Split Day

What this is about

Two situations call for it. The first is the transition into a night block: instead of jumping from an eight o'clock call to a night call and losing a day to turnaround, the unit shifts in one step. The second is a scene that needs dusk in the middle of it, where you shoot the daylight side first, catch the exterior at the light change and continue after dark. Both need a call sheet that is honest about meal times, because the crew's lunch now lands in the late afternoon and dinner falls somewhere in the night.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

In planning terms, that means:

• A split day is one continuous shift moved later; a split call means different departments start at different times on the same day.
• It only pays off if the following day is also late, otherwise the next turnaround eats whatever the shift saved.
• Announce it in the schedule weeks ahead: crew and cast plan childcare and travel around call times, not around your dusk.

With TillyGen

TillyGen builds the transition into nights as its own day with its own call, instead of hiding it in a normal shooting day.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.