Below the Line

What this is about

Add a shoot day and the crew, gear, travel and catering lines all move; drop a location and several lines fall together. Because these costs follow quantities and rates, they are the block a producer can genuinely steer, and they are where a realistic schedule pays off immediately. They are also the block clients compare between quotes, which is why the assumptions behind them — how many days, how many people, which equipment class — have to be stated instead of implied. Two quotes with identical totals can describe entirely different shoots.

A term only helps when everyone on set means the same thing by it — so what follows is how it is used, not a dictionary definition.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• These costs scale with the plan: one more shoot day moves several lines at the same time
• This is the steerable block, which makes schedule quality a direct cost factor
• State the assumptions — days, headcount, equipment class — or quote comparisons mislead

With TillyGen

TillyGen derives days, headcount and setups from the shotlist, which is exactly what the below-the-line block is built on.

Change one constraint and the consequences travel through the whole plan: affected shots are flagged, the call sheet is regenerated, and nobody keeps working from yesterday's version.