionals to manipulate shooting days, manage cast availability, and generate essential reports that keep entire crews on the same page.
Key Features
- Digital Stripboard: Replicates the traditional physical board used in production offices, allowing you to rearrange scenes by simply dragging and dropping color-coded strips to find the most efficient shooting order.
- Red Flags Conflict Detection: Automatically monitors your schedule for logical errors, such as double-booking an actor or scheduling a location shoot on a day when the site is unavailable, alerting you immediately to potential disasters.
- Breakdown Sheets: permits detailed extraction of requirements from every scene, enabling you to tag and track specific elements like Props, Wardrobe, Vehicles, and Stunts directly from the script data.
- Multi-Unit & Multi-Episode Support: Manages complex logistics for television series or large feature films by handling block shooting schedules and separate Second Unit timelines within a single project file.
- Day out of Days (DOOD) Reports: Generates critical cast and element reports that show exactly when actors start, work, hold, and wrap, ensuring agents and department heads have accurate employment dates.
- Comprehensive Calendar View: Visualizes non-shooting events such as rehearsals, travel days, and production holidays alongside the main shooting schedule for a complete overview of the project timeline.
Use Cases
First Assistant Directors rely on this tool to build the primary shooting schedule and balance daily workloads to ensure the director gets their shots without incurring overtime. Line Producers and Production Managers utilizes it to run "what-if" scenarios, quickly estimating how changes in the schedule might impact the budget or total shoot days before committing to a plan.
For any professional serious about orchestrating the logistics of a film shoot on Windows 10 or Windows 11, Movie Magic Scheduling offers the specialized toolset required to turn a screenplay into a finished movie.
Version 10.10.7 — September 2025
- Introduced new date range controls for reports, allowing users to define specific "From" and "To" dates to generate documentation for precise production periods.
- Added the ability to view daily page counts and scene totals directly within the Calendar View and Calendar Reports for better schedule tracking.
- Improved report customization by ensuring date range filters apply across all eligible reports in a sub-board, resulting in more concise and relevant output.
