Day breaks mark the end of each shooting day on your board. Every strip above a day break is shot on that day, and Think Crew uses your day breaks to work out shoot day numbers, shoot dates and daily page counts across your schedule, your Day Out of Days and your printouts. This article explains how to add a day break and set it up.
Adding a Day Break
To add a new day break:
- Navigate to your schedule
- On the board, select the last strip you want to shoot that day. If you have several strips selected, the day break is placed after the last one.
- Click the “Add Day” button in the board pane’s menu bar, or press Alt + Ctrl/Cmd + A (Option + Cmd + A on a Mac)
The new day break appears on the board right after your selection. When you use the keyboard shortcut, the new day break is selected automatically so you can edit it in the breakdown pane right away. When you use the Add Day button, your current selection stays as it was, which makes it quick to select the next group of strips and add another day.
You can also add a day break from the “Breakdowns” menu in the schedule menu bar by choosing “Add Day”.
Note: You need to select a strip first so Think Crew knows where to put the day break. If nothing is selected on the board, no day break will be created. You also need permission to edit the schedule. If you don’t have it, the Add Day button is grayed out. The Add Day button is also unavailable while the board is in Duration view.
What a Day Break Shows
Think Crew calculates the information for each shooting day for you, so you never have to update it by hand. Depending on your design, a day break can show:
- Shoot Day Number: Which shooting day this is, such as “Day 3”
- Shoot Date: The date of the shooting day, based on the board’s start date, days off and calendar
- Shoot Pages: The total page count for the strips in that day
- Shoot Duration: The total estimated time for the strips in that day
When you move strips or day breaks, these values update automatically. Blackout days and day-off events on the board’s calendar are skipped when the shoot dates are worked out. See Creating and Managing Calendar Events for details.
Editing a Day Break
When a day break is selected, the breakdown pane shows these fields at the top:
- Day Name Text: Optional text for the day, such as “Company Move” or “Night Shoot”. You can include variables, such as {board_date}. See Using Variables. Changes are saved automatically.
- Call Time: The crew call time for the day. New day breaks start with a call time of 7:00 AM.
If you select more than one day break, any value you enter is applied to all of the selected day breaks at once.
You can also edit the Day Name Text directly in the board’s Calendar view by clicking the day name on any day.
Call Time and Day Length
The call time is also used by the board’s Duration view, which shows what time of day each scene is scheduled to shoot. In the Duration view, you can set each day’s Call Time and Day Duration from the menu bar. New day breaks start with a 12-hour day.
Changing a Day Break’s Appearance
Day breaks use the day strip from your current design, and their color comes from the design’s palette. To give a single day break its own color, select it and use the Color field in the breakdown pane, just as you would for a strip. See Manually Setting a Strip’s Color for details.
You can also change the font size for the day break by selecting the Font Size field in the breakdown pane.
Day Breaks When Sorting and Printing
Keep a few things in mind as you work with day breaks:
- Sort & Add Days: This tool can add day breaks for you automatically. The “Remove any existing day breaks from current board” cleanup option deletes every day break on the board before sorting. Leave it unchecked if you want to keep your day breaks.
- Printing boards: The “Day Breaks” option in the print settings lets you print day breaks normally, force them to white or black, or hide them. You can also set Page Breaks to “At day break” so each shooting day starts on a new page, or “No orphans” to keep each day’s strips together.
- Printing a range of days: Turn off “Show All Days” in the print settings and enter a Day Range to print only certain shooting days.
- Printing reports: Turn on “Exclude Banners & Days” to leave banners and day breaks out of your breakdown sheets.
See Printing Schedules for more about the print options.
Like any strip, a day break can be moved with drag and drop or sent to the recycle bin. Moving a day break up or down simply moves strips from one shooting day to the next.
Day breaks turn a list of scenes into a real shooting schedule, giving everyone on your team a clear picture of what’s being shot each day.
