How much footage to do you get in a day.

Blanc/Noir

Blanc/Noir

This is a simple question: How much footage do you get in a day while you are filming?

I guess it just interests me to see how range there is in footage done. For me to answer this; I get around 1 min from an hour or two of shooting.
 
Question is simple. The answer is complicated. And falls into the
“it depends” category. Kind of like the answer to the very simple
question, “How long is string?”

The range is easier to answer. I have shot 200ft of 16mm in a day.
I have shoot 1,200ft in a day. On video I have shot 40 to 60
minutes in a day and I have shot three hours in a day.

I can get 30 seconds of usable footage in a day doing a car chase
with fire, roll overs and crashes. I did a 21 minute steadicam
shot in one day. I was second unit director on a western about six
years ago. I needed to get a shot of seven riders and nine horses
galloping across a dusty grass plain at sunset. We shot it over
three days, rolled 1,000ft of 16mm film and the final shot was 15
seconds - nine feet.
 
If you want an example… the very low-budget feature we shot last summer looks to be about 80/90 minutes long. We shot over 14 hours of footage, over 26 shooting days. This is an average of 32 minutes a day, and a shooting ratio of 9.3:1.

As Zensteve and directorik have pointed out, it's not that simple. Some days, we shot long, single-take monologues or conversations, for which only two minutes out of an hour of footage may be useful. For some action scenes we could only have a few attempts, so after lots of rehearsal we might have only shot 10 or 15 minutes but been able to use a third of it.

OT, but: a 21 minute steadicam shot, Rik?! The poor operator!
 
That's like asking how much will you pay to paint my house? Having never seen the house -- is it just the trim (house is brick) or a wooden 4000 square foot mansion?
But I will assume that you are asking a very unspecific question, wanting basic generalities.
My two cents.
I cheat. As 'director', editor and the scriptwriter (with a lot of input from cast and crew -- and read throughs) -- as owner of the cameras (sometimes aka 'the cinematographer') and the setter-of-lights (aka 'key grip') -- I know what each person/position (listed above) is thinking and planning as a final look, pace and such.
Did I say that I cheat? I use three (3) cameras -- have everything rehearsed (aka 'choreographed') once before we do 'actual' shooting -- trying to keep everything fresh -- just lay it out for the cameras. Add some close-ups and cutaways as wanted. Depending on location (and cast) we can get between ten minutes to twenty-five minutes of top quality footage per day. AND this is footage with a lot of different possible looks; meaning, from pushing the envelope to underacting, wide range of angles, perspectives and camera movement. Continuity is almost NEVER a problem. Also getting a lot of ambient location audio to work with if needed for added later dialogue. Time in editing does expand -- but I love having choices and making my cast/story look good.
PLAN for everything in advance helps greatly. Hope this helps...
 
Blanc/Noir said:
This is a simple question: How much footage do you get in a day while you are filming?
Click to expand...


This is like asking "How many miles can your car drive in a day?" It depends on a lot of factors.

The amount of footage you can get in a day depends on

How many locations are you shooting at in a day?

How many lighting setups are there in the day?

How many actors with speaking parts are there for the day?

How complex are the shots, as in are there a lot of moving shots?

Are there action scenes or just dialogue scenes?



Steve was right, this is NOT a simple question. It only leads to more questions.
 
OK so I see you guys are obviously not satisfied with how I worded my question. I guess I'm just wondering on average or just generally.
 
Blanc/Noir said:
OK so I see you guys are obviously not satisfied with how I worded my question. I guess I'm just wondering on average or just generally.
Click to expand...
It's surprising, isn't it? Some people still care how we
communicate with each other. The wording of a question
can get you different answers and responses.
 
directorik said:
It's surprising, isn't it? Some people still care how we
communicate with each other. The wording of a question
can get you different answers and responses.
Click to expand...

I haven't shot much so I don't have a lot of experience with these sorts of things. Though now I can now see the different circumstances. I guess I knew there were different circumstances but I didn't actually process the different amounts of effort to be put in.

Though this input from other posters has given me an idea of what shooting will be like in different situations.
 
If you have a small crew, one location, and a limited cast, you can get a lot more shots done in a day than an action scene with 4-5 characters. Also, as someone so brilliantly noted (can't believe I missed it!) was multiple cameras doubles the footage.

My average is between 2 and 48 shots a day. Pretty much indefinable for me without the parameters of the shoot day.
 
For some 'averages':

1 page = 1 minute on screen
12 hour day = 2-5 pages.
1 hour footage = 1 minute usable

But as said, can alter drastically
 
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