How to Make a Schedule on Breakdown Express

Schedule rules

Before making your schedule make sure you decide on the following:

• Start time
• Hard out (if applicable)
• How long each audition will be
• Most schedules will begin at 10:00 and run until 18:00.
• When lunch is and how long it will be

Selecting talent:

• Sign into BDX
• Select the project you’re working on
• Go through all of the submissions and number the people however you want to add them
  • I usually mark everyone on spec as a 1, backups are 2 and 3, etc.
• If you don’t wish to schedule a performer, leave them unnumbered then click “Mark as viewed” button at bottom of page

Making Schedule

• While inside the project, hover over “schedules”
• Hit “Create Audition”
• Choose the date
• Choose the start time 
  • When auditioning union kids on a school day, the minor schedule has to start at 4pm
• When asked “How do you want to schedule your actors?” click:
  • “Randomly from selected roles,” if you are seeing all roles individually
  • “Read Together (multiple roles),” if the talent will be reading with each other
  • “Grouped by selected role(s) throughout the day,” if you want the day to be sorted by the roles
  •  “None (will create a blank schedule) if you want to add in people yourself 
• Create a time-slot of your desired time
• Click “Create”

Adding actors to Schedule

• When on schedule screen, the time slots will be in the left window & available talent in the right window
• Click “Move”
• Select the time slot
  • Common Glitch: The time will sometimes be labeled wrong
    • 00:01-00:03 = 00:15-00:30
    • 00:03-00:04 = 00:30-00:45
    • 00:04-01:00 = 00:45 – 01:00
• If roles are reading together, make sure the same number of performers for all roles are in the same time-slot (i.e. 3 x boyfriend & 3 x girlfriend)
• Once the schedule is filled in, click the RED “Create Notification” button
  • This will create a pop-up window where you can write the audition info. 

Dealing with regrets / time change notifications

• Shortly after the schedule goes live, agents will start doing the following 3 things that will show up in the left window of the schedule to the right of people’s names:
  • Confirming their actors
  • Regretting their actors
  • Asking for a time change
• Confirmed actors are good to go and you don’t have to worry about them any longer
• Regretted actors must be taken off the schedule
  • Click “Move”
  • Select “UNSCHEDULE THIS ACTOR” from the drop-down menu
• When actors ask for a time change, see if you can accommodate
  • TIP: leave these for a few hours to see where your regrets are and if you can accommodate a move
  • If the request is outside of the time parameters for the audition day, click the actor’s name, then click “Send Cmail” from the pop-up window and tell them the time request cannot be accommodated
  • If the request is within the schedule and can be accommodated, click “move,” then select a new time from the dropdown menu
  • If the person who asked for a time change needs a partner to read with, add one from available actors (right menu) to their new time slot

Making schedules is infuriating,

and messy, and it will never be perfect.

Just do your best!