The short answer
The production manager decides how the production's money and time are spent and answers to the producer. The production coordinator runs the production office: bookings, paperwork, communication and follow-up, and answers to the production manager. One plans and approves; the other organizes and confirms.
What does a production manager do?
- Builds and tracks the budget. Turns the producer's number into lines per department and watches the actual spend.
- Hires the crew. Negotiates rates and conditions, within the rules that apply to the production.
- Approves spending. Rentals, locations, overtime: the answer comes from the production manager.
- Owns the schedule with the first assistant director. How many days, in what order, at what cost.
- Handles risk. Insurance, permits, safety, and the backup plan.
What does a production coordinator do?
- Books what was approved. Equipment, vehicles, travel, accommodation, catering.
- Prepares and sends the documents. Contact lists, schedules, call sheets with the assistant director, memos.
- Keeps the paperwork. Contracts, releases, permits, insurance certificates, each in its place.
- Is the point of contact. Crew, suppliers and locations call the coordinator first.
- Follows up. The coordinator is the person who knows what is still waiting for an answer.
Where do the two roles overlap?
On hiring day players, on location logistics and on anything urgent. The working rule is simple: if it changes the budget or the schedule, the production manager decides; if it executes a decision already made, the coordinator acts and reports.
Titles also vary by country and by type of production. On some productions a line producer does the production manager's work, and commercial houses often speak of a producer and a production coordinator only. Read the job, not the title.
What if one person does both?
In a company of five, that is the norm. Three habits keep it manageable.
- Separate the two kinds of work in your week: decisions and budget in one block, bookings and confirmations in another.
- Write decisions down where the team can see them, so you are not the only memory of the production.
- Give the follow-up a system: every open question is a task with a date and a status, not a thought.
How do you move from coordinator to production manager?
Coordinators become production managers by learning the money. Ask to see the budget, then the cost report. Take one department's budget line and follow it from quote to invoice. Learn the agreements and rules that apply to crews where you work, from the bodies that publish them. The logistics you already know.
How this looks in CrewDesk
CrewDesk has a Producer role that sees and manages everything, and a Coordinator role that runs productions, tasks, the calendar, cast and inventory day to day. Open questions live as tasks with a Waiting status, which is the coordinator's follow-up list. The demo has no budgeting module; TECHMA adds one in a version built for your company. Open the demo to see the roles at work.
Terms used on this page
Call sheetFirst assistant directorLine producerProduction coordinator