Does the day actually fit?

What the planner answers

A shot list says what you want to shoot. It does not say when the day ends. The planner turns the list into a timeline: crew call, rigging, every setup in order, the drive and the re-rig of each company move, lunch, wrap-out. From that you get the wrap time, the working hours you are asking of the crew, the minutes that vanish into moves — and the point where the list stops fitting into one day.

With a location and a date, sunset and the golden window go onto the same timeline. An exterior that would still be rolling after sunset is marked in red, in the list and on the chart, while you can still move it.

How the day is calculated

The day starts at crew call with a rigging block (default 45 minutes until the first setup is ready) and ends with wrap-out (default 30 minutes). In between, the setups run in the order of the list. The minutes per row are setup time including re-lighting for the next one — not the length of the shot.

A company move costs more than the drive. Wrapping out, loading, unloading and rigging again take, in our experience, about an hour for a small corporate or commercial crew with one camera and a lighting package — that is the default overhead, added to the driving time you enter. With a full lighting truck, set it to 90 minutes or more.

Lunch follows the German Working Hours Act (§ 4 ArbZG): nobody works more than six hours without a break; the break is 30 minutes for a day over six hours and 45 minutes over nine. The planner places it before the setup that would cross the six-hour mark. When a setup no longer fits into the target day (10 hours by default, including wrap-out), it moves to day 2 with the same call.

working time = wrap − crew call − lunch move = drive + overhead (default 60 min) lunch = 30 min if working time > 6 h, 45 min if > 9 h (§ 4 ArbZG) overtime = working time beyond 10 h · TV FFS maximum 12 h

Where the planner is wrong

• The minutes are yours. The defaults per type (insert 10, simple setup 25, interview 30, walk-and-talk 35, dialogue 45, complex 75 minutes) are rules of thumb for a practised one-camera crew. A first-time director, a child on set or a car rig can double them.
• No hair, make-up or wardrobe track. If talent needs 90 minutes in the chair before the first setup, raise the rigging block or move call — the planner does not run parallel departments.
• Travel to the first location is not working time here. If the crew meets at the office and drives out, add it as a company move at the top of the list.
• The script estimate is a starting point. Quick start uses averages — 2.5 seconds per shot in a spot, 3.5 setups per script page. Replace the generated rows with the real breakdown as soon as you have it.
• Labour rules beyond Germany differ. Lunch and overtime marks follow ArbZG and the German film agreement (TV FFS). UK and US crews work under their own agreements; use the rest-period check for those.

From the schedule

Twelve setups of 30 minutes each, crew call 07:00, one location: wrap at 14:45 after 7 h 15 min of work. The same twelve setups spread over four locations — three company moves with 20 minutes of driving each — and nothing else changes: the moves cost four hours, and the day now wraps at 19:00 after 11 h 15 min of work, with 75 minutes of overtime.

At a 10-hour target, the planner cuts the list after the ninth setup: day 1 wraps at 17:30, and three setups go to a second day. That is the conversation to have with the client before the quote goes out — either fewer locations or another shoot day, not a crew that finds out at 18:00.