Day Out of Days

What this is about

It falls out of the schedule and immediately turns into money. Once you see that an actor starts on day two, finishes on day eleven and is only needed on four of those days, you also see seven days of holding fees, hotel and per diem. Producers then push scenes together to shorten a cast member's span, and every schedule change regenerates the grid. Cast contracts, travel bookings and the extras plan all read from it, so the version in circulation has to be dated.

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

In planning terms, that means:

• The standard codes are SW for start work, W for work, H for hold, WF for work finish and T for travel.
• Hold days are paid on most cast deals, which makes a wide span the quiet cost driver of an otherwise tidy schedule.
• It is generated from the stripboard, so never edit it by hand — change the schedule and let the grid follow.

With TillyGen

TillyGen derives the cast grid from the schedule, so a moved scene immediately shows who now has an extra hold day.

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.