🎬

The FalconCine Guide

Helping your dreams stay on budget — capturing dreams since 2012

This guide follows one film — a small Malayalam feature called The Tea Estate — from a pasted script to the wrap report. Every screen you'll read about here exists in the live demo, so you can open it beside this guide and press the same buttons. By the end, you'll know everything the app can do for your production.

Open the demo → See a live call sheet

1 The big picture ~2 min

The app is shaped like your film

FalconCine isn't a spreadsheet with a login. It's built around the five stages every production passes through — and the app quietly changes shape as your film moves. Mark your project "Production" and the dashboard leads with today's call time; mark it "Post" and it leads with your edit checklist.

flowchart LR
  A["🌱 Development
script, ideas"] --> B["📐 Pre-Production
breakdown · cast · schedule · budget"]
  B --> C["🎥 Production
call sheets · DPRs · expenses"]
  C --> D["🎞 Post-Production
edit · DI · sound"]
  D --> E["🚀 Release
censor · marketing"]
  style C fill:#e6b45033,stroke:#b98a2e

Under those stages sit the modules you'll meet in this guide:

📜 Script BreakdownPaste or import a script; scenes and characters appear by themselves.

🎭 Cast & CrewEveryone on the film — their rates, deals, dates, and every rupee paid.

🗓 ScheduleAn auto-scheduler that respects actor dates, location windows and rest days.

📋 Call SheetsPrinted, WhatsApp'd, or published as a live link with tap-to-confirm.

💰 MoneyBudget, expenses, GST & TDS done correctly, petty cash, wage runs — and Hot Cost, which tells you what the film will finish at.

📊 ReportsFourteen one-click answers, from settlement sheets to TDS calendars.

Who is this for? Producers, line producers and production managers on Indian films, web series, shorts and ad films — the person whose phone rings when money or time goes missing. The whole app works in ten Indian languages, on a phone on set or a laptop in the office.

2 Your first five minutes ~4 min

Paste a script. Get a film.

This is FalconCine's founding trick, and it's the first thing that happens to you. When you create your first production, a four-step wizard walks you through it:

flowchart TD
  A["1 · Name your film
title and type — everything else can wait"] --> B["2 · Paste your script
or import a PDF / Word file —
even one sent on WhatsApp"]
  B --> C["3 · Here's what I found
scenes counted, characters detected
from the dialogue"]
  C --> D["4 · Plan the shoot
start date + number of days —
the scheduler does the rest"]
  D --> E(["🎬 Your film is ready
scenes · cast · shoot days
+ Day 1 call sheet, one tap from WhatsApp"])
  style E fill:#e6b45033,stroke:#b98a2e

Behind step 2 sits a script reader that understands sluglines in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati and Punjabi — INT. MEERA'S HOUSE – NIGHT or दृश्य १ – अंदर – मीरा का घर – रात both become Scene 1 with the right location and time of day. Character names are detected from dialogue and become your cast list automatically.

No script handy?

The wizard has a "Try a 10-scene sample" link that fills in a short original screenplay, so you can feel the magic even when your script is on another machine. And if you're not ready to sign up at all, the demo gives you a complete, running production to play with — nothing you do in it is saved anywhere.

🎬 Try it now Open the live demo — you'll land mid-shoot on Day 3 of The Tea Estate. Everything in the rest of this guide is in there, ready to press.

Ten languages, two language settings

Two different things, kept deliberately separate:

Your interface language — the 🌐 button, top right. The whole app: menus, forms, alerts, statuses.
The film's language — set on the project. This never changes your interface; it quietly loads the right guild rules and norms for that industry.

So a Malayalam production accountant and a Hindi-speaking line producer can work on the same Telugu film, each in their own language, and the numbers never disagree.

Phone, tablet, laptop

The app detects what you're holding. On a phone, tables become thumb-friendly cards, primary buttons float within thumb reach, and the bottom bar carries the five places you go most. Same data, same account, every device.

3 Home & Dashboard ~3 min

The two-second morning read

Home (the 🏠 button or the logo) is where your productions live — a card per film with its stage and progress, a Continue card for the one you're in the middle of, and edit/delete on each. The Dashboard is that film's cockpit, and it earns its place as your first open of the day:

The stage strip — tap to move the film forward (Development → … → Release). The whole app follows.
Alerts — only things that need attention: a DPR not filed, an actor's dates closing in three days, TDS deposit due by the 7th. Amber means look; red means act.
The hero card — in production, today's shoot: day number, location, general call, and one-tap buttons for the call sheet, the DPR and the WhatsApp digest. (In the evening this card transforms — chapter 8.)
Stat tiles — scenes shot, shoot days done, budget used (with the rupees, not just the percentage), post & release tasks.
On pace? — scenes remaining ÷ days remaining vs. your actual average. Green if the maths works, red if it doesn't.
Setup checklist — on a young film, a "2 of 5 done" card walks you to the things that unlock everything else (cast rates make TDS automatic; a budget makes the % tile real). It disappears when you're set up.

The backup chip Right under the page title lives a small honest indicator: "☁ Backed up · 2 min". If a sync ever fails you'll see "⚠ Backup issue — tap to retry" instead — the one state most apps hide is the one we surface loudest. More in chapter 13.

4 Script Breakdown ~3 min

The scene list that runs everything

Every schedule, call sheet, and progress number in FalconCine is built on scenes, so this page is the foundation. Each scene carries a number (sub-scenes like 12A welcome), INT/EXT, DAY/NIGHT, location, a one-line synopsis, its cast, and a status: Not Shot Scheduled Shot.

Getting a script in

Paste — any of the ten languages, straight into the box.
Import a file — PDF, Word (.docx), Fountain, plain text. The PDF someone forwarded on WhatsApp works: open → Share → Save to Files → import.
Manually — add scenes one by one if you prefer.

Re-importing a new draft asks before replacing your scenes, and Clear script removes the breakdown and schedule while keeping your budget, expenses, and people — built for rewrites.

Good to know The parser reads properly formatted sluglines. A scanned photo-PDF has no text to read — export a text PDF from your writing software instead. If nothing is found, the app shows you an example of what it's looking for.

5 Cast & Crew ~4 min

People, and every rupee that touches them

Two rosters — Cast (with character names, billing, and availability dates) and Crew (with departments and pay cycles). A cast entry can exist before the actor is found: the character holds the slot, marked "casting pending".

What a person carries

Rate & basis₹ per day / week / month / film — used by wage runs and cost reports.

Deal (agreed total)The full contract amount; the roster shows paid-so-far and balance against it.

InstallmentsA payment schedule (signing / on-completion…) that feeds the cash-flow forecast.

TDS section & PANThe tax facts that make every payment legally correct — chapter 9.

Availability windowFor cast: from–to dates the scheduler must respect.

Phone (WhatsApp)Powers call-sheet nudges and one-tap chats.

Fast ways to build the roster

Automatic — characters detected from your script are already there.
⚡ Bulk paste — paste a list from Excel/WhatsApp; names, roles and rates land in one go.
Import from a previous film — your regular crew with their rates and TDS sections, one tap; film-specific things (characters, dates, deals) start fresh.

Paying people

Every person has a ₹ Pay button and a statement — the full history of advances, payments, TDS held, and balance, printable and WhatsApp-able. It's the sheet that ends end-of-schedule arguments. Advances are first-class citizens: pay one now, and when the settlement comes the app adjusts it automatically so nobody is ever paid twice (and TDS is never deducted twice — chapter 9).

🎬 In the demo Open Cast & Crew and look at Meera Varma — a signing advance already paid, an installment plan, and a live balance. Then look at Faisal M, who has no PAN on file. Remember him; he stars in chapter 9.

6 The Scheduler ~4 min

A shooting plan that respects reality

Give it a start date and how many days you have; the auto-scheduler spreads your unshot scenes across real calendar days while honouring the constraints that break schedules in real life:

Cast availability windows — a scene never lands on a day its actor isn't there, and scenes whose window is closing soonest get shot first, not stranded.
Location windows — got the fort only till the 14th? It knows.
Fewest company moves — days cluster by location and unit base, because a move costs half a day and real money.
Breaks & rest days — Sundays off (or not), festival breaks, blocked dates.

Whatever can't be placed comes back as a named conflict — "Scene 12: Arjun leaves on the 26th" — instead of silently vanishing. Life changes? Reflow re-plans the remaining scenes from today; Rebuild starts the calendar fresh. Editing a day by hand (add/remove scenes, change location or call time) is always allowed — automation proposes, you decide.

View the plan by day, by location (what can we wrap and release?), or by artist (when is each actor needed — the conversation their manager wants).

flowchart LR
  S["Unshot scenes"] --> E{"For each day:
who's available?
which locations are open?"}
  E --> P["Pick the location that
avoids a company move —
unless a window is closing"]
  P --> D["Fill the day,
most-urgent scenes first"]
  D --> N{"More days?"}
  N -- yes --> E
  N -- no --> C["Anything left =
a named conflict,
never a surprise"]
  style C fill:#e08a3c33,stroke:#a95f1a

7 Living Call Sheets ~4 min

One link. Always current. Everyone confirmed.

Every shoot day generates a full call sheet: scenes with cast, per-artist call times, location, general call, notes, and the nearest hospital (the line you hope no one needs). You can print it on branded A4, copy it as WhatsApp text — or use the feature that changes the evening routine:

The live link

Tap 🔗 Live link and the call sheet is published to a private web address. Drop that one link in the unit WhatsApp group. Everyone opens a clean mobile page — no login, no app to install. When the schedule changes, tap Update live link: the same link now shows the new version, with a banner — "⟳ Revised — updated 7:42 PM". No more three conflicting PDFs floating around the group.

sequenceDiagram
  participant P as Producer
  participant F as FalconCine
  participant C as Crew's phone
  P->>F: 🔗 Publish live link
  F-->>P: one link for the unit group
  P->>C: WhatsApp: the link
  C->>F: opens — no login needed
  F-->>C: call sheet + their own row highlighted
  C->>F: 👍 taps "Confirm my call"
  F-->>P: 👀 Who's seen it: views + confirmed names
  Note over P,C: Times change? Update — the SAME link
shows the new version with a "Revised" banner

Each person can get a personal nudge: their WhatsApp message carries a personalised link that highlights their row — "Arjun Das ← you · call 07:00" — and pre-fills their confirm button. Back in the app, 👀 Who's seen it shows views and a named list of confirmations with timestamps. The 90 minutes an assistant director spends every night phoning people to confirm? That's now a glance.

What the link shows — and never shows Scenes, names, roles, call times, location, hospital, notes. Never phone numbers. Never money. The link is an unguessable key, and only the one call sheet you chose to publish is reachable through it.

🎬 See it as your crew would Open the demo call sheet on your phone. Tap confirm. That's the whole experience — your gaffer can handle it.

8 The Nightly Close ~3 min

Two minutes at wrap that run the whole system

The Daily Production Report (DPR) is the industry's oldest discipline: what did we actually shoot today? In FalconCine it's a 30-second form — today's scenes come pre-ticked; untick what slipped, add a note, save. Scenes flip to "Shot", the day completes, and every progress number updates.

The app builds a small evening ritual around it. After 6 PM on a shoot day, the dashboard hero becomes a single gold-rimmed card:

flowchart TD
  A["🌙 Day 7 of 18 — close the day
planned scenes · ₹ spent today"] --> B["📝 File the DPR
(pre-filled, 30 seconds)"]
  B --> C["✓ Day closed
scenes shot · ₹ spent ·
🔥 projected final cost"]
  C --> D["📱 Send tonight's digest
to WhatsApp"]
  C --> E["📋 Tomorrow's card
day · location · call time —
copy tomorrow's call sheet"]
  E --> F(["You leave knowing exactly
what 6 AM looks like"])
  style A fill:#e6b45033,stroke:#b98a2e
  style F fill:#4cc38a22,stroke:#1e7d4f

The digest is a WhatsApp-ready summary — yesterday's scenes, today's plan, spend so far against budget, TDS pending, pace needed — written for the financier who wants one message a night, not a phone call. And the moment the DPR lands, the card shows the number chapter 9 is about: what this film is now projected to finish at.

Filed something wrong? Re-open the DPR and untick — the app correctly reverses the scene and reopens the day. Honest bookkeeping includes honest corrections.

9 Money ~7 min · the heart of the app

From first estimate to final settlement

This is the longest chapter because it's why FalconCine exists. The money system is five connected pieces:

flowchart LR
  B["📐 Budget
the plan"] --> E["🧾 Expenses
what actually left
(GST · TDS correct)"]
  P["🤝 Deals & wages
what's promised"] --> H
  E --> H["🔥 Hot Cost
what it will FINISH at"]
  B --> H
  E --> R["📊 Reports
proof for CA & financier"]
  style H fill:#e6b45033,stroke:#b98a2e

9.1 · Budget — the plan

Start from the guided budget builder (twelve skippable sections from above-the-line to overheads, with market-rate suggestions), load the 55-head standard template, or paste your own lines from Excel. Lines carry a phase (pre/production/post), ATL/BTL, and can be per-day — a ₹40,000/day lighting line automatically scales with your shoot length. When the number is agreed with your financier, lock the budget: the plan freezes, the actuals keep flowing against it.

9.2 · Expenses — GST & TDS without a CA on speed dial

Every expense entry does the tax thinking as you type — a live preview shows base + GST − TDS → net payable before you save.

You enter	The app handles
Amount (type `2.5L` — it understands)	GST-inclusive or exclusive, backed out correctly
Vendor / payee	Vendor master auto-learns GSTINs & TDS sections for next time
TDS section (194C contractor, 194J professional, 194I rent…)	The right rate applied, deducted, and tracked for deposit by the 7th
Cash payments	A ₹10,000 warning before Section 40A(3) disallows your expense

The no-PAN rule, enforced. Remember Faisal from chapter 5 — no PAN on file? Pay him under 194C and the app won't quietly deduct 2%: it applies the legally required 20% (Section 206AA) at save. That's the difference between a clean assessment and a shortfall notice with interest, and the app catches it even when you're entering bills at midnight.

Petty cash gets its own book — float in, chai and props out, running balance always visible. Repeat ↻ on any expense clones yesterday's diesel entry in two taps.

9.3 · Wage runs — cycles, advances, and never paying twice

Crew on day rates with a pay cycle (weekly, fortnightly…) accumulate dues as shoot days complete. One tap on wage run drafts everyone's payment: days worked × rate, TDS at the right rate, and — the classic leak — outstanding advances auto-adjusted, so the ₹30,000 you advanced isn't paid again inside the settlement. If the advance already had TDS deducted, the settlement taxes only the balance. Two silent mistakes, both impossible now.

9.4 · 🔥 Hot Cost — the question that kills productions

"How much have we spent?" is the wrong question. The right one is "what will this film finish at?" — and FalconCine answers it every night, per department:

Dept	Budget	Spent	Committed	Projected final
Camera	2,10,000	1,06,200	24,000	2,10,000
Cast	1,50,000	30,000	1,08,000	1,50,000
Sound (unbudgeted)	—	—	8,000	+8,000
Whole film	9,79,000	1,65,880	1,52,000	9,99,000 +20,000

Committed is money you've promised but not yet paid — unpaid deal balances, wages accruing this cycle (all net of advances). Each department's projection is the higher of its budget or its spent-plus-committed: overs flow through, unders don't flatter you. It's the conservative arithmetic financiers use, computed from data you entered anyway — plus a burn line (₹/day, days left) and a one-tap WhatsApp version for the Monday message. Finding out in week two instead of at wrap is the difference between trimming a schedule and abandoning a film.

9.5 · 🛡 Caught by FalconCine

When a guard fires for real — a no-PAN deduction corrected, an advance not paid twice, TDS not double-deducted — the app writes a receipt: date, rupees, reason. The dashboard shows the running total: "Caught this production: ₹38,500." Nothing invented, everything auditable — it's the app quietly proving it pays for itself.

🎬 In the demo Reports → 🔥 Hot Cost & Estimated Final — the table above, live. Then add an expense for Faisal M with TDS section 194C and watch the 20% rule apply itself.

10 Reports ~3 min

Fourteen one-click answers

Every report is view-on-screen, Excel-ready CSV, or a branded printable — built for the three people who ask you for numbers: the financier, the CA, and yourself at 1 AM.

Report	The question it answers
🔥 Hot Cost & Estimated Final	What will this film finish at — tonight?
💰 Budget vs Actual	Where do we stand against the plan, by department?
🏢 Department PDF	Just Art's numbers, for Art's HOD.
👥 Settlement sheet	Who is owed what — agreed, paid, TDS, balance, due date.
🧾 TDS Register	Every deduction, section-wise — your CA's 26Q input.
🧾 GST / ITC Register	Input credit for GSTR-3B reconciliation.
🧮 TDS Liability & Deposit Calendar	What must reach the government by the 7th.
🎬 Daily Cost Report	Per shoot day: planned vs shot, that day's spend, running total.
🗓 Schedule one-liner	The whole shoot on one page for the unit board.
🎭 Day-out-of-Days	Each actor's start/work/hold/finish — and the hold days you're paying for.
📍 Progress by location	Which locations can we wrap and release?
🎭 Scene cost ranking	If we must cut ₹50 lakh, which scenes cost the most?
📈 Weekly cash flow	The burn trend, week by week.
📆 Cash-flow forecast	Upcoming installments — how much do I need, and when?

Beyond the reports page, the money system talks WhatsApp natively: the nightly digest, a money summary card, and the Hot Cost message — because that's where your financier actually is.

11 Post, Release & the Wrap Report ~2 min

Across the finish line

Post-Production is a task tracker pre-seeded with the standard pipeline — edit, VFX, DI, sound design, dubbing, music, final mix, censor prep — each with department, assignee, due date and status. Release is the same discipline for the last mile: censor application, marketing items, delivery. Both feed the dashboard, so "3 post tasks overdue" finds you before it becomes a delay.

🎬 That's a wrap

The night your last scene is shot, the app marks the moment: a one-time Wrap Report with your film's real numbers — days planned vs used, scenes, spend against budget (over or under, honestly), cost per scene, per-day burn, where the money went, and your unit size. One tap shares it to WhatsApp. It stays available afterwards from the dashboard — your film's closing statement, and the sheet your next film's budget will thank you for.

12 Rates & Rules ~2 min

The reference desk

Two pages that work even with no film open:

📖 Rate Card — ~55 indicative market rates for crew and services (metro, FY-based), plus red-flag cards for the classic overcharges. The same data powers the fair-price hint inside the expense form: type "gaffer" and a bill 3× the typical range gets flagged before you pay it.
⚖ Rules & Compliance — pick your shooting state/industry and get the guild norms (FEFKA, FWICE, 24 Crafts…), shift and call-sheet conventions, plus the all-India statutory list: child-artist rules, POSH obligations, permits. Reference, not legal advice — but it's the checklist that keeps a set out of trouble.

13 Your data & your account ~3 min

Where your film actually lives

flowchart LR
  A["📱 Your phone"] <--> C["☁ Your cloud account
encrypted, owner-only"]
  B["💻 Your laptop"] <--> C
  C --> D["⬇ Export anytime
one JSON file, yours"]
  style C fill:#e6b45033,stroke:#b98a2e

Sign in once on each device and your productions sync automatically — every save flows up, every other device pulls it down. The backup chip (chapter 3) tells you the truth about it at all times. On the Data & Backup page you can export a full backup file, restore one, and see your account.

Fee privacyArtist fees are the most explosive numbers on a set. They live in your account, shown only to you — and live call-sheet links never contain money or phone numbers.

Your data stays yoursExport anytime. Never sold, never shared. If you stop paying, your data stays exportable — that's a promise printed inside the app, not buried in a policy.

Careful deletesDeleting a money entry asks with the actual rupee figure. Everything else gets instant undo. "Erase this device" clears one device only — your cloud backup survives.

Straight answersThe 💬 Help button: WhatsApp support, a feedback form, and the quick guide — a human from the team answers.

What it costs

Your first month is free — no card, nothing to cancel. After that, FalconCine is ₹1,000/month — less than one light-unit rental day. Near the end of your free month the app shows you your own numbers (entries tracked, money managed) and lets you decide. Pay by UPI through WhatsApp; your plan shows on the Data & Backup page.

14 Power tips ~2 min

Small things that save hours

💸 Type money like you say it2.5L → ₹2,50,000 · 80k → ₹80,000 · 1.2Cr → ₹1,20,00,000. Every amount field understands, and echoes the full figure so you never miscount zeros.

↻ Repeat an expenseDiesel, food, vehicles recur daily. The repeat button clones yesterday's entry — change the amount, save.

🔍 Roster search & sortType-to-filter on Cast & Crew; sort by name, role, or rate.

⬅ Back buttonDrill into the rate card or a statement and the in-app Back returns you exactly where you were.

🌙 / ☀️ ThemeDark for the edit room, light for daylight sets — one tap in the top bar.

🏠 Logo = HomeTap the FalconCine logo anywhere to switch films or start a new one.

📄 Import from anywhereScripts as PDF/DOCX; cast lists and budgets pasted straight from Excel — tab-separated is understood.

🧾 Statement = truthAny payment dispute: open the person's statement, share it on WhatsApp. Arguments end where paper trails begin.

🏆

You've finished the guide

You now know the whole system: a script becomes scenes, scenes become a schedule, the schedule becomes call sheets your crew confirms with a tap, every rupee is recorded with its tax done right — and every night, one card tells you what your film will finish at.

🎬 Try it in the demo Create your free account

First month free · ₹1,000/month after · your data stays yours, always