Art Department

Overview

What the Art Department panel tracks and why it exists.

The Art Department panel is where every physical element of your production is tracked from the first script read through to camera-ready status. It replaces the scattered spreadsheets and email chains that Art Departments typically rely on by bringing every section — Locations, Set Construction, Props, Greenery, Graphics, CGI, VFX, Practical SFX, Green Room, and the Budget Tracker — into a single structured view tied directly to your shooting schedule.

Every row in every section knows which scene it belongs to, what its current status is, and who is responsible for it. When the shooting schedule changes — because you rearranged the Stripboard — the Art Department panel updates its scene references automatically.

Panel Layout

The panel is divided into two zones that stay visible at all times:

• Left sidebar (230px fixed) — contains the shoot day countdown, readiness metric cards, the section navigation list, and the Water Card at the bottom.
• Right inspector — a stacked widget showing one section at a time. Clicking any section in the left nav instantly switches the table on the right.

Left Sidebar

Shoot countdown

A live countdown at the top of the sidebar shows the number of days until the first shoot day, calculated from the shooting schedule. This gives every team member immediate context about how much prep time remains.

Section navigation list

The eleven section rows each show:

• An icon identifying the section type
• The section name
• The number of rows currently in that section's table
• A health badge showing the section's overall status

Health badge states

Readiness Overview

The four metric cards at the top of the sidebar give a live production-readiness snapshot across the entire Art Department:

These numbers update in real time whenever you change a row's status in any section. The goal heading into production is to have Urgent at zero, Not Started at zero, and Camera Ready as high as possible.

The Eleven Sections

What each section tracks and what columns it provides.

1. Locations 📍

Tracks every shooting location from the script — scouting status, permit status, tech scout date, contact/owner, and notes. Auto-populated with location names from the script breakdown.

2. Set Construction 🏗

Tracks build requirements per scene — build type (New Build, Modification, Redress, Practical), construction co-ordinator, build start date, camera-ready date, and status. The alert bar fires when any build is behind its camera-ready date.

3. Set Dressing & Décor 🛋

Tracks dressing items per scene — quantity, source (Hire, Purchase, Prop House, Make), lead person, set decorator, status, and notes.

4. Props 📦

Tracks every hero prop, stunt duplicate, and background prop — which character uses it, whether it is a hero prop, how many duplicates are needed, source, prop master, graphic artist (for any printing or labelling), and status. Auto-populated from the script breakdown's prop keyword extraction.

5. Greenery / Greens 🌿

Tracks plants, foliage, and organic dressing per scene — real vs artificial, quantity, greensman, maintenance schedule, and status.

6. Art Dept. Graphics 🖼

Tracks on-screen printed materials — signage, documents, newspapers, packaging, period graphics. Columns: graphic item, type, period accuracy requirement, graphic artist, file format, and status.

7. Concept Art & CGI 🎨

Tracks digital asset requirements — mood boards, CGI shots, VFX vendor assignments, complexity rating, deliverable date, and status. Each row is linked to a specific shot or scene.

8. Green Screen / VFX 🟩

Tracks screen type (Chroma Green, Blue, LED Volume), screen dimensions, lighting rig notes, VFX supervisor assignment, pre-vis file reference, and status per stage or setup.

9. Practical SFX 💥

Tracks on-set physical effects — pyrotechnics, water effects, animatronics, wind machines. Each row includes the SFX type, supervisor, safety officer, equipment list, permit requirement, risk rating, and status. The alert bar fires for any row with risk rated High that is not yet Camera Ready.

10. Green Room / Unit Base 🎪

Tracks logistics for each shoot day — holding area, Hair & Makeup stations, costume holding, catering arrangements, cast chair count, and unit base notes. One row per shoot day rather than per scene.

11. Budget Tracker 💰

A summary budget view inside the Art Department — category, item, vendor, estimated cost, actual cost, variance, PO number, and approval status. This is an Art Department-level budget view; for the full production budget see the Budget panel.

Working with Tables

Adding, editing, and managing rows in any section table.

Adding a row

Click the Add Row button in the section's toolbar (top-right of the inspector area). A new blank row appears at the bottom of the table with all fields empty and status set to Not Started.

Editing a cell

Click any text cell to select it, then click again or press F2 to enter edit mode. Type your content and press Enter or Tab to confirm and move to the next cell.

Status cells are dropdown menus — click once to open the status picker. The row's priority dot and the sidebar health badge update immediately when you change a status.

Row height and font

All rows are a minimum of 34px tall to ensure readability on any screen size. The body font is 10pt and secondary metadata is 9pt. No column is narrower than 80px. Status dropdowns are always 155px wide to ensure all five status options display without truncation.

Priority dot column

The leftmost column in every table is a coloured dot showing the row's current status at a glance. This lets you scan the entire table for On Hold (red) or In Progress (amber) items without reading every status dropdown.

Deleting a row

Select the row by clicking its row number on the far left, then press Delete or right-click and choose Remove Row. A confirmation dialog appears before deletion.

Water Card

The Water Card is pinned at the bottom of the left sidebar and is collapsible. It lists every scene in the script that contains water-related content — identified automatically by scanning the script text for a set of water keywords.

Water-related keywords that trigger the Water Card include: rain, flood, river, lake, pool, swimming, underwater, wet, soaked, storm, puddle, stream, waterfall, boat, ship, dock, pier, and several others. If a scene's text contains any of these words, the scene appears in the Water Card and rows derived from that scene receive a 💧 tag in their tables.

Status System

Every row in every section uses the same five-state status system. The status controls the row's priority dot colour, contributes to the sidebar health badge, and feeds the readiness metric cards.

Alert Bar

When a section has one or more items in On Hold or Not Started status that are close to their assigned shoot day, a red alert bar appears at the top of that section's inspector table. The bar shows the count of flagged items and a brief description of the issue.

The alert bar is informational — it does not block editing. Resolve the flagged items by updating their status once the blocker is cleared.

Filtering & Search

Filter chips appear in each section's toolbar. Click a chip to filter the table to show only rows matching that status. Active filter chips are highlighted. Click again to remove the filter. Multiple filters can be active simultaneously — only rows matching all active filters are shown.

Auto-Population from Breakdown

When you click ▶ Run Breakdown in the Pre-Production sidebar, the Art Department panel receives the breakdown results and automatically populates several sections:

All auto-populated rows start with status Not Started and have their Scene(s) column pre-filled with the relevant scene numbers. You then complete the remaining columns for each row.

Exporting

The Art Department panel can export its full pre-production package in two formats. Access both from the Export button in the panel's top toolbar.

Export to PDF

Generates a landscape A4 PDF containing all eleven sections. The PDF opens with a title page showing the production name, generation date, and shoot day count. Each section follows with its full table in an alternating-row layout. Column headers are in navy blue; data rows alternate between white and light blue.

Requires reportlab to be installed. If it is not installed, the app will show a message: Install reportlab: pip install reportlab.

Export to Excel

Generates a multi-sheet Excel workbook (.xlsx). The first sheet is an Info sheet with the production name and generation date. Each subsequent sheet corresponds to one section with a navy title row, a blue header row, and alternating data rows. Column widths are set automatically. A Thenema Writer watermark is added to every sheet.

Requires openpyxl to be installed. If it is not installed, the app will show a message: Install openpyxl: pip install openpyxl.

Tips & Best Practices

Fill in Scene(s) column first on every row

The Scene(s) column links each row to the shooting schedule. Filling it in accurately means that when the stripboard order changes, you can immediately see which items are affected. Use comma-separated scene numbers for items spanning multiple scenes (e.g. 3, 7, 12).

Run the breakdown before opening the Art Department panel

The auto-population only happens when the breakdown is run. Open Pre-Production, load your script, run the breakdown, and then navigate to the Art Department panel — you will find Locations and Props already partially filled.

Use On Hold, not blank

When an item is blocked — waiting on a permit, a supplier quote, or a director decision — change its status to On Hold rather than leaving it Not Started. On Hold triggers the alert bar and appears in the Urgent count, making the blocker visible to the whole team.

Camera Ready ≠ Complete

Camera Ready means the item is ready for its shoot day. Complete means the shoot day has passed and the item has been struck, returned, or wrapped. Keep this distinction — it matters when tracking hire returns and purchase reconciliation.

Export to Excel for team sharing

The Excel export is the best format for sharing with the production office, line producer, or individual department heads — each gets their own sheet and can sort and filter independently. Export at the end of every production meeting to give everyone an updated version.