Building your crew

You fill a production one position at a time. Add the role, find someone for it, then agree terms in a negotiation that ends with a signed deal memo. The short checklist is in Hire a crew member.

Add the positions you need

In the project's Crew tab, tap Add position and pick a department and job title (Camera → Focus Puller, for example). Every person you hire fills a position. Positions also shape your approval chain.

Each position has a Daily rate, or an Hourly rate when its department or the project runs on hourly pay. For a daily rate, CrewShift fills in the job title's reference rate, raised to the fair-pay floor when that is higher, and you can change it. Your offer starts from that rate, and until someone signs, the Scenarios full-plan estimate prices the position at that rate. Notes is for anything else about the role.

To set up a full crew in one go, tap Build team from… and start from a recent project, a preset or one of your team templates. Save as template keeps the current line-up for the next job. See Team templates.

You can't delete a position while it has an open offer, time entries or deal memos.

Search for crew

The project needs at least one shooting day before you can reach out. Without one you'll see "Add at least one shooting day before reaching out to crew."

Tap Reach out on the position. (On an empty position, tapping the card itself opens Edit position. Once someone is in negotiation, the card opens their negotiations.) Find crew opens with a list you can browse, or search by name or email. It shows people in the position's role, nearest to the project first, up to 30. The role filter is a chip you can remove, and when nobody matches, Search all roles widens the search.

Each person shows their own rate for that role, excl. VAT, and a badge when something stands in the way:

Booked: another booking overlaps your hours.
Busy: they marked every one of your dates as not available. CrewShift doesn't say why, so message them to ask.
Partly booked: they work elsewhere that day, outside your hours, or they marked some of your dates as not available.
Open offer: they have an open offer on another production for some of those dates.
Already on this project: they already hold a confirmed position on this project.

Under the badge, Booked lists the times of their other bookings on your dates, and Busy lists which of your dates they marked as not available (for example "Busy 14 Aug – 15 Aug"). You never see their note or why. On days without call and wrap times, CrewShift compares whole days. No badge stops you from reaching out.

People you're already negotiating with for this position don't appear in the list. A recommended person is listed first (see Recommendations).

To invite someone who isn't on CrewShift, type their full email address and tap Invite by email. Producer addresses can't be invited. Inviting someone new covers what happens next and how to resend.

Send an offer

Pick a person and the offer opens with the position's rate filled in. A day-rate position without a rate takes the crew member's own rate instead. Adjust it and tap Send offer. On a day-rate position, if you'd rather hear their price first, clear Day rate to send a rate request. Per diem isn't part of the offer.

This starts a negotiation. Offers go back and forth until one side accepts. Then tap Review & send deal memo in the project's Negotiations tab or in your Inbox, and sign it (how signing works).

You can run several candidates for one position at once. When you send one of them the deal memo, the other negotiations for that position are cancelled automatically.

Approvers with the Team forming right add positions in their own departments, but they don't send offers. If they can't see rates on the project, the button on their positions reads Recommend instead of Reach out. They pick someone in Find crew or enter an email address, and the position shows Recommended with "Recommended by Anna" underneath.

As the producer, tap the recommended position. Find crew opens with that person pinned at the top, and you send the offer from there. If they recommended an email address, type that address in Find crew and tap Invite by email.

Building a team from a recent project with Pre-select the same crew switched on adds those people as recommendations too.

What "filled" means

Under the Crew heading, one line sums up where your positions stand, for example "3 of 8 filled · 1 ready for deal memo · 2 awaiting signature · 1 in negotiation". Parts with a zero are left out.

Filled: the crew member countersigned the deal memo. The booking is binding, and this is when crew-days are charged.
Ready for deal memo: the offer was accepted. Your move.
Awaiting signature: you sent the memo and the crew member still has to sign it.
In negotiation: an offer is out that nobody has accepted yet.

After a date change, a confirmed position can show "Awaiting re-sign since 12 Oct" until the crew member signs the amended memo. See Schedule changes.

On the Finances card, signed crew count as committed and every other position shows as "not yet signed" (Project finances).

Co-producers

As the project owner, you can bring in other producers. In the Crew tab, tap Add co-producer, search producer accounts by name or email, and confirm "Give Anna full access to this project?".

A co-producer gets the same access you have: crew, offers, schedule, work rules, scenarios, the info package, final sign-off on hours and invoices, and planner requests. There are no partial rights. For a narrower role, such as a coordinator or a bookkeeper with a crew account, use the production office in the approval chain.

Some things stay with the owner:

Adding and removing co-producers.
Cancelling or deleting the project.
The cost-code template. A project can only use the owner's own templates.
Crew-days. Every booking draws on the owner's balance (Crew-day credits).
Automated zzp checks (interim check and final check), which land in the owner's Inbox under ZZP records.

Offers belong to whoever sent them (who sees which offers).

Nobody gets an email when they're added. The project shows up on their Dashboard and under Projects with a Co-producer badge. In the co-producer list they see only themselves. The icon next to their name lets them Leave project. If a co-producer also holds a crew position on the project, someone else approves their hours.