From Call Sheets to Coloring Pages: How I Finally Created Something of My Own
From Call Sheets to Coloring Pages: How I Finally Created Something of My Own
For 8 years, I worked as an indie 1st AD. If you’ve worked on set, you know
exactly what that means: schedules, call sheets, logistics, moving people and a hundred problems through a 12-plus-hour day. It’s management. It’s
organization. It’s absolutely necessary.
I lived and worked in the world of make believe, but my contribution was the machinery around the magic, not the magic itself. The director had a vision. The DP had the frame. The production designer had the world.
I had… the schedule.
As proud as I am of what ADs do, there was always something missing.
I never felt like I was creating anything.
Cheering for Everyone but Myself
You see, I always felt like there was creativity in me, I just couldn’t figure out where it was supposed to go. I knew I didn’t want to direct or write or jump to another position on set. I wanted something different, something of my own. So I went looking for it elsewhere: arts and crafts, coloring, photography, a
little bit of everything. But nothing ever stuck enough for me to really sink my teeth into.
For a long time, I was stuck thinking the only way to be creative was inside
this industry. I knew that wasn’t true, and here’s the thing: not everyone on
set wants to find their creative outlet through directing, writing, or design.
You don’t have to.
But having an outlet, any outlet really, makes the managerial side of this
business feel a lot less like a box, especially if you have the urge in you to do something.
And so it goes, one year turned into two and three and so on, and all I was
doing was helping other people bring their creative visions to life, not only on set, but off of it. Always cheering my friends on when they had a spark, always encouraging anyone who thought their idea might be too much. But when I really sat with that, I thought: why is it so easy for me to do this for others when I never cheerlead for myself?
When the Set Went Quiet
After nearly a decade in the industry, I was met with a reality I hadn’t expected: this industry was no longer my career. COVID sidelined me at a
time when things were really starting to pick up, and by the time I got back
into the groove, a strike came and it solidified what I was already feeling. I just didn’t feel connected anymore.
But the creative part of me was still very much alive. With time now in my
hands, I sat with a reassessment of everything: my years on set, what my next step was, what I actually wanted. And I decided that whatever came next, I would start by doing something creative. Not as a career move. As a way to pivot my life at a time when I didn’t know what I needed to do.
I went right back to that nagging feeling of always encouraging others and never myself, and decided to finally take a chance on me. And of all the ideas that had come and gone over the years, there was one that kept coming back: a fun film coloring book. I had chatted about it with filmmakers and friends more times than I could count, and the fact that it kept returning felt like a sign.
But now that I was finally serious about taking a chance on myself, the next hurdle showed up right on cue: new doubts, money, and a missing skill. These had always been a piece of the puzzle, but now that I actually meant it, they became another hill to battle.
I’m not an illustrator.
Hiring one to create the anthropomorphic animal crew characters I had thought of was out of reach. So even then, even after deciding to bet on myself, the idea went right back on display in my mental museum: somewhere I could visit it, admire it, and never actually touch it. For another year.
But then AI came in.
The Two Loaded Letters
I want to be upfront about that, because I know how loaded those two letters are in creative industries. Nowadays, when people hear AI, they think of a tool doing all the work for you while you have no creative input in anything. My experience was the opposite.
AI dissolved the two hurdles that had kept my idea locked away for a year. The money problem? It became the illustrator I couldn’t afford to hire. And the additional outside help I always assumed I’d need? It turned out the source was me all along. I was the director, the producer, the writer, and the creative lead of my own project and after supporting everyone else’s visions, being the one leading felt amazing.
But leading also meant doing the work. My coloring book wasn’t a push-a-button project. It took six months to complete, and many characters required over two hundred prompts before they looked the way I imagined them. Every concept, animal pairing, crew role, and piece of set logic that made it into the book came from my own experience working in production.
What I ended up with is something I’m genuinely proud of and something that was always meant to be more than just a coloring book.
More Filmmaking Articles
An Homage, If You Will
I could have made a coloring book about anything. Instead, I made it about the people behind the camera. For the people I’d spent years standing beside at 5:30 a.m. crew calls. A book where the crew themselves are the stars: every role reimagined as an animal, doing the exact job I watched them do every day.
Being an AD means sitting at the intersection of the creative, the budget, and most importantly, the crew. When I built schedules, I wasn’t just moving
scenes around a stripboard. I was thinking about whether departments had enough time to do their jobs properly. I worried about turnaround, overtime, difficult holding areas, impossible company moves, and the countless little decisions that make everyone’s day either manageable or miserable.
Movies are celebrated and often remembered with the directors and actors in mind. The crew is the quieter part of filmmaking, and yet without them, there is no movie. Much like a painting, every person on set contributes a brushstroke to the final picture.
Although this book doesn’t include every crew member role, it was created for them, as a way of saying thank you for all you do.
Hiring the Crew
Coming up with the animals for the book was honestly the most enjoyable part of the creative process, because if you’ve worked on set, the pairings almost suggest themselves.
The 2nd AD became a border collie. If you’ve ever wrangled background, you already understand. There are days you genuinely feel like you’re herding sheep. This is said with love, because BG talent is essential, but in cartoon form, that comparison just lands.
The production designer is an octopus, because who else? Hands dipped into every corner of the art department. So crafty. So handy.
The DP is an eagle. You need a great eye for that job, and eagles have the best eyes in the business.
And my favorite hire: the armorer as an armadillo. In nature, armadillos hide, run from attack, or play dead. They’d make terrible warriors. But they look like little armored tanks, and an armorer on set commands total presence. The contradiction made it perfect.
There are 32 crew roles in total, and each character comes with a role description, real on-set lingo, and a fun fact. Not every animal is on the nose, but every single one has a rhyme and a reason, and if you work in this industry, you’ll understand the nuance.
For Everyone Else
This book is also for the people standing just outside the industry. It’s for family and friends who’ve spent years hearing about your 14 hour days, who know the word “gaffer” but couldn’t tell you what one is. It’s for the film obsessed teenager who doesn’t yet know these jobs exist, and for the makeup artist who dreams of working on actors instead of brides. There’s a whole world of work behind the camera, and most people are never shown the door. And lastly, it’s simply for the lovers of all things movies, or anyone who loves a fun new coloring book that teaches them a thing or two along the way.
That's a Wrap
It feels fitting that my first project celebrates the people who made those 8 years worth it. This industry gave me a career, but the crew gave me the
memories and now, in some small way, I get to give something back to them.
And it turns out this book was only the beginning. Making it sparked and
opened up the creative side of my personality I’d been searching for all along, so keep an eye out for books two and three. But for now, this is the one where it all started.
The book is called Crew Call: A Film Production Coloring Book. You can see
sample pages and more information on My Landing Page, or find the book directly on Amazon.
Somewhere in this book, an animal has your job. I hope you find them and I know you’ll laugh, or at the very least smile, when you do.
