Knowledge base for the Film Program at the UCF Nicholson School of Communication and Media
Master Production Calendar
Overview
When planning and scheduling your production, there are key dates you must adhere to. Film Operations maintains a Master Production Calendar to help keep everyone appraised of important operational deadlines, restricted time periods, and sanctioned production seasons.
Providing production services for student projects across all scopes, levels, and modalities is logistically complex. It requires an organized and predictable approach. Please try your best to work within the schedule outlined below as exceptions are difficult to accommodate.
Master Production Calendar
Calendar Legend
Production Seasons
Production Seasons are scheduled time periods when self-service and full-service productions take place. These are windows of opportunity when all production services are made available to produce Intermediate, Capstone, and Thesis-level creative projects.
These seasons are very demanding “sprints” that ramp up resources and do not remain open year long. Once the season has started, self-service productions can request equipment at will via the Zeus Now Portal. For full-service productions, there is a limited number of slots made available for each week of the season.
Full-Service Slots
Full-Service Slots are made available each week of the production season to accommodate large-scale productions or projects of complex scope. They are in place to help balance the load and make each week of production manageable and predictable. Each slot is typically named with the class and/or level of production they are earmarked for.
Students are expected to work with faculty and operations staff to schedule their productions in a timely manner to reserve resources and to not conflict with other full-service productions that have been approved for principal photography.
Grey Periods
Grey Periods are times during the academic year when the availability of production services is limited.
This is primarily due to reduced staffing during Add/Drop (first week of the term), Final Exams, Spring Break, and holidays. The first month of the Fall semester is also limited due to critical onboarding and training of staff is taking place.
Blackout Periods
Blackout Periods are times during the academic year when student productions are not permitted to take place and equipment checkout is suspended.
This typically happens during transitional periods between semesters, when the number of staff is reduced due to student employee freezes, or when university personnel are on administrative leave during Winter Break. This is also when students are not enrolled in courses, studies, and thesis hours.