Social cutdown matrix template

What this is about

Campaigns are rarely one film any more. They are a hero cut plus a set of derivatives that differ in length, shape, captioning and opening, and each derivative has its own reason to exist. The matrix makes that set countable while it is still cheap: eleven versions look like a line in an offer and like three extra days in a post schedule. Written in prep, it also reaches back onto the set, because a 9:16 version needs headroom that a 16:9 frame throws away, and a sound-off opening needs an image that carries the idea in two seconds without dialogue.

A template is the starting point, not the goal: once it has been filled in by hand twice, it is worth asking whether the document should come out of the plan instead.

What runs differently here

Where this differs from the general case:

• One row per deliverable version with platform, placement, duration, aspect ratio and the date it is needed, not one row per platform
• The opening treatment per row: what happens in the first two seconds with the sound off, since that is how most of them will be seen
• Caption handling per row — burned-in, platform-generated or none — because burned-in captions turn each language into another export
• Safe areas per format, marking where interface elements sit on that platform so nothing important lives under a button
• The source relationship: which versions are trims of the hero cut and which need their own edit, priced and scheduled differently

Step by step

This order gets you there fastest:

1. List the placements the campaign actually books, and delete the platforms that are on the list only because they exist.
2. Give every placement its own row with duration, aspect ratio and delivery date, then count the rows out loud in front of the client.
3. Decide per row whether it is a trim of the hero or a separate edit, and mark the separate edits as their own post tasks.
4. Write the sound-off opening for each row before the shoot, so the images it needs are on the shot list rather than hoped for.
5. Mark the framing consequence on the shot list: which setups must be shot with vertical extraction in mind and which get their own pass.
6. Fix the caption rule per row and multiply by language versions, then check the total against the post schedule and the budget.
7. Freeze the matrix with the offer and treat any row added later as a change request rather than as a small extra export.

Common pitfalls

What most often goes wrong in practice:

• Promising vertical versions after the shoot, when every wide two-shot loses one of its two people in the crop
• Counting versions by platform instead of by placement, which hides the second and third length each channel actually needs
• Burned-in captions agreed casually, then multiplied by four languages into sixteen exports nobody scheduled
• Composing everything centred to survive any crop, which produces a film that works in no format particularly well

With TillyGen

TillyGen takes the version list from the briefing into the shot list, so a setup that has to serve a vertical cutdown is marked as such while the framing is still being planned.

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.