PeopleiInviting somebody emails them a link to join. If they have used Shoot Hub before, their own profile comes with them. The link works once and expires after seven days.

Roles & tab visibilityiWhat each role can see, and what it can change. Open one to set it.

See it as they doiYour own dashboard and your own data stay yours — this is about what a role can reach, not about being somebody else. A banner says you are previewing, and ends it.

Bulk import from a spreadsheetiOne sheet per tab (Call Sheet, Crew, Cast, Models, Cars, Locations, Props, Shotlist, Photos, Social), with column headers matching the field names. Rows are added; nothing already there is overwritten. An older .xls is not read — open it and save it as .xlsx.

Compare with another productioniMainly for after restoring a backup: check the copy really holds what the original did. It compares how many of each thing there are, and how many files and bytes of photographs and video — never what any of it says. You have to be on both productions.

Storage usageiShots, photos and social each have their own 25MB limit for the text side of them. Compressed photos are small; GIFs and video are what fills this up.

Media storage limitiPhotographs and video are stored separately from everything above. A limit means uploads stop with a clear message rather than running up a bill you did not expect.

Clean up unused mediaiDeleting a shot, photo, social item or cast member leaves its uploaded file in storage, so that Undo has something to bring back. This finds files no longer attached to anything and lets you remove them yourself. Nothing is ever deleted automatically.

Backup & restoreiEverything the production holds, in one file you keep: call sheet, crew, cast, models, cars, locations, props, shotlist, photos, social, roles and shoot details. Restoring replaces what is there now. With media it is a zip that can rebuild a production from nothing; without, it is small and quick but comes back with the pictures missing, because those live in storage rather than in the data.

Shoot name & clientiWhat the job is called and who it is for. Both sit in the header on everybody’s screen and print on the call sheet, so the whole unit refers to the shoot the same way. They are read there and changed here, by an admin.

Build-up crew timingiHow many minutes before each shot the build-up crew is called on set. Their hotel departure moves earlier by the same amount, so the two stay in step.

Drive-time auto-calculationiThe URL of a drive-time proxy, which turns on a Calculate button on each location instead of typing drive times in by hand. Leave it blank to keep entering them yourself.

Shoot timezoneiCall sheet times are plain clock times with no zone of their own. Reminders are sent from a server running on UTC, so it has to be told which zone those times are in: set this to wherever the shoot physically is. A new production starts on the zone of the device that made it, so this only needs changing when you are planning a shoot somewhere else.

Airport check-in bufferiHow long before a flight leaves you want to be at the airport. A flight's call sheet entry is placed this far ahead of departure, and that is the time the drive to the airport is planned backwards from — so raising it moves everybody's departure earlier, not just the check-in line.

Hotel break suggestionsiIn the car planner, a gap between two calls is only offered as a chance to go back to the hotel if this much time would be left there once both drives are counted. Needs the drive-time proxy above.

Hair/makeup & styling capacityiHow many people can be in makeup and in styling at once. Used by Plan hair/makeup & styling on the call sheet to work backwards from when each person has to leave.

Who can change things hereiThese settings belong to whoever owns this production and to the people they have made admins, so every change has a name against it, and somebody leaving the shoot takes their access with them.

Sign everyone outiEnds everyone’s session on every device, including your own. Nothing is deleted — people sign in again next time they open the hub. Use it if a phone goes missing, or when the shoot is over.

A request from Shoot Hub support

This production has no owneriA production with no owner is one nobody can archive, set a retention on, or decide who administers. Nothing can create one any more, so this is here only so that losing an owner is recoverable rather than final — and only the operator of Shoot Hub can do it.

This productioniArchiving puts a shoot to bed: it stays readable, and the clock on how long it is kept starts running. Worth deciding on purpose — people’s phone numbers, home addresses and photographs are in here, and keeping them for ever is the thing data protection law asks you not to do.

Who runs this productioniAn admin does everything you do bar three: renaming the production, handing it to somebody else, and deleting it. Give it to whoever is actually running the shoot with you — a producer, a first AD — so the job does not stop when you are on a plane. Only people with an account are listed; invite somebody first and they appear here.

What has been done hereiInvitations, admin rights, downloads of everything, archiving and deletion — who did it and when. Kept for two years.

Test the email setupiSends one message to an address of your choosing, so you find out whether invitations arrive before one goes to a real person. If it lands in spam rather than the inbox, SPF or DKIM on the domain still needs attention.