Production board

A production board, stripboard, or production strip is a filmmaking term for a chart displaying color-coded strips of paper, each containing information about a scene in the film's shooting script. The strips can then be rearranged and laid out sequentially to represent the order one wants to film in, providing a schedule that can be used to plan the production. This is done because most films are shot "out of sequence," meaning that they do not necessarily begin with the first scene and end with the last. For logistical purposes, scenes are often grouped by talent or location and are arranged to accommodate the schedules of cast and crew. A production board is not to be confused with a stripboard used for electronics prototyping.

Historically, strip boards were manually assembled by hand on specially-made multi-panel boards made of vinyl or wood, about 15 to 18 inches tall (38 to 45 cm), whose panels could be easily folded up. In the 21st century, such boards are obsolete, and aspiring filmmakers are no longer routinely trained in how to use them. In contemporary filmmaking, a digital version of a strip board is prepared with dedicated computer software applications, of which the most popular one is Movie Magic Scheduling from Entertainment Partners. Other popular applications include Celtx and Scenechronize. It is also possible to create a digital strip board by customizing general-purpose spreadsheet software such as OpenOffice.org Calc or Microsoft Excel.