Crew contact sheet template

What this is about

The crew contact sheet is boring until it is the most important document of the morning. Structure follows the org chart: departments in a fixed order, role before name, mobile number, email, and where relevant arrival day and accommodation. It lives as one maintained file with a version date, because replacements happen — the gaffer from the first booking round is not always the gaffer who shows up. And since it is a directory of personal data, distribution is a decision: who receives it, in which form, and what gets removed from the wide version.

A template is the starting point, not the goal: once it has been filled in by hand twice, it is worth asking whether the document should come out of the plan instead.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• Departments in a fixed order with role stated before name, because in a hurry you search for the gaffer, not for a first name
• Mobile numbers verified by an actual test message, since one digit transposed makes the whole row decorative
• Arrival and accommodation columns for traveling crew, which double as the checklist for pickups and hotel bookings
• A version date in the header and one named maintainer, so replacements land in the list before they land on set

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. Build the skeleton from the crew plan as soon as key positions are booked, and fill rows as confirmations arrive.
2. Collect data through one channel with a short form — role, name, mobile, email, dietary needs for catering — instead of assembling signatures from mails.
3. Verify the numbers once by message, and mark verified rows so gaps stay visible.
4. Decide the distribution levels: full list for production, a reduced version for the wide crew, dietary details only to catering.
5. Publish with a version date, update on every replacement, and re-send with the change highlighted.
6. Delete or archive the list according to your data retention practice after wrap — it is a directory of people, not a souvenir.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• An outdated list after replacements, so the morning call reaches the person who was rebooked out
• Sharing the full list with everyone, spreading private numbers wider than anyone agreed to
• Numbers never tested, discovered as wrong in the exact moment they were needed

With TillyGen

TillyGen's disposition already names the people working each day, so the contact sheet and the call sheet draw from the same team data instead of drifting apart.

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.