TillyGen and Dropbox

What this is about

Most crews already run a Dropbox folder per production: the raw briefing, contracts, location photos, and whatever the client sends over. TillyGen adds the planning documents to that structure — shot list, storyboard, schedule and call sheet as PDF, tables as CSV. A freelancer who joins for two shoot days does not need an account in yet another tool; they need the folder link and the current call sheet. Dropbox covers exactly that part: access, sync across devices, and an inbox for incoming files via file requests.

An integration is good when nobody talks about it any more: the data is where it is needed and nobody exports anything.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• Exported call sheets carry the date in the filename, so the folder itself shows which version is current and which is history
• File requests collect location photos or tech scout notes from people outside the team, without giving them access to the whole folder
• The crew gets one folder link instead of five email attachments, and sync puts the documents on every phone and laptop
• Planning data is never edited inside Dropbox — CSV copies are read-only working material, the plan changes in TillyGen

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Set up the production folder with subfolders for briefing, planning, shoot days and footage — the TillyGen exports get one fixed home under planning.
2. Export schedule and call sheet from TillyGen as PDF and drop them into the planning folder with the export date in the filename.
3. Share the folder link with the crew once; from then on, everyone pulls documents from the same place instead of from mail threads.
4. Open a file request for incoming material — scouts and local fixers upload photos and notes without accounts and without clogging inboxes.
5. When the plan changes, export again, add the new file next to the old one, and post a short note on which version counts from now.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• A stale call sheet that keeps living in the folder without a date in its name — half the crew shows up briefed on last week's plan
• Someone fixes a time directly in a PDF annotation or a CSV copy, and the correction never reaches the plan it came from
• Folder sprawl: after three productions, nobody can say which of four look-alike folders holds the current documents

With TillyGen

The plan keeps changing in TillyGen; Dropbox holds the exported snapshots the crew works from. As long as every change produces a new dated export, the folder stays an archive, not a rival source.

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.