Building a Cue Sheet Your Crew Can Follow Without Asking

Start from what each person has to do next

A cue sheet is not a script. A script tells the presenter what to say; a cue sheet tells every other person in the building what to do, and when. From the camera floor I see the difference every time a sheet is written for the writer rather than for the crew. The columns that matter to me are simple: the item number, the timing, the camera and shot, the source of the next picture, and the cue that releases it.

Before you open a blank document, list the roles on the floor and in the gallery. Camera operators, a floor manager, a vision mixer, a sound supervisor, a graphics operator and the director all read the same sheet, but each looks for a different line. If you cannot say who a column is for, it probably should not be there.

Write the sheet in the order things happen on air, not the order they were planned in the editorial meeting. Items move, guests arrive late, and a clean linear sequence is what you will be cutting up at ten minutes to transmission.

• One line per event, never two actions squeezed into a single cell
• Name the person responsible for each cue
• Use the same item numbers as the rundown

Make the rundown and cue sheet agree

The rundown is the producer's view of the programme: items, durations, running order. The cue sheet is the crew's view of the same thing. Trouble starts when the two are maintained separately and drift apart. A story is dropped from the rundown at the last minute and the cue sheet still sends a camera to a shot that no longer exists.

Pick one source of truth and derive the other from it. In practice that usually means the rundown leads, and the cue sheet is regenerated or updated by one named person whenever the running order changes. Give that person a clear window, for example until the five-minute call, after which the sheet is frozen and only changed verbally by the director.

Put a version number and a time on the top of every printed copy. When someone on the floor holds an older page, the mismatch is visible in seconds rather than discovered in the middle of a live item.

Cue types: spoken, visual, timed and automatic

Not every cue is a voice in the ear. Some are spoken by the director, some are visual, such as a presenter's hand turning to the next camera, some are timed, and some are automatic, like a graphic that fires from the rundown system. Mixing them up on the sheet is a common cause of late moves.

Mark the type beside each cue. I use a short code in the margin so a quick glance tells me whether I wait for a voice, watch the presenter, or move on a clock. Where a cue depends on a presenter finishing a line, quote the last three or four words so the operator knows exactly what to listen for.

Avoid vague triggers such as at the end of the item. Items end differently every night. A precise out-cue, written down and agreed with the presenter in advance, removes the guesswork and keeps framing steady.

• Voice cue: the director's call
• Visual cue: a movement or look from the presenter
• Timed cue: a clock or countdown
• Automatic cue: fired by the system

Give every shot a home before you go live

For camera crews the most useful thing a sheet can carry is the shot list per item. For a bulletin that might be a wide on the opening, a mid shot for the headline, and a two-shot for the hand-over to a colleague. Written down, those shots become starting positions, and the move between them can be rehearsed.

Note where a camera has to travel and how long it has. A pedestal move across the set takes more seconds than people expect, and a sheet that gives two seconds for a six-second move is a sheet that will fail on air. Put the travel time in your planning, and if it does not fit, change the running order rather than the physics.

Add a fallback for each camera, a safe wide it can cut to if something goes wrong. Everyone relaxes when they know what to do when a guest leans out of frame or a cable is in the way.

Rehearse the sheet, not just the show

A dry run with the sheet in hand finds problems that reading it quietly at a desk never will. Walk the crew through the opening three minutes and the first two transitions, at working speed, with real cues. You are testing the paper as much as the people.

Ask each person to mark anything that was unclear, late or impossible. Then fix the sheet, not the person. If two operators misread the same line, the line is the problem. Short, plain wording beats clever abbreviations every time, and abbreviations nobody has defined belong in the bin.

Keep a small log of the changes you make after each rehearsal. Over a few weeks you will see which kinds of cue keep causing trouble, and that tells you where the template needs another column or a clearer rule.

• Rehearse openings and transitions first
• Fix wording that two people misread
• Record every change made after rehearsal

Keep the template and let it improve

Once a sheet works, keep its layout. A repeatable template is the whole point of workflow planning: crews who see the same columns in the same order every night stop reading and start anticipating. New staff pick it up faster, and covering for a colleague becomes far less stressful.

Review the template after a run of programmes rather than after every bad evening. One difficult night usually has several causes, and rewriting the sheet in a hurry tends to add clutter. Look for patterns across a few shows and change one thing at a time.

In these autumn weeks, when news schedules fill up and live specials multiply, the discipline of a clear sheet pays back quickly. Fewer questions on talkback, calmer floor, and an operator who already knows where the camera goes next.