End Credits Template
Free to Download
for Films, Shorts & TV

Opening credits run from distribution company through director (last). Closing credits reverse this: director appears first on a solo card, followed by writer, producers, lead cast, then department heads (DP, production designer, editor, costume, music, casting). The end credits scroll then organizes the remaining crew by department — production management, art, camera, grip & electric, sound, post-production, VFX, music — ending with songs, special thanks, logos, and copyright. The DGA, WGA, SAG-AFTRA, and PGA each regulate specific positions within this hierarchy.

Credit duration scales with crew size. A short film typically runs 1-3 minutes, an indie feature 3-5 minutes, a studio production 7-10 minutes, and a VFX-heavy tentpole 10-15 minutes. The industry-standard scroll speed is 50-70 pixels per second at 1080p, which translates to about 60-80 names per minute in a two-column scroll. Faster than that and names become unreadable.

No. Most contemporary American films use only a title card at the beginning and a full credit sequence at the end. The DGA, WGA, and SAG-AFTRA all permit this format. Opening credits are a stylistic choice, not a requirement.

Guild agreements set the framework. Within that framework, producers determine below-the-line credit order, while above-the-line placements (director, writer, lead cast) are individually negotiated in contracts. The WGA uniquely determines writing credits through an arbitration process, not the producers. SAG-AFTRA only requires that at least 50 cast members be credited — order and size are negotiated individually.

Cinema standards favor serif typefaces for the title card (Trajan, Garamond, Caslon) and a condensed sans-serif or serif for the scroll itself (Futura, Univers, Akzidenz-Grotesk, or the increasingly common Founders Grotesk). For poster billing blocks, condensed all-caps families like Steel Tongs, BeeTwo, or Triple Condensed Gothic dominate. Whatever you choose, prioritize legibility at scroll speed over style.

Not for the spreadsheet itself — the CSV, XLSX, and DOCX versions are planning worksheets you fill in like any document. To turn the list into a video, use the matching native project file included in the same download (After Effects, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, or Final Cut) and render from your own NLE. EndCreditsPro, our online credits editor, is in development — join the waitlist to get access when it launches.

Yes. Both the Essential and Complete templates are free to download in every format — CSV, XLSX, DOCX, and the native After Effects, Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, and Final Cut project files. They are published under CC BY 4.0, which means you can use, remix, and distribute them with attribution. EndCreditsPro, our upcoming online editor, is not yet public and is not free — join the waitlist for early access and pricing.

The "p.g.a." mark is granted by the Producers Guild of America to producers who performed a major portion of producing functions in a decision-making capacity on a specific project. It is determined project-by-project and is independent of PGA membership. The mark appears as a suffix on the producer credit (e.g., "Produced by Jane Doe, p.g.a.").