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WHAT IS SHOOTING RATIO AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?

This is not just a question of the amount of film stock, or tape, you have. It's a combination of the number of days in your shoot, the pages you shoot per day AND the amount of film stock or tape you have.

Here's how the numbers work:

For ease, let's say you have a script with 100 pages. And you have 25 days in which to shoot that script. This is a pretty simple calculation. 100 divided by 25 is 4. So, you now know that you must shoot at least 4 pages per day in order to complete shooting the script.

If you are shooting on Mini-DV, your concern about cost stops here, as tape is pretty cheap. But move up to Digi-beta, HD cam or HD, then the cost of the tape starts to concern you. Move to 35mm film and your film stock and how much you use of it becomes MAKE OR BREAK. Why? Read on….

Let's assume we can afford a 6:1 (six too one) shooting ratio. What does that mean, Ivan? Well, it DOES NOT mean that you can have six takes of every shot. What it means is that for every minute that finally ends up on the screen, you have six minutes of stock to play with. Don't be fooled, this is very tight! Okay, film goes through a projector at 90 feet per minute and we're looking at 100 minutes (1 page per minute approx). 100 x 90 equals 9,000 feet x 6 equals 54,000 feet.

So we know that we have 54,000 feet. (By the way, that's going to cost, depending on your negotiating skills, anywhere from £12-15 THOUSAND POUNDS ($20-25K)(True 2002). In low budget land, that's a huge chunk of your budget) With our example, let's do the math: 54,000 divided by 25 days is 2,165 feet per day. That is your MAXIMUM that you allow your Director and DP per day. NOT A FOOT MORE! Your feet per page is 2,165 feet divided by 4 (pages) equals 540feet allowed per page.

Now how do we discover if we are on schedule and on budget, under or over Ratio?

Here's how to work it out. At the end of day 1 you look at how many pages you shot. Let's say you managed to shoot the required 4. How much stock did you use (get this from the camera report). You discover you shot 2,376 feet. Now divide the page count – 4 – into the feet shot that day 2,376 equals 594. That works out to 10% over ratio and therefore your budget. Is that okay? NO! What do you do? You go to the Director and let him know that you are 10% over ratio and to use less stock. If this continues, you will run out of stock around day 20. And you can't afford any more stock.

(Note: if you are also the Director, give this job to your 1st AD and make sure he has the only key to the lock-up where you are keeping the stock. The reason being that you, the Director, are likely to want to shoot more film than you have)

If by day 3 the ratio is still over; day 4 you give the Director 1,000 feet and that's all. He/she must still shoot the required 4 pages with that amount of stock.

TUTORIAL (HOW IT WORKS)

Hi, I'm Ivan and I'm going to take you through the tutorial as if we were actually on a shoot. This calculator is really only important on no-low budget film making where your film stock is your GOLD!!!

My recommendation is that you lock your film stock away and hand it out on a daily basis.

The purpose of this calculator is to give you a daily check on how the shoot is going in terms of daily page count, footage count and most importantly, whether or not you are on SHOOTING RATIO.

Your will need Microsoft Excel 97 or later.

Okay, go ahead and open the file called SRC. At the bottom you will see four tabs labelled ‘pre-data', ‘derived data', ‘daily figures', and ‘graphs'.

Fig. T-1

First go to the ‘pre-data' tab. It should look like Fig. T-1. This is where we enter the data that will affect all the data on the daily figures sheet. You'll see that the first assumptions are filled in – 1 page per minute and 90 feet per minute for 35mm film stock. That is the speed at which it travels through a projector. You can of course change this if you are dealing with 16mm or if you find that you will be shooting at 1.5 pages per minute etc…

(A point to bear in mind; if you are shooting a fast paced action script, you may find that you are shooting half or three quarter pages a minute, so you would enter 0.5 or 0.75 in the pages per minute. On the other hand, if you are shooting a character-driven heavy dialogue script, you may be shooting 1.5-2 pages per minute. Have a good read through and time your script. This is an important issue. But, as a general guide line you can shoot 1 page per minute. Example, my last feature was combination of action and drama and it averaged out at 1 page per minute)

For the time being though, we will assume you are shooting on 35mm.

Now, let's base our feature film on the following criteria and enter the figures:

FILM STOCK: 80,000 Feet
SCRIPT PAGES: 107

And we're going to go with a six week shoot (with one day off, that's 6x6)

SHOOTING DAYS: 36

It should look like Fig. T-2 below

Fig T-2

Okay, now go to the ‘Derived Data' Tab. You don't actually enter data here but it's good for your information. The key figures here are Ratio of film stock to screened film, Average pages per day and Average film stock per page. (See Fig. T-3)

Fig T-3

This is important information and will be the key to your shoot. If nothing else, you know how many pages a day minimum you will have to shoot and how much stock per day, maximum, that you have to play with (Pages per day x Average film stock per page)

Okay, let's go to ‘Daily Figures'. (Fig. T-4 below)

Fig T-4

Don't be daunted by the amount of data that you see in front of you. You will get used to it as we put the data in.

Let's start adding data.

As you may know, pages are calculated in whole numbers and eighths. So, lets say on day one we shot 3 and 1/8 pages.

In C7 put in ‘3'
In C8 put in ‘1'

Ignore all the other data changing for the moment.

Let's say we shot 2200 feet of film stock and we wasted 60 feet.

In C11 put in ‘2200'
In C12 put in ‘60' (if there is no wastage, leave as 0)

Now you'll notice that a lot of other figures have changed. Most are self-explanatory and you'll see further explanations lower down the page. But let's take a look at the key figures that I think are important.

On Row 17 you'll see your target ratio. It is important to be at this figure or BELOW.

For immediacy, you will want to be keeping a close eye on row 15. At the end of each day, this will tell you whether you are on target, below or above. In our current example we are 3% under ratio. (See row 18)
As the shoot progresses, your average ratio – row 16 – will be the most important figures for you. This is mainly because on some days you will get days where you go over, and some under. So you need to keep an eye on your average ratio and, as long as it is under, you're okay.

So, if you look at rows 18 and 19 these will give you the percentage over or under. It also allows you to tell the Director and the DP if they have a little extra for that action shot you may be shooting in a couple of days.

The next topic I'd like to discuss is the Graphs. For this explanation, I'd like you to open the file marked ‘SRC TOH'

If you go through the first three tabs as before, you will see the actual figures that I shot on my feature THE ONLY HOTEL. Now go to the graphs tab. (See Fig. T-5)

Fig T-5

Here you see two graphs. Though the top graph is important, I found the bottom graph to be the most practical when you are on a shoot.

You will notice three lines. Your target ratio is in yellow. Your actual in pink and your average in blue. This gives you a nice visual representation to compliment the daily figures. Even though the actual figures fluctuate quite wildly, it's the average blue line that you want to keep your eye on.

BONUS CALCULATOR!

I have now included the all new SRC for Video. Just add the amount of minutes of Tape Stock you have and the rest is pretty much the same!

So, why don't you go ahead and enter your own figures and see how it goes.

Ivan Francis Clements
Producer