Before Call Time

For fourteen years in independent film and television, a large part of my job happened before the camera rolled: getting a new crew ready to act on a plan that only a few people held. I turned that work into three online training samples, set on one fictional production. A branching scenario covers a production assistant’s first day. A job aid and micro-course teach the call sheet. A set safety orientation comes with a plan for proving it worked.

Role: Producer and instructional designer: subject, content, design decisions and every ruling.
Team: Claude (AI assistant), using an AI-assisted workflow.
Timeline: 2 October 2026.
Result: Three samples live, three printable job aids and a four-level evaluation plan; the portfolio’s first non-game learning work.

The Problem

Film sets train people constantly, but almost never on paper. A new PA is handed a walkie and a corner and learns by getting it wrong in front of the crew. Everyone gets the call sheet, and most new people read one line of it. Safety training on a small shoot is the 1st AD talking for two minutes at call. I’ve run that training for years, in person. None of it was in my portfolio, which until now showed learning design only for a tabletop game.

So the samples had two jobs. They had to show the range of instructional design a hiring manager looks for: scenario-based learning, performance support, compliance training and evaluation. And they had to carry the real practice of a set, not a classroom version of it.

Analysis: Three Learning Jobs

A new production assistant

Needs judgment on day one: the radio, the lockup, where to stand, who they work for, when to stop work.

Any new crew member

Needs to find their own information on the call sheet, fast, before dawn.

New ADs and producers

Need to catch a draft call sheet’s errors before the crew sees it.

Everyone on the show

Cast and background included: the few rules that prevent most injuries, the calls the crew shouts, and permission to stop work.

Those are three different kinds of learning, so they got three different formats. Judgment under pressure is practised, not read, so it became a branching scenario. Finding information fast is performance support, so the call sheet itself became the job aid. And safety training only matters if it changes what people do, so that sample came with a way to measure behaviour.

A table of three learning jobs. Judgment under pressure: a branching scenario, Your First Day as a PA. Finding information fast: a job aid and micro-course, Reading a Call Sheet. Changing behaviour, and proving it: an orientation with a four-level evaluation plan, Set Safety Orientation. Each row says why that format fits. — The format follows from what the learner has to do on set.

Design Decisions

One production, one crew

All three samples are set on Last Light, a fictional non-union indie feature in the US. The same 1st and 2nd ADs, key PA, lead actor, streets and diner recur. The call sheet a learner reads in the second sample is for the day after the first sample, and the safety hazard hunt takes place in the diner that call sheet sends the crew to. Someone who takes all three meets one shoot, not three exercises.

Three linked cards. Day 1, Main Street and basecamp: Your First Day as a PA. Day 2, the call sheet: Reading a Call Sheet. Day 2, Set 2, Rosie's Diner: Set Safety Orientation. Below, the people and facts shared across all three: the 1st AD, the 2nd AD, the key PA, the lead actor, the producer, the nearest hospital, a 6:00 crew call and the 10-hour turnaround. — One shoot runs through all three samples.

A brand taken from the live site

The samples needed a look that wasn’t the game’s, so I used my own studio’s. Every colour and typeface was measured from savagelightstudios.com and its logo, then written up as a style guide and one shared style sheet. The logo’s red became “ember”, kept for consequences and hazards only and always paired with a label, so meaning never depends on colour alone. Every text colour passes WCAG AA on the dark page.

The studio’s own brand, set up for courses.

Consequence first, and nobody gets fired

The PA scenario is one shooting day in six scenes, from call time to wrap. Every decision offers a best answer, a tempting answer that costs something, and a real beginner’s mistake. The learner sees what happens on set first, then reads the rule. Three meters track crew trust, schedule and safety. A new PA who gets it wrong on a real set is corrected, not fired, so a mistake leads to a recovery scene and the day carries on. I asked for the actors’ eyelines to be part of the lockup scene, and for top-down set maps where the learner taps where to stand. The debrief ends with a one-page card to keep.

Six scene cards in order: call time, the radio, the lockup, chain of command, the picture car and wrap. Below them, two recovery branches: a walk and talk after a bad lockup, and a safety meeting after a near miss. Three endings: asked back, day player, or a talk with the 2nd AD. At the bottom, the lockup map with spots A, B and C, and the printable PA's First-Day Card. — The scenario’s shape, its lockup map and its job aid.

Speed never beats safety. Two test runs with the same crew trust end differently because of one safety call, and a low Safety score decides the ending on its own.

A bar chart of three test runs. Best calls throughout: crew trust 100, safety 75, asked back. Late on the hazard, then owned it: crew trust 100, safety 55, day player. Mostly beginner's mistakes: crew trust 0, safety 10, a talk with the 2nd AD. Dashed lines mark the safety thresholds at 40 and 60. — Three scripted runs, three endings.

The tool is the lesson

Everyone on a set already has the call sheet, so the sample teaches people to use it rather than replacing it. One full Day 2 sheet is used three ways. First it’s the practice field: eight questions people really ask, each asked as a different crew member, answered by tapping the sheet. A wrong tap explains what the learner tapped, so every miss teaches a section. Then the same sheet becomes the job aid, with every section numbered and keyed, and prints as a PDF. I added a second part for new ADs and producers: tomorrow’s draft, with four planted errors to find before the crew sees it.

The annotated call sheet with numbered sections, beside three cards: practice, job aid and check the draft. Below, the four planted errors: a 4 a.m. crew call that leaves nine hours of turnaround; a day exterior scheduled after sunset; cast 4 in a scene but missing from the cast list; and a new location with no nearest hospital. — Practice field, job aid and answer key, plus a draft to check.

Check the facts outside the room

The content is what I’ve done on sets for years. But anything a crew member would repeat on set was still checked against industry sources before it was taught: the cast status codes, page counts in eighths, the calls crews shout, and the sandbag rule. Two calls were corrected. “Points!” warns of gear with sharp or pointed ends, not anything heavy. “Striking!” is called when a light switches on or off, not only on. Where practice is the authority, as with the radio terms and the 10-hour turnaround, the call was mine.

A table of seven checks. Cast status codes: confirmed. Page counts in eighths: confirmed, and no scene counts as less than an eighth. Points: corrected to gear with sharp or pointed ends. Striking: corrected to a light switching on or off. Watch your back: confirmed. Sandbag on a stand: confirmed, with the high leg under the load. Radio terms and the 10-hour turnaround: confirmed from practice. — Two corrections, made before release.

Show what right looks like, too

The safety orientation is for everyone on the show, cast and background included: seven short lessons, each ending on one rule. Its centre is a hazard hunt on a top-down map of the diner set. Eight things are unsafe, and two are set up properly. Tapping a hazard gives the fix; tapping a correct set-up says why it’s fine. A hunt with only hazards teaches people to see danger everywhere. The correct set-ups teach what a safe set looks like.

A top-down map of the diner set with eight hazards ringed: cable across the entrance with no mat, a stand with no sandbag, a ladder nobody is footing, a stinger in water, a hot light in the walkway, cases blocking the fire exit, someone sitting on the dolly track, and the first aid kit under jackets. Two correct set-ups are ringed in dashed cyan: a matted cable and a bagged stand. — Eight hazards and two decoys.

Measure behaviour, not just knowledge

A crew can pass the quiz and still run cable across a doorway at 6 a.m. So the evaluation plan covers all four Kirkpatrick levels but is built around Level 3: a ten-minute set walk by the 1st AD on days 1, 3 and 10, against a ten-item checklist. The 1st AD owns it and reports to the producer, using only what a small production already has. The plan also says how to read the results. Near-miss reports should rise in week one if the training works, because people start reporting, and fall afterwards as hazards are fixed.

Four level cards. Reaction: a three-question survey. Learning: the knowledge check and the hazard hunt. Behaviour, highlighted: the 1st AD's set walk on days 1, 3 and 10. Results: injuries, near misses and time lost. Below, a line showing the expected shape of near-miss reports, rising in week 1 and then falling, labelled as an expected shape, not data, beside the first page of the evaluation plan. — The evaluation plan, and how to read its numbers.

Something to keep, and something that works for everyone

Each sample ends with a printable piece in a print version of the brand: white paper to save ink, and navy in place of cyan so text holds its contrast. The call-sheet job aid is printed from the course page itself, so the two can’t drift apart. Every page works on a phone, from the keyboard and with a screen reader. Each also reads in order as a plain script when JavaScript is off.

Three printed job aids side by side: the PA's First-Day Card, the annotated call sheet, and the first page of the evaluation plan, all on white paper with a black header bar. — Three printable pieces from three online samples.

How the Work Ran

One question at a time. Each storyboard listed what it needed decided: the setting, the radio terms, who takes the safety orientation, whether prop weapons are covered, who owns the evaluation. Each came to me as a single question.
Visuals approved before release. The style guide, every map and every printable piece were shown to me before anything was published.
Every path tested. Every scenario path, find-it task, planted error and quiz key was played through by script before release. That testing caught several layout problems at phone width, fixed before launch.
Delivered where it’s needed. The samples are live with their PDFs, on this portfolio and on my résumés.

Outcome

All three samples are live in the film section of my eLearning samples: Your First Day as a PA, Reading a Call Sheet and the Set Safety Orientation with its evaluation plan.

The content is field-tested. It’s what I’ve taught crews on real sets for fourteen years: day-one PA training, radio discipline, lockups, reading and checking call sheets, and the safety meeting at call. What’s new is the format. These online versions haven’t yet been run with a crew, so there’s no learner data yet. When they are, the evaluation plan says exactly what to collect.

Credits

Subject, content and design decisions	Me, from fourteen years producing film and television
Terms checked against	SetHero, StudioBinder, Careers in Film, MovieMaker, Filmustage, Film Training Manitoba and No Film School
Package Deliverables and drafts	Claude (AI assistant), checked by me