Roll Camera! Film School Walkthrough

Learn how to play...by playing!

If you prefer to learn by doing rather than reading the whole rulebook first, then Roll Camera! Film School is for you. Here we'll walk you through your first two turns, introducing you to the various parts of the game and the decisions you'll be making along the way. Gather your friends (or play solo), open up the box, start reading aloud, and you'll be off!

By the end, you should have a good grasp of how to play. After the walkthrough you may continue playing or reset the game and start fresh. Either way, you may still need to refer to the rulebook later to understand some of the finer points. That's perfectly fine. Film School is not meant to be an exhaustive instruction, but rather a way to get you quickly up and shooting!

Introduction

You work for a struggling film production company. This is your last chance to make a successful film; if you fail, the company goes bankrupt and you’ll never work in this town again! Produce this film on time and under budget, make sure it’s at least halfway decent, and make some sense of the resulting story. Do this, and your careers are saved!

It's all up to you: you'll write the script, draw storyboards, build sets and assemble your cast and crew, shoot scenes and edit them together to create the final film. You might reuse the same sets or shoot the scenes out of order - that's normal filmmaking practice. NOT so normal is that, because of the unusually high time and budget pressures you're facing, you'll have to edit the film as you go, and you might even rewrite the script several times during filming!

There's no time to waste - Roll Camera!

Game overview

Roll Camera! is a cooperative game where everyone works together to make the best film you can, on time and under budget. You will win or lose as a team. Write your Script, select Scenes, build Sets, place your Crew and Shoot those Scenes to complete a finished film. If your film is of high enough Quality (or if it’s so bad it’s great) you win! You lose if the film just isn’t good enough, or if ever you run out of time or money.

As a cooperative game, you are encouraged to freely share your opinions and advice even when it's not your turn - but the player whose turn it is makes the final decisions.

Components

1x main game board in the middle of the table for all to access.

6x Player boards (Director, Producer, The Star, Cinematographer, Editor, Production Designer), designating your role and your unique abilities.

6x Crew dice, each with 6 faces representing departments of your crew (Camera, Light, Sound, Actors, VFX and Art Department). On your turn you will assign these dice to various actions, and to shoot Scenes.

25x Scene cards
The Scenes you will shoot. The front half has a setup diagram, the back half is the finished Scene for the Editing Room.

40x Idea cards
Ideas are helpful cards which you keep hidden in your hand. To play them, you'll pitch them in a Production Meeting.

35x Problem cards
Problems will get in your way and cause you trouble throughout the game.

6x Player Aid cards
One side details all the general action spaces, the other details the actions on your specific player board.

15x Script "top half" cards
The script is made of two halves. Each half gives you an end-game bonus or penalty on the film's Quality level.

15x Script "bottom half" cards

12x Set Piece tiles
These represent the walls of the set you will build, on which you will shoot your scenes.

3x "Blocked" tokens
Certain Problem cards will block off parts of the game from use. Use these to mark them.

1x Quality token
To mark the Quality of your film. You must escape mediocrity to win.

1x Budget / Schedule dials
To track your Budget and Schedule, very important resources.

10x Production Company cards
Unique scenarios and variations to spice up the game for advanced players. You won't need them in your first game.

Setup

Place the main game board in the center of the table.
Take the Director and Producer player boards. This walkthrough only has your first two turns, so:
a. If you are playing solo, each turn you will switch between these roles. In a regular solo game you would only use one player board.
b. If you are playing with 3 or 4 players, you may give them other player boards (randomly or chosen) if you want to continue playing after this walkthrough. Only the Director and Producer players' first turns will be guided here.
Separately shuffle the Problem deck, the Ideas deck, and the Scene deck. Place the Problem deck in its space above the board. Place the Ideas deck in its space below the board, and the Scene deck on the topmost Storyboard space, "sketch" side up.

In the game: Your player board gives you special actions that only you can take, on your turn. It also includes a "privilege" which doesn't affect the gameplay. It's just for fun.

In a normal game, you can choose any of the characters to play with.

3a. Draw the following three Scenes and place them in the Storyboard slots in this order (the rest of the Scene deck remains underneath the top card):

Top: red "knife betrayal." Middle: green "poisoned stew." Bottom: blue "graveyard."

In the game: Scene cards are what you will "shoot." One side has a setup diagram you must complete, the other side has the finished version for the Editing Room (more on all this later).

3b. Give each player 3 Idea cards. Make sure that:

The Director player gets the Idea card "Shoot with a super-sensitive NASA satellite lens"
The Producer player gets the Idea card "Double the caffeine content in the craft services coffee"

All the other Idea cards given may be randomly drawn from the deck.

Normally Idea cards are kept in your hand, hidden from the other players. This allows each player to contribute to the cooperative experience (more on this later). But for this walkthrough you can keep your Idea cards face up on the table for everyone to see.

In the game: Idea cards give useful one-time bonuses or special ways to break the rules. You can only play Idea cards by holding a Production Meeting (more on that later).

3c. Take the following two Problem cards and place them in this order, face-down, on top of the Problem deck (so that (1) is on the top of the deck with (2) immediately below it):

"The cinematographer insists on shooting with 120mm film!"
"The director and star have become romantically involved!"

In the game: Problem cards will cause trouble and get in your way. Their effects stay active unless they are resolved.

4. Scripts come in two halves - top and bottom. In a normal game you would draw 5 random top and 5 random bottom Script cards and place them in a face-up stack on the Script area of the main game board to create your Script. For this walkthrough, choose:

"A Party with Mr. & Mrs." for your top Script card
"Murder" for your bottom Script card

Put them on top of 4 other randomly selected top and bottom Script cards on the Script area of the board.

In the game: Script cards give you a Quality bonus or penalty at the end of the game. You can "rewrite" the Script in certain ways during the game.

5. Mix up the Set Piece tiles and place them face-up in two even stacks on their designated grey spaces on the main board, above the Set. Then, find the Set Piece tile pictured and put it on top of one of the stacks.

In the game: Set Pieces represent the walls of the set you build, and where you shoot the Scene cards with your Crew (more on this later, I promise!).

6. Take the Budget and Schedule dials. Set the Budget to 12 and the Schedule to 10.

In the game: The Budget and Schedule dials are where you track those resources. If either runs out, you lose.

It also features a helpful reminder of the turn sequence.

7. Place the pink Quality marker on the START space on the Quality tracker on the main board.

In the game: The Quality of your film must either be "Not Bad" or above, OR "So Bad It's Great" at the end in order to win. Otherwise, you lose.

8. Place the Blocked tokens in a supply off to the side of the board.

Objective

Your goal is to produce the best film you can. You do this by using the Crew dice to complete actions and Shoot Scenes while trying to follow your Script. The game ends as soon as you’ve Shot five Scenes. You win if at that point the Quality marker is outside the red zone; you lose if the Quality marker is inside the red zone at the game's end. In addition, if at ANY time during the game the Schedule OR Budget markers reach the end of their tracks (noted by “SHUT DOWN PRODUCTION!!”), you lose immediately.

On your turn

Your turn has five simple steps:

Draw a Problem card
Roll the Crew dice
Assign the Crew dice and take actions
Clear the Crew dice
Advance the Schedule

These steps are also listed on the Budget & Schedule dials -->

Now the game begins!

Hand the dials, the six Crew dice, and these instructions to the Director player. They will go first.

Director: read the text that follows out loud and take the actions exactly as described. Just follow the directions - you don't have to make any decisions during the walkthrough! If you have questions, keep reading; they will likely be answered before the end. If you still have questions after Film School is over, the answers will be in the rulebook.

Turn #1: Director

First, I draw a Problem card, which we always do at the beginning of every turn. I put this card face-up in the first Problem queue slot directly to the right of the Problem card deck.

I've drawn, "The cinematographer insists on shooting with 120mm film!" Shooting a Scene will now be $1 more expensive unless we resolve this Problem. Dang!

Remember: The turn sequence is printed on the Budget/Schedule dials!

Next, I roll all six Crew dice. The dice are our crew, and on each of our turns we will assign them to various actions, and shoot Scenes with them by arranging them in the patterns on the Scene cards.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's roll the dice.

I've rolled:

(Set your six Crew dice to show these faces - Camera / Sound / Actor / Actor / Art dept / Art dept)

We should now decide what Scene we want to shoot. We can choose any of the three in the Storyboard. The top-half Script card ("A Party with Mr. and Mrs.") will penalize us with -1 Quality (⭐️) at the end of the game for having Blue or Red Scenes in our movie, but the bottom-half Script card ("Murder") will give us a bonus of +2 Quality for having Green and Red Scenes adjacent to each other.

Quality is tracked on the far right side of the board. If we want to win, at the end of the game that little pink disc (the Quality marker) must be outside the middle red zone - either "Not Bad" or better, or "So Bad It's Great."

So I suggest we aim to shoot the Green Scene in the middle of the Storyboard. You say you agree, Producer? Awesome.

We'll need to build some Set Pieces out on the Set grid area to shoot with, so I'll do that first. The Build New Piece action on the board costs $1 and requires two dice with the same face to take, so I'll use the two Actor (🎭) dice to do the job. I place them together on the slot.

Now we can choose one of the two Set Pieces to place on the Set grid. This central Set grid area is our empty film studio, and we are building the walls of sets we can use to shoot with. But we can only place our Crew dice on blue spaces when shooting Scenes.

The [ =|= ] symbol means that two dice of the same face (doubles) must be placed to take that action

Any suggestions as to which Set Piece we should pick? What's that you say, Producer? Good idea! Let's take this one and place it like this:

We can cover up the blue square in the middle of the grid, which for this Scene won't help us. I'm so glad we worked together on this decision!

Building a Set Piece costs $1, so I turn the Budget dial down from 12 to 11.

On the right side of the Green Scene card is the setup pattern we need to complete it shoot it:

And I can already start setting up for it! I'll assign the Camera (🎥) die and one of the Art Department (🎨) dice to their respective spots on top of the Set Piece, like so:

We don't have to cover up ALL the blue spaces on Set Pieces when shooting. We just need to have our Crew dice in a pattern that matches the Scene card. The pattern can even be rotated or upside-down, but not mirror-flipped. The important thing is that we can ONLY place dice on BLUE spaces.

Also, the word "ONLY" on this particular Set Piece means that only dice with the Camera face (🎥) can be assigned to that space, which is what I did; I'm a good board gamer and I follow the rules. Other Set Pieces have different restrictions or bonuses.

Now I've got two dice left. I could use them to Resolve that Problem by assigning them to the slot beneath it, since it requires two dice of ANY face - they don't have to be the same. But I have a better idea.

Problems are resolved by assigning dice to the "Resolve" action slot beneath them. Each slot has a different requirement. You will do this next turn.

I assign the two remaining dice to the Reframe action on my Director player board. This allows me to discard one of the Scenes in the Storyboard and draw a new one.

Since the top half of the Script will penalize us for Blue Scenes, I'm going to discard the Blue Scene card in the bottom Storyboard slot. We wouldn't want to shoot it anyway. I remove the Blue Scene card and put it on the bottom of the Scene deck.

Oh look! Removing the Blue Scene card has revealed a downward arrow. That means I pull the Green Scene card above it down to fill its place, and the Red Scene card on top of the Scene deck down to fill the middle space. There's now a new Scene in the top space available, and our Green Scene just became cheaper to shoot. Not bad, eh?

My turn is over, so I gather up all the dice I used and hand them to you, Producer -- except the two dice I "locked in" on Set. I've started setting up that Scene, and you will hopefully finish it on your turn. The other dice have already been "used," so I clear them.

Yes, Producer, you will only have 4 Crew dice to roll on your turn, but we've already started the work of shooting together. It's called teamwork, ok?

Finally, I turn the Schedule dial down from 10 to 9. We always do this at the end of every turn. Then I hand the dials and the 4 available dice to you, Producer. It's now your turn.

Turn #2: Producer

First, I draw a Problem, as we always do at the start of every turn. But because you, Director, didn't resolve the Problem you drew at the start of your turn, it is still active. The old Problem slides over one space to the right and the new one comes into the first slot. The old Problem has now become a bit harder to resolve, now requiring two dice of the same face instead of two of any face. And if we don't handle it this turn, it'll get even worse next turn! I'd say, "thanks for nothing," but this is a cooperative game so it's just as much my fault as yours. You're welcome.

Anyway, the Problem I've drawn is, "The director and star have become romantically involved!" Unless we resolve this Problem, we will now lose 1 Quality at the end of each turn, tracked on the far right hand side of the board. This movie production is going off the rails already!

Now it's time for me to roll the Crew dice. Hopefully I'll roll two doubles. That way we can build another Set Piece to complete the Scene AND we can resolve that Problem that's making our shoots more expensive.

Let's roll the dice...

(Set your four Crew dice to show these faces - Camera / Art Dept / VFX / Light)

Hmm. Not what we wanted. I'm starting to get the feeling that the strings of fate are being pulled here, that we are being manipulated by some higher power. Maybe free will itself is an illusion…

Anyway, we can work with this. Luckily, the 💥 face (VFX, or visual effects) is wild - we can use it on Set in place of any face needed for the Scene, or as the second half of a double when taking actions that require the same face. I will place it on Set like this, where the Actor (🎭) is meant to go:

We're using a clever visual effect instead of a real actor for this scene, like a face painted onto a broom or something. Movie magic, everyone!

But we can't shoot yet - according to the setup diagram on the Green Scene card, we still need a Light. I have a die with the Light face, but we can't place dice on white spaces, only blue, and I didn't roll the doubles needed to take the Build New Set action. What to do??

What's that, Director? You say you have an Idea that could help? Sounds good. We can't talk directly to each other about the Idea cards in our hands, so I'll have to call a Production Meeting to hear it. The Production Meeting is the only way to play Idea cards from our hands! We cannot play them by ourselves whenever we like. Filmmaking is a team effort.

So, I assign the Camera (🎥) die to the Production Meeting action on the main board.

Why are Idea cards kept hidden? Don't we want to help each other?
Yes - but if all the Idea cards were available at the same time, one player can simply dictate what everyone will do. Hidden cards allows you to contribute better by dividing the work. Think of Idea cards as sitting in your head - you have to meet to get them out!

In a Production Meeting, 3 Idea cards are pitched simultaneously face-up on the table, one from each player. Since we're playing a 2-player game, we'll each pitch one from our hands, and then we'll draw a third random one from the top of the Idea card deck. Ready? Okay, go.

I'll pitch "Double the caffeine content in the craft services coffee." We could save $2 when shooting, which would be a good idea considering the "120mm film" Problem currently making our Scenes more expensive!

You, Director, have pitched "Shoot with a super-sensitive NASA satellite lens." This would allow us to shoot without a Camera or Light this turn. That's a great idea! We'll also draw and immediately reveal a third Idea card from the top of the Ideas deck.

Since I called the Production Meeting, it's up to me now to decide how to allocate these Ideas:

One must be played immediately,
One can be stored in the To-Do List and played later, and
One must be discarded with no effect.

I will discard the one we drew randomly from the deck, putting it face-up in the Idea discard space (🗑) to the left of the Ideas deck. I want to save my Idea card ("double caffeine content") for later, so I place it face up in a slot under the To-Do List. Both slots are open, so I will choose the lefthand one. We can play this Idea card later by taking the "Play This Idea" action space above it. Could come in handy!

This action space needs EITHER two dice of any face OR one die of any face and losing $1.

Your Idea, Director ("NASA satellite lens"), is what we'll play immediately. I put that card in the Idea discard pile, and activate its effect now: we can shoot the Green Scene and ignore the missing Light!

To shoot the Scene: if we've matched the pattern on the card (and we have, minus the Light which, thanks to your brilliant Idea, we don't need), we simply pick it up, turn it over from the "storyboard sketch" side to the "finished celluloid" side, and put it in the topmost available Editing Room slot, which in this case is #1:

Scenes in the Editing Room (like Scripts and the Storyboard) can be rearranged by Ideas, Problems, and certain player powers. But by default, finished Scenes are placed from top to bottom in the Editing Room.

The Scene's cost is listed on the Storyboard next to the Scene's slot:

Each Storyboard slot has a different cost / bonus

We must pay $2, so I turn the Budget dial to lower it from 11 to 9. We also lose 1 Quality, so I'll move the Quality marker down one space on the Quality track. However, this particular Scene card has a Quality star on it, which means that it also GAINS us 1 Quality when we shoot it! So, I'll move the Quality marker back up one space. Lastly, we did not resolve the "120mm film" Problem, so we lose an additional $1. I will deduct that from the Budget, which is now sitting at 8.

Now I'll pull the two other unfinished Scenes in the Storyboard down to fill the empty spaces, revealing another new Scene in the top slot.

We also each draw another Idea card. Our hands should always have 3 Idea cards, so whenever one leaves our hand, we draw another to fill back up to 3. We should do this as soon as the Production Meeting is over.

I still have two dice left! They are different faces, so I will use them to resolve the "romantically involved" Problem in the first, leftmost slot. I place the dice on the action space below the card. I remove the Problem from its slot, turn it upside-down, and slide it under the green RESOLVED! section of the board to the left:

Now we won't lose 1 Quality at the end of the turn. Huzzah! And for every 5 Problems we resolve, we'll get to choose a bonus of either $2 or 1 Schedule. That'll be nice.

The middle Problem is still there, unresolved, and it does not move backward. Problems only move forward, as indicated by the little red arrows on the board. The next Problem drawn will go into the first leftmost slot, which we just cleared.

It's the end of my turn, so I remove all the dice I used in my actions - which is all 6, since the dice on Set were used to shoot. I leave the Set Piece where it is. We can shoot on it again next time.

Then, as at the end of every turn, I turn the Schedule dial down by 1 to 8. I hand the six dice and the dials over to you, Director - it's your turn again.

Now it's YOUR turn!

Congratulations! You've graduated Film School - these are all the main concepts and mechanisms in Roll Camera! You can now choose to either continue playing this game, or reset and start a new one. If you want to continue and are playing with more than 2 players, the other players may now each take a player board (and corresponding Player Aid card) and draw 3 Idea cards to their hand. Whomever is sitting to the left of the Producer player takes the dials and dice and goes next.

You may have to refer to the rulebook a couple more times for further specific questions (on the back of the rulebook is a table of contents for quick reference). And don't forget the Player Aid cards that explain the main board and player board actions.

The game ends as soon as you’ve shot five Scenes. When that happens, finish the turn (including any Problem effects that trigger "at the end of this turn"), but don't advance the Schedule after the last turn. Then, refer to the Script cards to tally up your end game Quality bonuses or penalties.

You win if after that the Quality marker is outside the middle red zone (either "Not Bad" or above, or "So Bad It's Great" at the bottom); you lose if the Quality marker is inside that red zone at the game's end. In addition, if at ANY time during the game the Schedule OR Budget markers reach the end of their tracks (noted by “SHUT DOWN PRODUCTION!!” on the dials), you lose immediately.

Good luck!

FILM SCHOOL WALKTHROUGH