2 Easy to Use Camera Report Templates

If you think that because film is a visual medium there isn't much paperwork involved, you'd be dead wrong. From call sheets to contact lists to strip boards to screenplays -- whether it's given out in person or digitally emailed -- there are tons of papers passed between crew members.

Within the camera department there are camera reports and camera logs — documents where you track details such as lenses, filters, and other camera settings for each shot.

These reports are useful in a variety of scenarios like in post-production when an editor needs to replicate a lens for a digital effect or when you are shooting the reverse angle of a shot and need to match the look of the original closeup.

But the reports are useless if they aren’t readable or well-organized and that’s why a great easy-to-use template is valuable to have.

When I created my own RED One Camera Reports, my motivation was to make something simpler, easier to read, and that wasted less space than most other camera report templates.

I don’t like anything to get in the way of camera reports being logged or referenced.

So I was happy when I opened my email the other day and Josiah Morgan had shared some templates he made that did just that. Apparently he shared my frustrations with traditional log sheets.

Josiah said in the email:

My frustration with old-style camera reports and camera log books has grown over the last few years so I finally just designed my own. Starting back in the spring of 2011 these designs have been used and refined on several tv shows, movie of the week projects, and commercials.

The design of a camera report or log book may seem like a small thing, but as assistants we spend a lot of time recording important information and should be working with well designed forms. These designs have made it easier for me to keep good records, so I want to share these as widely as possible and hopefully help some other assistants.

There are two templates – a camera report sheet and a camera log sheet – with different layouts and columns. Both templates are simple, clean, and straightforward, so whichever one you use will be entirely based on preference.

Best of all, Josiah is sharing these reports under a Creative Commons non-commercial license so you can start using them on your projects immediately.

See previews and download them below: