How to track crew hours on a shoot day

The short answer

Record start and end times per person, per session, on the shoot day itself rather than reconstructing them afterwards. Capture the crew member, the session, the scheduled hours and the actual hours, and have the crew member confirm their own times. Hours reconstructed from memory days later are the most common cause of pay disputes, and the discrepancy almost always runs against the crew.

You had five people on set across two sessions. Now you need defensible hours for each of them, and the group chat is not it.

Step by step

1
Define the sessions before the day
Split the shoot into named sessions — preparation, ceremony, reception; or setup, principal, wrap. Hours recorded against a session are checkable. Hours recorded against a whole day are a single number nobody can verify.
2
Record scheduled hours per crew slot
Each role on the shoot should carry its expected hours before anyone arrives. Without a scheduled figure you have nothing to compare actual hours against, and overtime becomes invisible until it is an invoice.
3
Capture clock-in and clock-out per person
Each crew member records their own start and end time for each session, on the day. Self-recorded times that the crew member can see are far less disputed than times an assistant wrote in a notebook.
4
Handle overtime explicitly, on the day
When a session overruns, grant the extra hours as a recorded decision with a reason attached, rather than discovering it in a spreadsheet later. Overtime agreed on set is a conversation; overtime discovered at payment time is a dispute.
5
Reconcile scheduled against actual before paying
Compare the two figures per person before anything is paid. Large gaps mean either the schedule was wrong or the day ran long — both worth knowing before you quote the same shoot again.

Where this goes wrong

One set of hours for the whole crew

The second shooter who left after the ceremony and the editor who stayed to wrap did not work the same day. A single figure overpays one and underpays the other.

Times written down by someone other than the crew

Third-party records get challenged. Self-recorded times, visible to the person who recorded them, rarely do.

No record of who approved overtime

If nobody owns the decision, it gets relitigated at payment time. Attach a name and a reason when the hours are granted.

Frequently asked

Do I need to track hours if I pay a flat day rate?

Yes. A day rate covers a defined number of hours; without recorded actual hours you cannot tell whether a day ran into overtime, and you cannot price the same shoot accurately next time.

What is the minimum I should record per crew member?

The person, the session, the scheduled hours, the actual start and end times, and any overtime granted with the reason. That set is enough to produce a payable nobody argues with.

Can I use a spreadsheet?

For one or two shoots a month, yes. It stops scaling when several shoots overlap, because the reconciliation is manual and nothing links the hours to the booking that generated them.

How to track crew hours on a shoot day

The short answer

You had five people on set across two sessions. Now you need defensible hours for each of them, and the group chat is not it.

Step by step

Define the sessions before the day

Split the shoot into named sessions — preparation, ceremony, reception; or setup, principal, wrap. Hours recorded against a session are checkable. Hours recorded against a whole day are a single number nobody can verify.

Record scheduled hours per crew slot

Each role on the shoot should carry its expected hours before anyone arrives. Without a scheduled figure you have nothing to compare actual hours against, and overtime becomes invisible until it is an invoice.

Capture clock-in and clock-out per person

Each crew member records their own start and end time for each session, on the day. Self-recorded times that the crew member can see are far less disputed than times an assistant wrote in a notebook.

Handle overtime explicitly, on the day

When a session overruns, grant the extra hours as a recorded decision with a reason attached, rather than discovering it in a spreadsheet later. Overtime agreed on set is a conversation; overtime discovered at payment time is a dispute.

Reconcile scheduled against actual before paying

Compare the two figures per person before anything is paid. Large gaps mean either the schedule was wrong or the day ran long — both worth knowing before you quote the same shoot again.

Where this goes wrong

One set of hours for the whole crew

The second shooter who left after the ceremony and the editor who stayed to wrap did not work the same day. A single figure overpays one and underpays the other.

Times written down by someone other than the crew

Third-party records get challenged. Self-recorded times, visible to the person who recorded them, rarely do.

No record of who approved overtime

If nobody owns the decision, it gets relitigated at payment time. Attach a name and a reason when the hours are granted.

Frequently asked

Do I need to track hours if I pay a flat day rate?

Yes. A day rate covers a defined number of hours; without recorded actual hours you cannot tell whether a day ran into overtime, and you cannot price the same shoot accurately next time.

What is the minimum I should record per crew member?

The person, the session, the scheduled hours, the actual start and end times, and any overtime granted with the reason. That set is enough to produce a payable nobody argues with.

Can I use a spreadsheet?

For one or two shoots a month, yes. It stops scaling when several shoots overlap, because the reconciliation is manual and nothing links the hours to the booking that generated them.