Call sheet software for small video crews: an honest guide
We build Cinella, so you know where this ends up. But we're also a working video crew who spent years on the other side of this search, and the guides we found were written by content marketers who'd never stood in a car park at 6:45am holding a call sheet with last month's location on it. So here's the version we wish we'd read - including when you should not buy our thing.
What call sheet software actually has to do
Strip away the feature lists and there are five jobs:
- Build the document fast - call times, location, contacts, schedule, without fighting a table layout.
- Keep one source of truth - change a call time once, everywhere, the night before.
- Give the client their own version - professional-looking, without crew phone numbers and internal notes.
- Get confirmations - know the client has actually seen it, without chasing.
- Not cost more than the problem - this is admin software, not a crew member.
How the options handle those five jobs is really the whole comparison.
Option 1: Google Docs or a template (free)
Where everyone starts, including us. A well-made template genuinely works: it's free, everyone can open it, and clients are used to it. The problems appear at exactly the moments you can least afford them. Every shoot means duplicating and rebuilding the document, and formatting breaks under deadline. The client version is a second copy you maintain by hand - forget to delete one internal note and your client reads exactly what you think of their brief. There are no confirmations, so you're texting "did you get the schedule?" the night before. And nothing generates the schedule for you: every run of day is written from scratch at 11pm.
Verdict: right answer for your first shoots, and the thing you'll eventually swear at. If your shoots are rare or simple, stay here happily.
Option 2: StudioBinder (from ~$42/month)
The big name, and genuinely good software - for the job it was built for, which is running productions. Script imports, breakdowns, cast management, shooting schedules, production reports. If you have a 1st AD, a cast list and a call sheet that goes to thirty people, this is the tool and you should use it.
For a two-person brand shoot, you're paying for a production office you'll never walk into. The workflow assumes roles you don't have, and the pricing that unlocks the useful tiers is real money every month for features you open twice a year. It also has no concept of the thing small crews actually need most: a client-facing day that wins you the next job.
Verdict: the right choice for film and TV sets. Oversized for small commercial crews.
Option 3: SetHero (film-set pricing)
SetHero is more focused than StudioBinder - call sheets are its heart, and crews like it. But it's still built around the film-set model: cast and crew lists, department call times, weather blocks, production reports, per-production pricing. The call sheets it makes are for the crew. The client-facing side - the branded schedule, the confirmations, the uploads - isn't what it's for.
Verdict: a good film-set tool. Same mismatch for one-to-three person commercial work.
Option 4: Cinella (£12/month launch offer)
Ours, built because options 1-3 kept failing us on real jobs. The premise is different: instead of helping you assemble a call sheet, it builds the production day and the documents fall out of it. You enter the brief, call and wrap times, and it generates the run of day - crew call, rig, shooting blocks, lunch, pickups, wrap - which you tweak instead of writing. The call sheet, shot list and kit list hang off the same shoot, so a changed call time updates everywhere.
The part the others don't have: every shoot gets a private branded client portal. Your client sees their version of the day - clean schedule, where to be, who they're meeting, your insurance docs - can upload briefs, logos and POs, and confirms the day in one tap. You get notified the moment they do. Crew and client versions aren't two documents; they're two views of one shoot.
What it deliberately doesn't do: scripts, cast breakdowns, production reports. If you need those, buy StudioBinder - we mean that. Cinella is £12/month during launch (rising to £15 for new subscribers afterwards; join during launch and your rate stays £12 for as long as you stay subscribed), with a 14-day free trial and no card tricks - cancel in the trial and you pay nothing.
Verdict: we're biased, but this is the only one on the list built for the small commercial crew specifically.
The short version
- Occasional, simple shoots: a good free template. Genuinely fine.
- Film or TV set, cast and departments: StudioBinder or SetHero.
- Small crew, commercial and brand work, clients to impress: Cinella - or at minimum, something that generates your day and gives clients their own version.
Whatever you pick, the test is the same: does next month's call sheet take ten minutes instead of an hour, and does your client stop asking what time to arrive? If yes, it's working.